"What's It Like Being Aspergers/Autistic"?

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And this is reminding me of one of my current perseverations, the videogame Mass Effect 2. When you take Jack on the mission to secure her loyalty (by blowing up the Cerberus facility where she was held as a child, while they performed experiments on her to make her the most powerful biotic in the galaxy), she remembers standing in her room, screaming at the other kids in the main yard, and them ignoring her. It isn't until she comes back that she realizes her room had been fronted with soundproof one-way glass....

It's like someone has observed you from a distance and labelled you AS.

Sometimes I wish that I did live in a glass booth, then I wouldn't be so bothered by all of the hubbub and discontent around me.
I'd find it much easier to work and study.

I keep reading this about this "glass booth" idea lot.
I don't feel like I'm living in a glass booth.
I feel very connected to every sensation and physical detail around me, every frown and smile.
I feel like every object and organism has an emotion connected to it.
I feel hyper aware of how a whole group of people feels all at once.
I feel profoundly connected yet profoundly apart from everyone else.
It's overwhelming.

I feel like I live in a fragile detergent bubble that people keep prodding with sharp sticks or try to force into shapes they want me to occupy. They keep asking me intrusive questions and expect me to be 100% happy all the time, even when I'm not. They're never satisfied and they always find some fault or imperfection to criticise. They say that I could always "do better" because (according to them) I never come up to the mark. When I do come up to the mark, they shift the mark again because they want me to "fulfill my potential". The word "potential" is vague. I think that "potential" is heavily dependent on environmental and social circumstances. Also, if an individual reaches a "potential" that someone else has pre-decided for him/her: is that really fulfilling an individual's true potential? So I think that everyone reaches his/her potential by living. Everything else is a hypothetical set of choices or alternate paths which may or may not be realised.

I see lots of people walking around in metaphorical frosted glass booths oblivious to each other and the exquisite details all around them. They're too caught up in their own lives to appreciate things like the curiosity of butterfly eggs on the bark of a tree; the emotional intensity of a crimson sun setting into a tourmaline coloured ocean or the erratic dance of a hare.

Then I'm told that this isn't the "appropriate" detail to focus on by people who role their eyes and tell me that I should really be worried about what's going to happen next in the episode of some soap opera.

Many people go to work and spend many hours typing in front of glass booths called computers.
They can't touch or feel their work: it's "trapped" behind the glass screen.

When people come home from work, they turn on another glass booth to distance themselves further from reality.
This glass booth is called television.

It's not that I don't like computers or TV: they can be useful, but they are glass booths of sorts.

Not long ago I ran across a nice web site article I think its worth hitting google to read it if you havnt yet, "My Mind is a Web Browser". Its hit home and I decided to close my mind and look at excatly what I have in there as I really noticed I am just the opposite, I have no pictures. I now realize I cannot recall what anyone or anything really looks like in my life, simply facts I have jotted down in my head. I might recall someone being black, white, female, male, long hair, short hair, bald, nice, pretty.... but to really describe their hair style or god forbid I needed to actually describe a face, I am practically useless. I suppose in one sense, realizing that my friends are actually the accumulated knowledge and experiences Ive had with them is a good thing. Yet kinda depressing that I cannot recall what my mom or my grandfather actually looked like. Its like my mind only consists of flow charts, data sheets, and that dry erase board that Dr House uses. In fact, whenever I go to work, I am operating on this same script as each person goes across the register:

How are you do day?
[ring items while awaiting response] - usual response is fine, how are you
[iniate response back] - Im doing ok or im sorry you feel that way, etc
[finish ringing items]
say total
collect change
thank you for shopping at ******
have a nice day, night. (its amusing how often I pull up the wrong time of day for the last part since Im struggling to find the right one).

I do have little sub-routines such as when some poor sap actually asks about my accent and I explain that I got it because the part of my brain that functions on communication and language decided to take a siesta when I was 1 years old. God I love that blank, my god is he serious, look I get followed by the total silence afterwards.

I suppose that is an excellent start at describing how my mind is so different from everyone elses. Seems like it blew my managers mind when I explained it to her. Then again I was also explaining how I figured out I can function just a little better socially and cure my allergies at the same time by trying to freeze myself to almost the point of hyperthermia because she got worried when I was pulling all the carts in in the freezing rain without a raincoat.