what's with the generalizations?

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I've been seeing a lot of members ask, "do all aspies...?"

To me, it's a very closed-minded, limited, small way of thinking; believing that anyone diagnosed with a condition globally do or feel or think something you do.

It's like saying, "all blacks" or, "all gays" or, "all men" do (blank).

YOU are unique. WE are all different. While we may share traits, likes, ailments and interests, not everyone is going to have the same conditions as you.

I agree that to ask "do all Aspies...." is usually pretty dumb, because the answer is nearly always "no," but at least it's only a question, and they'll soon find out that not all Aspies do this or that. With questions, I think people are often just looking for a clear-cut trait or idiosyncrasy that might prove highly diagnostic, though I think they're going to be looking for a very long time.

If it's a statement then it's probably more serious. I've seen Aspie books that make the silliest generalisations - "Loving Mr.Spock" has quite a few. But I don't think the intention is to do harm. More likely they just want to make it an easy read, to sell more copies. I think the general public prefers to read "No Aspie ever got the Sally Ann test right below the age of 11" rather than a more accurate statement with loads of caveats and cumbersome phrases such as "it would seem fairly safe to conclude......although the Sally Ann test has been criticised for measuring word skills rather than social imagination.......blah blah...." Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Usually these questions are coming from other Aspies who don't have any other AS contacts and are simply looking to validate their unique issues or looking for a sense of community amongst those with a shared diagnosis. I don't hold this against them as they are usually still new to the learning curve.

It's a stage. Both for them, and for you.

I'll bet if you think back to when you first started posting on AS forums you may have asked questions just like it. Most of us do.

For the most part, people are looking for either validation, the answer to the question "Am I really Aspie?", and/or exploring the nature of AS.

The stage you are at right now almost all of us go through as well, which is "Hey! It's a spectrum for crying out loud! Why do these same questions keep coming up? Haven't we already answered this?"

Well, get used to it, Because it's not going to stop. Especially in the General forum, which is where new users tend to post a lot.

Yes, it is a spectrum, but a lot of members haven't come to a full understanding of what that REALLY means.

Yes, we have answered the question before, but this is a new user, who hasn't asked it yet, and hasn't seen the question a hundred times.

Yes, we are all unique, but not all of us have quite figured out just how different we can be. (BTW, so far, I've found the diversity in how AS affects us is much wider than any other disorder I've seen, even though most of them are also spectrums. In forums for other disorders, I've found that users find common ground far more quickly than here.)


One thought I would add though, that still kind of baffles me is how it doesn't seem to me that people think too much about how valuable it is to get answers to questions like that on an internet forum. There are 44,841 users here as I'm writing this.

What is the likelihood that a question like "Does anybody else here have trouble with [fill in the blank]?" WON'T get a plethora of responses stating, "Yes! I do!"?

No matter WHAT you ask, there are going to be a lot of users who are the same. My question is, "What value is there in asking a question that is almost certain to get mostly the same response? What does that help you learn?"

The only answer I can come up with is that it helps us NOT feel so much alone.

Basically, people who ask these things are attempting to ascertaining a benchmark. It's natural for people to want to try and seperate what is their Asperger's and what might not be.

Most people just aren't precise enough with their language to ask 'is this true of most aspies', or 'is this considered an aspie trait' or whatever.

Before I started posting here, I pestered a friend with questions like these until they pointed out that I was getting obsessed with having an Aspie rulebook, so I stopped.

What fascinates me more are people who say that there are specific things that Aspies do and don't do, suggesting that the definition and the diagnosis have been diluted, and offering critiques and rules that hypothetically all Aspies should abide by. Who benefits from such silliness?

I take those questions with a grain of salt and answer them honestly, than I move onto another thread.