Ok so I have been Thinking.......

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OK I posted this in the "Members only" forum and only got 1 response and I think its cuz of the reduced traffic there. I really wanted alot of people to at least acknowledge this. Does this stuff make sense?


just thinking about everything and being in this situation socially tonight has lead me to beleive several things about the way I am. I want to see what you guys here think of it and if it is an example of Asperger's which after reading about it and posting on here for a bit really convinces me that I am on the spectrum.

I do not know when people are making jokes or saying something funny as opposed to saying something to needle me. I get humor that is obviously a joke. I can laugh and have a good time. But when its not in the context of an obvious joke like someone saying something involving my name, I really cant tell if they are making fun of me or just making a joke. For example I am a guy and thats what guys do sometimes. They might make a comment here or there and usually most people do it to everyone. If you dont know what I mean try watching "buddy movies" or "sports movies". The problem is I cant really tell if they are just trying to needle me a little bit or just having fun treating me like a dirtbag who is inept so he doesnt even know hes being made fun of OR he is so uptight and insecure that he cant take a joke.

I am usually silent because I hear whats been said Im trying to figure it out. SO im silent. Usual behavior from "Average" people or "Neurotypicals" or whatever you want to call the other 90 + % of people not having any neurological conditions is that you laugh and be lighthearted when someone is making a joke about you or throw a counter-curve ball if it was an insult to "get them back" lighthearted or not. The problem is either I don't get the joke whether its metaphorical or literal or sarcastic or I cant decide if someone is taking shots at me...SO Im silent because im thinking about it. Thats a red flag for NTs . RED FLAG. That shows insecurity to them. ALot of people then would take advantage of insecurity like that. Then they notice that you are insecure about that fact itself, and they might repeat that same logic to start purposely calling you out and then telling you you never laugh and dont have a sense of humor. ( an excuse to make fun of you even more). I have learned to try to laugh if I think any of this is going on, but it is always a nervous forced laugh. That is something that I cant fake. Usually it seems like they went out the way to say something that is obviously going to make someone insecure. For example people make fun of people with abnormalities. Be it Autism or a lisp or a handicap physical or mental or whatever. Autistics and AS people are made fun of all the time for stuff we do. For the jokes we don't get that was obvious to everyone, and our other tendencies. They arent making fun of you for having Autism or AS because chances are they dont know. But its the stuff AS causes you to do.

Maybe I am being paranoid and maybe Im not.
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The other thing is I really don't have a meter for what most actions favors, and words signify. For example if someone is talking about how they got stranded in the wet rain all night long when their car broke down an hour away from home. Even though something actually worse than that happened to me and I damn well know how awful and sh*tty that felt, if someone was speaking of a similar experience I would have remind myself of the exact situation ....think about it and really dig deep to re-Kindle that same emotion before I would be able to show empathy to that person like I could relate to that. I know because I feel its programmed into us such a thing is bad and that we are supposed to sympathize with someone over this if we were their listener. So I just kind of 'AUTOPILOT". So In a way iv kinda learned to not think about it and just "fake it" because I know I am supposed to show sympathy if someone was telling that story about them self. However I am faking it because its not a genuine emotion until I think about it and it really kicks in. Weird how I "FAKE" knowing a feeling even though I actually know it but can't express that on the fly. And then when it does it REALLY kicks in...IT does so like an atom bomb. Then I might start talking about that event for 10 minutes because after Iv finally realized the LARGENESS of an awful experience like that it becomes so MUCH MORE INTENSE. AND I might make a WAAYYY bigger deal out of it than it really is. But thats if I had actually experienced it or something similar before. If I hadnt experienced that thing (relationships) then I just am fake.

Also about the meter of LARGENESS/SEVERITY/IMPORTANTNESS of words, there is alot of vocabulary that I dont understand. Big Benjamin Franklin $tyle words that revolved around a complex emotional or social concept I don't understand. Doesnt even have to be big words. Average or NT people may or may not know the words because they simply don't know it. I would understand kind-of what the word means because I know the general idea of what it is talking about but I really dont know the importance of what the word means. This leads me to beleive in situations I use awkward wordings to describe different events. Or different analogies that don't quite make sense or a little out of the ballpark according to "Meter"

You all know that there is a difference between looking "scared" and "frightened" as someone is describing something. Thats an obvious example. Usually the meter registers instantly and accurately for me in that example because they would definitely be obvious about it while they are saying it. But even that is hard to tell sometimes. Ill see if I can think of any other specific words that portray this example.

This "METER" also seems off for me by judging peoples responses and intension's. Its so hard to trust people.

Again aspies really are similar to NT's we all have the same problems. The very basic stuff of everything that Aspergers people go through i really beleive everyone goes through. Depression? Anxiety? Insecurity? Not getting a joke? Not understanding someones intentions? But the degree that we experience these things is on another level, certainly for me because the severity and complexity of my ability to not understand what is going on leaves me not having a clue most of the time.

Can anybody relate to my "Meter"???? Does this sound like Asperger's Im really trying to get to the bottom of my insecurities and shortcomings instead of just saying I probably have this condition and was wired like this. I am really trying to make sense of my whole life, but I also want to know if anyone else can relate to this. This took me about an hour to write so please give me some in depth responses - thanks

I understand what you're saying, but I have no idea what to do about it. I think men have it harder here because of their innate competitiveness and that ragging they do on each other. The women I know never rag another. We'll make jokes about ourselves and the other women join in and laugh to empathise. But the ragging as a bonding exercise is exclusively male. And it seems like ragging can so easily switch over to dominance and bullying. My asperger's son has a job programming at a video game company, so he is surrounded by other asperger's and I believe they don't do that. (I think I'll ask him) So I think I'll ask my NT SEER specialist son how to handle ragging if you are slow on the uptake. When he was in basic training he was given the nickname "The Wall" because he had mastered the art of never showing any expression no matter what abuse the trainers were raining on him. He graduated first out of over 700 competitors. I see him ragging with his friends so he knows how it works, but I wonder if he has any consciousness of the process. So much of what NT do they don't even know they are doing. This could make an interesting conversation.
All three sons will be in town around the fourth of July. I hope I can remember to talk to them about this.

I can relate to some of the things you say. Humour is so subjective, it's a hard thing to measure... although I feel as though I've made great progress there so I am not laughing at inappropriate times or ignoring someone's efforts to amuse. If I'm not paying attention, then I feel like I am the one being laughed at... and me telling jokes is like the English translation for a cheap DVD player, it rarely makes sense and often the syntax is funnier than the punchline. Sometimes, shaking my head in disbelief will help pass through those moments where perhaps I should have laughed but wasn't able to recognize or synthesize it at that moment. Your meter issues are an interesting problem... I'm infatuated with semantics, and each word has it's own subtle hues and meanings. Such differences often are the source of misunderstandings when I am in a text-only environment as I've grown somewhat dependent on reading the person's facial geometry to ascertain their meaning. As a suggestion, does color association help you make distinctions in your memory? By applying a sense of hue to certain words, it might help you identify where the word falls on the emotional colour wheel.

I think I started to get tracked; apologies.


M.