Article: Learning to Love with Asperger Syndrome

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In Maclean's Magazine, a Canadian weekly magazine


http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/09/13/lear ... -syndrome/

Excellent article. I'll have to photocopy that one and consult it once I'm in a relationship. I laughed when I read about how Asperger men have to set the 'record straight' and see nothing wrong with that. For example, when a customer once told me they had waited 20 minutes, I explained it had only been 4 minutes and 12 seconds so far. I never understood why I was given a very dirty look before they stormed out of the store until 10 years later because I was just trying to be helpful and politely explain that they were incorrect.

I got fired from a job where we were expected to sell an anti-septic product and I had explained that it was weak bleach before it occured to me that people don't want to put weak bleach on their kids, even though chemically it was. My boss gave me pamphlets to try and change my mind but it is what it is. It was a fine product, and people use it all the time with great success, but it is weak bleach...

Oh, look. Yet another article that equivocates "Asperger syndrome" with "MALES WITH Asperger syndrome".

The example is of a male with Aspergers and a female NT but the same strategies work the other way around as long as you don't try to create a conflict where there ought to be none. The article is targeted at NT women dealing with an aspie male which is a far more likely scenario than vice versa as the ratio of men to women reported with ASD disorders is between 4:1 and 8:1. It would be silly to write an article of this sort using the less likely of two scenarios especially as they would like to interest the larger number of readers.

The ratio of clinically-diagnosed men to clinically-diagnosed women, yes.
There's no scientific reason to suspect it affects men more, and a good deal of evidence suggesting rampant underdiagnosis of women due to gendered perceptions in the clinical setting and ignorance of the population at large, as perpetuated by this article.
Many people aren't even aware there's such a thing as Autistic women (trained psychologists included!)
Men and women with Asperger's are no more alike than men and women without, and the commonalities that exist can't very well be demonstrated when authors continually choose to use gendered language and inaccurate descriptions:
the article isn't about "learning to love with Asperger syndrome" but about a therapist who helps MEN with Asperger's understand NEUROTYPICAL women.

I don't see how describing the unique challenges women with Asperger's face in heterosexual relationships would make an article less-interesting-
you're drawing a false dichotomy.

"It’s not easy living with a man who will only say ‘I love you’ once a day, max"

Saying "I love you" more than once a day is the norm? I honestly had no idea. Seems excessive and unnecessary, even from an NT perspective.

I was trying to point out the perspective of a magazine publisher, the typical reader, and that your message was an attempt to cause this sort of hubbub. I'm sorry I played into your argumentative hands by responding to your inflammatory comment about an already long title not saying, "Learning to Love with Asperger Syndrome but Women Have it Too Just so You Know Okay?"

"The ratio of clinically-diagnosed men to clinically-diagnosed women. There's no scientific reason to suspect it affects men more." Lol what? Isn't that exactly a scientific reason? You're arguing that a logical reason for there being many more women undiagnosed is the lack of women being diagnosed.

Neither I nor the magazine said "to the exclusion of all else". The fact is, what will make it into a magazine that must sell ads is an article which targets the largest (as far as we know because we can only know what we actually know) NT demographic, in this case women in relationships with aspie men.

I think you must have either misread my comments, or not know how the field works. A lack of evidence on the physiological front of Autism research demonstrating that more men are affected, and combined with demonstrable ways in which gender affects our perception of a person, are PRECISELY reasons to suspect rampant clinical underdiagnosis of women as the cause of the sex discrepancy- androcentricity has always been a problem in the field, and that's by definition the case when the criteria THEMSELVES were developed studying only males.

All of this, is, of course, besides the point, because you are still appealing to an either/or false dichotomy:
even if there were a soundly-researched discrepancy in actual Autism occurrence,
an article for both Aspergian men AND women
(titled, actually, with something like "Learning to Love with Asperger's Syndrome: Advice for men and Women)
would BROADEN its appeal,
and it wouldn't contribute to the erasure of Autistic women.

Please actually consider my points before dismissing me as "inflammatory".
Many women and girls suffer a great deal before they are diagnosed because of societal ignorance of who is affected by Autism.

So the root of this is that you're arguing for affirmative action in magazine article titling. I realize you care a lot about diagnostic measures and that they are apparently wrong so I again will point out that,

And



would be trimmed by an editor for being redundant, though you'd have a point if it were one or the other. Also, props on leaving "men" specifically un-capitalized, am I supposed to read deeply into that and start accusing you of being sexist?

Done playing now.

I didn't like the idea of the guy having a script ready for when his wife ask him questions. it may seem like a good idea on the surface but I think the women would be upset after they realize their guys are just saying that stuff because they memorized a script to. The average NT woman want to feel it from their guys instead of him just saying the same thing every time like a script

This article makes us all seem like emotionless automatons. Buddy, I can surely tell you, there are a lot of affectionate Aspies who would love to tell their wives/gfs that they love them.

I'm one of em & I didn't think a lot of that stuff applied to me. I would likely think my work environment was chaotic instead of my home environment being that way. I would be looking forward to seeing my partner when I got home & if I did need time to myself when i got home; it would be because I would need time to unwind from stress from work instead of being because I need time to acclimate myself into my partner's environment

The point about how to say nice things without sounding false made no sense to me. If you don't think anything nice about your partner, why the hell are you with them in the first place?

Some people need validation. One of my friends, after his first girlfriend at like 19-20, hasn't gone like two weeks without a girlfriend since. Been like 5+ years. Many people just cannot handle loneliness and need to be around others, just because that's how they're wired. Others of us could live in a shack in the woods and feel fine about it.

The image they used in the title is SO darn good.