Do you feel like you have advanced socially over time?

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Nope. I'm in my 40s and I still can't socialize. I guess I'm going to my grave like this.

I'm no better now than I was as a child. I played alone mostly then, just like now.

I have a hard time even thinking about what I would like to do with other people.

I like Scrabble but can play against a computer that is tougher than most human opponents. Same with chess, gin rummy, etc.

I know people hike together and bicycle together but I prefer to do those things alone because the things I like to focus on would be diminished by distracting conversation.

There's a girl I had a class with and we often say we should get together and craft but for some reason we never do. I'm not sure whether knitting/crochet/macrame/beadwork with other people would enrich my knitting time or detract from it. It does seem a hassle to drag my supplies all over the place just so I can be with other people while I work on projects.

I eat a special diet so it's usually unpleasant and frustrating to try to share meals with others.

I don't enjoy watching films with others because they tend to talk over parts of it and I have to stop and rewind to watch scenes again because when two people are talking at once I can't hear either of them so I have to pause the film, ask the person to repeat what they said, then go back to where the film got interrupted and watch from there. I don't like it and neither does anyone else I've tried to watch a film with.

And so much of what I like to do is, by its nature, a solitary pasttime. Reading, solving math and logic puzzles, etc.

I do like to play hand drums and would love to play in drum circles but have had a hard time finding anyone else in this area who wants to play. Playing music (I also play piano, recorder, accordion, guitar, bass) is about the only thing I enjoy doing recreationally that would be enhanced by the presence of others. But since I rarely leave my house and don't communicate well with others, I've mainly resigned myself to playing alone.

I'm thinking of taking up the bagpipes. That should keep most people far away from me. Except those who also play bagpipes, but that's exactly the sort of person I'd want around anyway. We need an autistic bagpipe corps!

How much online social interaction do you have?

When I was in grade school I think 90% of my social interactions came online. In some respects I was really fortunate to be experience the transition from BBS's to the internet. BBS's alone were very limiting. With the internet I could talk to people with any interest I had as well as meet girls.

Most of my life I thought my problems with people came from using computers too much. However, I was able to make friends and learn about relationships a lot. The flip side was that I learned these things without the face to face contact. Thus, it becomes the chicken or the egg issue for me again. However it is other issues (per the DSM-IV) that make me suspect asperger's.

In my case, 99.9% of my social interaction is online.

Meditation is great.


I don't think I advanced or improved in anything, I just seem to care less and less - over periods of forced desensitisation I just turned numb to many and varied stimuli except those inducing fear.

Definitely. I came across very, very differently as a small child and had distinctly AS characteristics until my last year in high school.

My willpower and self-determination made me shift towards becoming more NT over the years. I also became friends with people who had developmental delays and joined an integrated social group during high school to allow myself to become comfortable socializing to the point where I could do so with peers of the same age. I also decided to be put on medication during college, which has done wonders for my confidence and lessened my anxiety.

Even though I enjoy socializing now and have many friends, there are aspects of it that I feel don't come naturally to me, and I feel like I still have to force myself to act or behave a certain way sometimes. Although I am capable of acting completely NT, my mind is still wired to that of someone with AS.

I'm worse. Growing up, I'd have friends over to the house and watch movies, play video games, and just hang out. I always liked having people over and didn't care much for going to their houses or anything like that. Now, because I live with my mom, I don't like inviting people over because it's embarassing. So other than our montly board game night, I typically don't hang out or get together with anyone anymore.

Life circumstances can definitely make it harder to socialize. Before I went to university, I had a hard time socializing because people tend to ask "what do you do?" and my only honest answer was, "live off social security disability payments" which is kind of a social no-go in many social circles. Even in circles where it's acceptable, it leads to the "you don't look disabled" conversation. That conversation is easier since being diagnosed with asperger's which, I'm convinced, is finally the correct diagnosis. Before that I had a strong of half-fitting diagnoses going back to age five, making it very difficult to even know "what I had" let alone how to approach the "what is your disability" conversation.

Now that I have an "acceptable" answer to "what do you do?" ("I'm a graduate student") I still have a hard time with socialization due to other circumstances such as that I don't use the telephone except in emergency or extreme need. In other words, I'll phone my bank to straighten something out but it may take me many days to work up to that call. I'll phone 911 emergency services if something goes wrong. My pharmacy has an automated system so I phone them once a month but don't have to talk to a person. I don't have a cell phone and very rarely do I think "it would be useful to have a cell phone right now" so I have no plans to get one.

Most people seem to use the exchange of phone numbers as the signal to take an acquaintanceship to the next level so I'm at a significant disadvantage there since I will happily give anyone my phone number with the caveat that I never answer my telephone. I keep the ringer off and every so often -- maybe once a month -- I check the machine to see if there were any really important messages. I've tried offering e-mail instead of a phone number when things get to that point, but even on campus I get strange responses to that and some outright declarations of "well, I'll take it but I never use e-mail. I use the phone."

Since I'm on a very different communications wavelength as far as keeping in touch with others and planning to get together, etc. (And telephones wouldn't do me much good anyway, I'm thinking, because it seems so many people decide to do something at the last minute and then expect others to go along with them but I need at minimum one day's advance notice to be prepared to go out and do something) I never seem to take things to the next level when it comes to meeting people and turning those acquaintances into friendships. I realize that if I want a close friend I probably need to get a cell phone but I think about the stress of people calling me on it all the time and having to deal with sudden unexpected conversations all the time and I just start wondering if finding a meatspace friend is really worth that level of added stress in my life. Most times, I decide "no" and even though I'd really like to have a friend or two, I back down from the effort involved and turn back to a puzzle or my rats or a DVD or something else I enjoy alone.

I've had ups and downs, I'm not sure where I stand right now.

I used to have a deep-seated fear of socialising with people my own age outside of school, because I thought something bad would happen. Now I enjoy performing in public with busking and such. That changed a while ago, though, and at the moment it seems like it's progressing at a snail's pace.

I don't really know how much I've improved. I think I'm more articulate than I used to be but I'm still sensitive as all hell, and in the last year since I went off meds I've developed a constant sense of vague anxiety. I think I've improved, or at least managed to make friends here and there, but I'm still me, and I still feel isolated a lot.

Another issue with me, is now that I've been diagnosed with Aspergers (I wasn't diagnosed until I was 29), part of me thinks this is how I am, no point in trying to change it.

That was a great source of depression in the years after I was first diagnosed. "You mean I'm stuck this way?"

Now I realize that there are some things I can change if I work hard at them and some things I could change if I were able to get properly trained professional assistance (there's a great center for adults with asperger's in my town but it's very expensive and doesn't accept medicaid so I get angry, thinking that the only people who can get help there are people who are doing so much better than me in life. Those of us who *really* need the help the center offers are effectively blocked from getting it through economic barriers.) and some things that I won't be able to change at all, even if I had the best available professional help to guide me.

So I'm not *entirely* stuck this way. But it's a helluvan uphill battle to make a difference in my life and most times I get tired and give up.

Yes, greatly.
It's mostly due to my period of silence in which I logically saw the use of socialization.
Then, of course, my obsession with psychopaths.

this.

my personal growth tends to pause at multi-year "plateaus" followed by breakthroughs, or at least that's how it always looks in the rear view mirror. I wet the bed nightly as a youth until I was placed in normal school classes, in retrospect it seems like maybe the fact I was previously in school with the very badly handicapped kids was holding me back. As soon as I was dumped into general population the bedwetting and tantrum throwing and general failure to develop stopped for a little while... leaving me as a pretentious "7 year old who just learned how to argue" from age 10 through 16 or so, when an abusive situation triggered somewhat of a meltdown episode and again I grew.. till I was 19 and a loss triggered another leap of growth, till I was 27 and a breakup/betrayal/rebirth of romance & some medication triggered another leap.... and some lifestyle changes this year led to pursuing professional help & my subsequent AS diagnosis, another period of advancement is pushing me right now and I like where it's going... I've always liked where it has gone.

My experience may not be typical, but I've been fortunate to "see" opportunities to improve when outside influences shake me hard enough. I can only recommend looking for such opportunities to everyone else