Can an aspie be social for his career?

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Can an aspie be social if he is career obsessed and his career involves a certain amount of PR? My professor, who is most likely an aspie, is social in career contexts and has made it quite far in life. He is known for being great at PR, but apparently I have been told that he does not have any friends which is strange for a person who has contact with so many people. I have been told by his colleagues that they do not know him well, do not know about his personal life, and are a bit aafraid of being friendly with him outside of career contexts. It seems to me that this PR talent of his is strictly career related.

Is it possibl for an aspie to be social if the career requires it?

I've always found being outgoing with clients/customers a lot easier than being outgoing with actual people who you aren't trying to sell something to. The interactions with clients/customers are generally scripted or set-up to go a certain way with little or no surprises. This was a lot easier and usually more enjoyable than most coworker interaction I've had. I'd iimagine it's very similar in academic work, you stand in front of people and say things you've said many times before.

It's the being social with coworkers part that is really difficult. As you may have noticed it's not such an issue in academia but in work places where you'e expected to be around your colleagues the whole time it can be a huge problem. The fact you know about you AS before starting your working life is a huge bonus though, you can learn what you need to do to appear normal enough so that others wont single you out.

Keeping up the pretense is extremely stressful though, take up a sport or some kind of intense excercise to help combat that. I tried to combat stress with alcohol, tobacco and weed and ended up in hospital.
I think it's important to set yourself goals and work towards them too, for aspies the utimate goal should always be to work for yourself and do whatever you can to get there. Be selfish in this respect cos everyone else is.

I think it also depends on the severity of the Aspergers/autism in the individual. I tend to shut down when trying to speak in social situations, whereas those with milder symptoms seem to fare much better socially.

i can not answer with authority but only with inclination, and i think it is possible as long as the AS person is in a commanding position.

idiosyncratic communication styles are accepted as "nutty professor" quirks if you are in a position of having more knowledge than them about something they need to know.

in my position, i wrote the software platforms for the company i presently work for.
every program they use (except for "MS office" applications like "excel" or "word") was conceived and written by me with no assistance or direction except for a loose specification.

that means no one but me at my company knows anything about the fundamentals of the design of my software "suites" they use every day at that company.

my bosses gave up long ago trying to understand the roots of the system i designed for them, and they give me "carte blanche" to proceed along my line of will.

so everything i say to them they accept as "strange words from the mouth of the only person who knows how the system works and the only person that can save them in a computorial emergency".
the normal workers who are using the system regard me as a person who talks in riddles and they do not understand me, but they give me the benefit of the doubt that my words mean something (albeit mysterious).

but up the street at the supermarket where no one knows anything about me, i am considered a fool. i dress sloppily and they have no proof of the validity of my mind, so they default to thinking i am inferior minded.

if i was in a job that required social skills where i was totally subordinate, and where my contribution could be replicated easily by anybody, i would fail because i really have no social skills.

people at my work assume i have alien social skills, but people on the street know that i am just a stub of a personality.

i am in a position of command at my work (i work from home but i have to go to the company's workplace reasonably often).
i think the professor you talk about has a "free ticket" that excuses his social differences, as he has obviously accomplished the requirements in his life to be trusted to "profess". (i am not comparing myself with someone of his status)

if einstein (not suggesting he was AS (groan) but using an example of "accomplishment") said "all dogs lie with their tails in mind", then that statement would be presumed to possess profound meaning. even though no one knows what the "meaning" is, there would be much scholarly devotion to solving the riddle of his presumedly profound statement.
if the same man had no fame or recognition, his statement would be dismissed as nonsense after little examination.

i think i am now so far off track with this post that i can not return to the paved road (i am lost in the woods) so i will end here.

I agree with the above posts for the most part. What I have noticed lately (and I am a grad student in a very major university) is that many of the academics who have gone very far in life are either aspies or have some sort of aspie tendencies. I think this comes down to the fact that one needs to have extreme focus in academia in order to become a "star" if you will. And some of these professors I am talking about do not have a regular social life or a sex life as a matter of fact. One such prof once told me "my loneliness is endless".

I'm very social for my job and it's pretty easy for me.

how is it easy?
i was told to "bounce off people", but to me people are concrete and i can not "bounce off them". someone gets shattered (figuratively)

As far as professional interactions are concerned, I am reasonably proficient. As a registered nurse I'm very approachable at work and work well with other team members, colleagues and patients. From what I gather I am well liked amongst the staff. However I have not attempted to make any connections with anyone outside of work, and I don't think my proficiency in interacting professionally would necessarily translate into social proficiency.

Depending on how AS affects you, I don't see why not.

If you effectively learn to mimic productive conduct for social contacts and learn enough coping skills to show some level of empathy, I think it can be done. However, it's a very individual issue. The more AS impairs you, the more work it would take to be effective in dealing with others.

Thank you, everyone, for your replies. Yeah, it makes sense now. I have been told by his students who know him for a long time that this particular professor takes a long time to get ready in the morning. He does take good care of himself physically sometimes, but at other times he is sloppy. I assume it takes him a long time to prepare himself emotionally to deal with the world rather than to fix himself up. He told me once that no one understands him......that he is different on the inside than what he seems to be on the outside. Typical aspie?

I think it depends on the severity of the ASD, the person's general personality (considering both ASD & non-ASD traits) & the type of public relations they will be involved with. They may be comfortable only with a certain crowd of co-workers, customers, students, etc. (depending on the job & people in question).

Well I think that some aspies are able to fake being NT while they are at work, I think that it would be a bad idea if one of the NV aspies tried to become a used car salesperson but those of us who are vocal and are working in a field where ASDs are common may become a popular person.

I think an Aspie could be a used car salesman if they were really interested in cars, although they might forget about the "sales" part of it and start bombarding the customer with info. But a lot of sales involves knowing the product, so if you happen to be really interested in the products, I think it can work.

Aspies can fake it, and probably be accepted depending on the workplace. Really big workplaces are easier in one sense [in that no one really stands out] but hard in the other sense [you can easily get lost in the shuffle professionally, which may make it hard to do well.]

The hard part is that the interaction is very draining. However, it's been useful for me as far as observing NTs and being better at the "scripts" that they follow as far as small talk, etc.

In my case, the key was knowing the 'social rules' and practice, practice, practice.
I suppose others might have coping mechanisms to get around the social aspects of one's job.

I can confirm from my own experiences that, yes, it is possible for a person who has AS to manage reasonably well in social settings, though I would guess that it depends on the severity of AS experienced by that person, as well as their basic underlying personality (people, both with and without AS, have varying degrees of sociability). I work in a busy wine bar in a bustling town center. Ten years ago, the very idea of working in that setting would have launched an anxiety attack. But I made an effort to learn how to be more sociable with other people, and although "being sociable" is not something that I experience on a particularly deep and meaningful level, I am at least very good at giving off the impression of being sociable.

But like has already been mentioned, it tends to sap one's energy. But I think the rewards more than compensate for the disadvantages.

I think for most aspies, they could be social for a relatively short interval. If the job requires being social every working minute, it would be a problem. But if it only requires being social for a few minutes to a few hours here or there, and it is stressful, most can do that. Also it will get easier as the job goes on. It takes more mental 'CPU' time for an aspie to be social, and too much will cause burnout. Just get a job that lets you preform other duties away from many people between socializing so you can recharge.