Aspie spends 1 week mountain hiking with NT's. Plez Comment

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So I've gotten to a point in my life where I am confident enough in the other more improtant areas of my life to start socializing with who I want. Bascially I am out to acquire the skills in order to befriend and eventually lead a social group.

I joined this University based activity club that is based upon hiking, biking, mountain climbing etc. et......outdoor activities in a nutshell.

They offered a week long trip to hike mountains in Texas. I took the opportunity to go so I could begin the process of socializing. The trip lasted from March 16th to March 24th. I arrived on Saturday at a designated pick up point. I met some of the people who arrived a little early and I began to talk to them. All the while going by my list of commonality, empathy, and interest. I always try to see if I have any of these with people whom I talk to. If I don't find anything then I will just politely chit chat with them until there is a break in which I can make my escape.

Now once the van arrived with all of the others we sped away to Texas. One important thing that I have learned about having AS is that it is difficult to be in an environment with 10 other people talking randomly. I am very good at conversing with someone one on one but a whole group is too much for me. I jut decided to keep my mouth shut as much as possible.

Now I should also mention at this point that I am 33 years of age and the average of this trip was 18-22. So not only do you have differences in the realm of NT and AS there were also differences in maturity level and life experiences. Needless to say I did not make alot of life long friends. But then again I really did not expect to either.

I made a major mistake of mentioning politics. Now at this level I don't think its really good to talk about heavy intellectual topics. In a group like this it is best to keep the conversation light and topical. I said that even though I like Obama he was not the strong leader that I wanted in a President. This got people riled up.

I also mentioned on the trip that I have Asperger Syndrome to my tentmate. The reason why I did that was because I wanted to kind of place a level of understanding out there so that way if I did anything that would've been perceived as odd at least the explanation was out there.

Unfortunately during the trip I developed a wicked sore throat infection which made it difficullt for me to even swallow my own saliva. As I discovered most of them did not give a SH*T.

Ok I have to go to work I will post the rest of this tonight.

Sorry to hear your trip was a rough one.. you are a brave soul. I am not so sure I could have done it.

Will look for the rest of your story later

One of the females of the group simply said that I should go to Walmart and get some EmergenC packets to pour in my canteens and later on I took her advice. Once we arrived in Carlsbad New Mexico the first restaurant we all wanted to eat at was IHOP. While we were waiting for our food to be delivered one of the females in the group started talking about her spirit animal. I asked her what exactly a spirit animal was. She said that it was an animal that you felt you had much in common with. I said that I thought of myself as a goose. She said cool and we proceeded to talk some more.


I wish I could type out every word that came out of my mouth and every social interaction I had but that is impossible. I will say this, my tentmate increasingly grew more and more disgusted with me as time wore on due to my 'lack of ability at camping' But again this was mainly due to the fact that I was sick and I had not done this type of activity for quite some time. It got to a point where he tested me one night. On the last night I said that I wanted to sleep in the van due to the fact that I did not want sand to get in my contact lenses since we were sleeping out in the desert. A few minutes after I entered the van my tentmate took my sleeping pad which goes underneath my sleeping bag. I asked him what he was doing and he said he needed it because it was comfortable. After about a few miuntes I goty out of the van and I looked him right in the face and said that I was going to let him take it because he had been looking out for me the whole trip which he honestly did. I said that was the reason why I was going to let it go, this time. The kid could not even look me in the eye because he feared me.....

So the lesson here is this: Within young male culture people have to have a certain level of fear of what will happen if they cross you. Jails and prisons demonstrate this lesson over and over again. I will say again. People must FFEEEEAAARRR YOU!! ! But only to a certain extent. Or another way to put it would be this: YOU HAVE TO STAND AND BE WILLING TO GO ALL THE WAY TO THE PINT WHERE YOU WILL PHYSICALLY ATTACK YOUR ENEMY WHEN CHALLENGED. If people in a social group think that you are weak someone in the social group will take advantage of you. Its happened to me before as a child as I'm sure it has happened to the majority of you. This is one of the main reasons why I went back into a group like this. To reclaim my honor. So for the remainder of the trip he no longer challenged me directly but indirectly, however he only did it once. I will post more as the week goes on.

Now I'm not advocating people start changing themselves into bullies, but as far as I'm concerned my goal is to change my personality and my behaviors to thepoint where if anybody screws with me, I will physically punch them so hard that they will sh*t their teeth hours later.

Ouch... that sounds a bit harsh lol... I don't want people to fear me. I just want to feel like I don't have to question so much. Like do I shake hands.. what deems a handshake with this person over that person? Or am I standing too close etc...

I think I have enough conflict in my life without creating more. I don't mind sitting back and watching others.. I actually prefer it.

Thanks for sharing your story. Sounds like it had its good points and its rough points. Hope your cold has gotten better.

Hhhhmmmm....perhaps I worded that wrong.....let me put it this way. Everybody deserves not to have their personal space invaded. And if someone invades it you have every right to defend yourself.