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gailryder17
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02 Nov 2013, 3:56 pm

So there is this kid who had hung out with our group of friends. Let's just call him O.
My friend, N, decided to befriend O because O didn't have a lot of friends. None of my friends really like O, but N decided to stay friends with O out of sympathy.
We learned that O had Asperger's. They know I have autism as well. I wonder if they ever compare/contrast me to O.
O, as far as I know, had been bullied by girls in the past due to his appearance. He usually refers to it as "trauma". I don't know if it was that serious or if he is just misusing the word.
He said some pretty stupid things about girls. For instance, he asked, "Why do women think they're superior due to having two X chromosomes?" My friends and I refuted this, but he still believes this. More recently, he said to my guy friend, "You know, I gotta be honest with you, I have trouble hanging out with anyone who is feminine."
He also said that hatred is better than love on the basis that hatred causes you to be more calculating while love causes you to act irrationally. I said that hatred leads to people killing other people, but he excused that, saying that killing is within human nature. My friend, T, said that it's also within human nature to love, but O completely ignored her.

I know he has issues understanding sarcasm and such, but I don't condone him being an a***hole. Now, even N is tired of O.


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CharityFunDay
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02 Nov 2013, 11:36 pm

Hmmm. I am not sure what to say, except that it sounds like O could do with greater social integration to overcome these negative thought-patterns. Whether you feel up to providing a social context for that integration is down to you. He's still young and may with time overcome these pessimistic aspects of his personality.

I'm sure that discrimination against females and apparent persuasion toward hatred aren't his only characteristics.

You could, if you cared for his future development as a person, try to accentuate the most positive sides of his personality.

Then again, none of this is your responsibility. But I would urge a measure of empathy, considering that most people with AS have displayed some socially-maladaptive characteristics during early life, perhaps due to their thwarted efforts at socialisation.

I mean, he's only talking about hatred in the abstract, rather than putting it into practice, I assume.



thewhitrbbit
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04 Nov 2013, 7:23 pm

When you say bullied for his appearance, is it something he can change or something he can't?



The_Walrus
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08 Nov 2013, 7:05 pm

He's 15-17, right?

At that age, there are big differences in maturity between males and females. I don't mean toilet humour and stuff, just how grown up and sensible they are. Boys generally don't understand nuance as well as girls at that age, and that's even more true with autistic boys. That gap remains for quite some time, but it gets smaller and evidently disappears at some point (don't ask me when, I'm not there yet).

So at 15, boys might have the same raw brainpower as girls, but they aren't as good at thinking, so they can overemphasise small details. When I was 15, I thought John Lennon had deliberately sent me a message about the right way to live, and it was my job to tell it to the world. I only thought that based on a few lyrics, but I blew them up to be monumental things, infallible even, and that gave me quite extreme views.

My guess is that O has read Nietzsche, or someone inspired by him, and decided "this is it". He's also probably stumbled across a misogynistic website when googling to find out why those girls were mean to him, and again, decided that the website was totally right.

He'll probably gain some perspective at some point. Maybe being around friendly women will show him that not all women "think they are superior". Maybe he'll gain a new perspective from extra reading, or new classes, or meeting someone who has a profound impact on him.

My initial suggestion is asking him about philosophy, and particularly ethics. If he mentions Nietzsche, or talks about humans mistaking good for evil or God being dead, then maybe buy him a book by J.S. Mill or something.



Dear_one
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09 Nov 2013, 10:34 am

Bullies make a lasting impression, and there is still a lot of male-bashing going on. Patriarchy was used as a red herring to protect the plutocracy. Ayn Rand was also opposed to love. Maybe check if O has a relationship with his mother or other relatives. Mine had AS, and her parenting style gave me an attachment disorder that is as awkward as my dose of AS.



icyfire4w5
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17 Nov 2013, 9:32 am

I dare say that I'm a good example of an Aspie who voices politically incorrect opinions out without necessarily endorsing them. For example, if I tell people that "Machiavelli said something like it is better to be feared than loved because love is fickle whereas fear can possibly last forever...", I'm merely sharing with them what I have read recently, I don't necessarily endorse the notion that it is better to be feared than to be loved in all situations, maybe your friend was merely trying to start a debate entitled "Love vs Hatred". I believe that he means no harm.