HFA Positive!

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The introduction to our website is quite well-written. It explains the basic facts about AS. But I was interested in this as the last line...

Asperger's can be described as an inability to understand how to interact socially.

Again, this is true. But I wanted to highlight this particular part of the disorder and discuss how we cope interacting specifically when online.

I belong (as I am sure many others do) to other forums, non-AS, whether it's sports, music, whatever, I find that the internet actually shows that I can interact successfully with people but of course it's all done without expression.

By that I mean, as an example, everything is based on what is written over things like body language in real-life situations.

Imagine if you were to have in argument with somebody in real life, it may be a situation that you can't escape from whereas online and in a forum, you have control; you can just switch on and off at any time.

The internet also lends us certain anonymity. We can create and reinvent ourselves just as NT's can and do.

I find that the difficulties I have when participating in a debate online are exactly the same though as I have in real life. I take everything literally and am obsessive about facts being proved either right or wrong (and nothing grey in between!) and I do get into some scrapes sometimes.

But on other forums, I never say about my condition, only on occasions if I know that the way I am may have caused some misinterpretation then you can PM someone and explain.

Generally NT people will be indifferent anyway towards something they may know little about or have even heard of and they will care even less so there's no point in discussing the reasons for us having these differences in the ways that our brains work.

Overall (and the purpose of my post) is to ask others how they find interactive life on the web, if they post regularly on non-AS forums and what (if any) social problems do they encounter?

(I call this topic "HFA Positive!" because I see the internet as a plus for us Aspies!).

i think this is due to the fact that NTs are at a disadvantage on the internet; their primary means of transferring information (non-verbal) doesn't work online, so they have to resort to putting all they want to say into litteral written tekst, leaving out the things people on the spectrum have difficulty understanding.

also, the fact that you are not seen means that it doesn't matter if you make eyecontact or even look at them when communicating.

Hi

I post regularly on this website and on a parenting website. I use the parenting one mainly to give practical advice (health/ food are may favourite topics) and to ask for advice about my daughter. I really enjoy communicating in this way. I like how you can read it, read it again, add bits, take away bits, before deciding whether to post or not. I edit my thoughts before speaking to a group too, but by the time I've finished, we're onto another subject and I've said nothing.

But I've had a couple of on-line arguments. One was about smoking in pregnancy. A few people posted that they didn't like it and eventually a few posted that it wasn't that bad. When one actually said it wasn't harmful to the baby (she made it sound like she knew this for a fact and was promoting it, which is illegal), I couldn't control myself. I posted a reply, quoting a few facts, when I really should have just reported it to the moderator - they would have removed it. I also made the mistake of not quoting the poster (I didn't want to get into a personal argument with her), so it sounded to some others like I was on a soapbox, when all I was doing was trying to correct the person who was talking absolute rubbish. They said things like I was playing God (I couldn't understand that), when all I did was quote known facts about smoking in pregnancy. Once I made it clear that I was not attacking everyone, I received some apologies. I stay away from those threads now.

I've seen similar things happen to other people on that website, but I don't know if NTs would have made the same mistakes as me.

I used to get in so many heated arguments on NT forums and they really affected me for hours and days later, so I had to stop. Offline I can only get a sentence out if I argue and when people keep disagreeing I just let them win.

I actually do run into social problems online too. I gave someone my personal opinion on smoking and I have a right to have an opinion on it, but maybe I was a bit too... forward. It sounded like I hated everyone that smoked. I just don't like the smell and what people are doing to their bodies. I've got many health complications so do what I can to stay healthy, while I watch other healthy people that are slowly killing themselves and making my house smell like a dirty furnace.
Sorry...opinionated...I'll stop.

I'm a bit of a nit picker with grammar too. Honestly 'he weared?' Again I'll stop.

I think that first statement is pretty ridiculous. AS is not--not even primarily, for many of us--a social disorder. There's so much more to it than that. It's sensation/perception, cognition, learning, processing information, executive function. Just because the most obvious signs are social doesn't make it a social disorder.

It's not that I don't understand social stuff, its that understanding and doing are two completely different things. On the internet, I have time to think, which I desperately need. Which goes back to my original thought, that AS is really primarily not a social disorder, but more of an inability to react quickly. Although I'm probably wrong about that.