Can I condition myself at my age?

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Well, after 3 days of pondering and reading everything possible about Asperger's, I am convinced. Now that I know, where do I go from here? I'm 34 and pretty set in my ways. I feel like I am on serious overload, now that I'm more aware of the things I do. Do I just have to try to lie and pretend to be interested in others' silly stuff?

I am grateful that I do have one close friend (she has Tourette's and we share many interests) and she ignores my issues. Most people I "hang" out with are not the norm, but I still aggravate them to an extent. I feel doomed.

I've experienced this dilemma too, vacillating between trying to fit in or being myself now that I know what my issues are. I've decided in favor of the latter.

For my whole life, I've been "conditioned" to try to fit in, and I've never succeeded in doing so. I've been so conditioned that for awhile, I actually believed there was something deeply wrong with me because I didn't desire much human interaction. One social outing per month is more than enough for me. I don't feel lonely when I don't see people, possibly indefinitely. So it was the conditioning, not my natural characteristics, that made me feel bad about myself. I actually felt good alone, but I felt bad because everyone around me kept telling me that I should feel bad about being alone as they would feel if they were alone.

Here is another example that has more to do with occupational/educational than social functioning. When I was in grad school, I believed that I was stupid, because I had difficulty communicating with colleagues about scientific concepts. From my perspective, it seemed that everyone was being extremely vague all the time. I find vague communication hard to accept and process, because I have to break everything down and build it back up to gain a full understanding that feels true. I can handle both the concrete and the abstract, but I need more time to cog everything through the brain gears. Other people often told me to stop "re-inventing the wheel". At the time, I believed that I was stupid for not being able to do what others seemed to do so easily. Now, I realize that I have a different way of thinking, so I am not going to put myself at an intellectual disadvantage compared to them by trying to use their way. I am going to use my way. This breaking down/building up approach is slower, but it could be very valuable for generating new ideas, leading to new hypotheses that would not be accessed through the standard way.

In general, I am in favor of not trying to fit in, except in relation to family or close friends who make the effort to understand you. For example, I really do have a lack of social and emotional reciprocity. My mother says that she feels that I don't care about her or anyone else. She has severe allergies, and she feels hurt that I never ask about them, like are they better or worse today. I never ask, because I know that I have no practical solution to offer. That's my default expression of empathy - practical solutions. Without them, it is not my instinct to express anything else. So ever since she told me that I didn't care about her, I've actually started asking about her allergies often. If she tells me that she has a headache one day, I will ask her later if it has gone away instead of simply recommending Advil. This is my effort to change in this area, now that I know that other people have social and emotional needs that I have not been fulfilling, because I never realized that the needs existed, not having those same needs myself.

I can't say for sure, but I think if you truly want to change, then you should be able to do it no matter how old you are.

lol.. what to do when you get diagnosed. don't get an emotional crash. deal with it for the rest of your life. aint worth the trouble unless you have legal troubles and a diagnosis would benefit you.