Potential AS

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Hello!

I'm Patrick. I'm 26. I think I may be AS. I'll try to describe some of my reasons. Some of these I've been told are symptoms and some I'm not certain about.

I have a very poor short term memory although I tend to be fairly good at language and problem solving. I suffer in classes that require memorization. Meanwhile, I've done very well in standardized testing, scoring in the 99th percentile of verbal ability my whole life and getting an 800 on my SAT Verbal (on the 1600 scale, with a 550 in math). I'm also very disorganized and try to place and arrange clutter (ie. papers or art supplies) in a way that seems intuitive because I'm afraid I won't remember where I put them using a conventional system of organization. As a result, I almost always have stacks of papers around.

I'm sensitive to heat but not cold. I've never had any problem wearing shorts in the cold. The only discomfort I feel from cold comes at the point when it is physically painful.

I'm also sensitive to certain noises like vacuum cleaners.

I tend to maintain poor eye contact and am uncomfortable walking beside people.

My early teachers (at separate schools in three U.S. states) dubbed me "little professor" for my use of language and the way I carried myself. I would make basic little devices like vending machines out of index cards and tape.

I made a sharp distinction between "friends" and "acquaintences" at about age three or four (which family found somewhat amusing).

I had a strong interest in physics, particularly Einstein, at a young age and bored my teachers by doing book reports on Einstein and relativity. By the time I realized the math was too advanced for me, I became fixated on issues of politics and ethics. I often explode over injustices that other people find to be minor. I don't like or understand human nature although I have gotten better at faking it over the years.

Over the past seven or eight years, I've been interested in Shakespeare's Hamlet. I'm not as interested in the remainder of Shakespeare. Just that one play. I've studied it for multiple projects and presentations and examined it from every angle I've had the opportunity to. I'm somewhat frustrated with the history of theatrical criticism regarding the play because of what I consider to be poor (and widely accepted) scholarship in part because academic disciplines haven't shared their findings regarding the play with eachother and in part because there are logical fallacies regarding the commonly accepted story of its three variant publications.

I'm often chided for being too abstract (which may contradict AS) because it seems terribly impolite and easier to be wrong when speaking in concrete terms. Also, I try to seek out universal standards of morality and ethics rather than view law, culture, society or the ideal form of human relations as situational affairs.

I've been very attracted to several girls but I've never been in a relationship. I've kissed a couple of girls and been on some assorted dates but those were always situations in which a girl took the lead and I felt somewhat used afterwards. Meanwhile, I feel helpless about forming any real bond with any of the girls I have been attracted to because I always seem to misinterpret them. The times I might have had a chance, I didn't act. The times I thought there was mutual interest, I was wrong.

I sometimes get so interested in message board discussions or little projects that I forget to sleep. I also lose track of time and have issues with being punctual. It's somewhat odd because I can often give a fairly accurate estimate of the time without a clock and yet I can easily spend twenty minutes shaving or a half hour in the shower and it feels no different for me than when either of those tasks take five minutes.

Hi, Patrick!

Welcome to Wrongplanet!

I think you'll fit in very well here!

I hope you enjoy posting!

Hi Patrick. welcome to the "right" planet.