Observing Other Aspies/Autistics...

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Have you ever been out anywhere and noticed someone who is very obviously Aspie or Autistic...or have someone who is a regular somewhere you go who you suspect to be aspergers? If so...what do you think as you watch them or look at them, assuming you look at them?

There is a middle aged man who I have noticed in our local large food store every evening for some time...and I recently realised he lives in the b&b just down from where I live. Anyway, I was sat up in the cafe, looking down through the glass down the aisle where the veg and fruit and discounted stuff is, and there he was...doing his usual thing...very severe OCD I think as he stands there and weighs everything on the scale several times over, even things that are ready packaged. He must have stood there for a good half an hour doing this, and in between I noted he was flapping his fingers on occasion and running two fingers on his right hand along a finger on his left.

He is usually, well, unwashed to a degree... I have admittedly had to move a distance in the past...and on the one occasion he spoke to me, it was because I had dropped a pound coin and he picked it up and said in a voice that was seriously EXACTLY like that of Mr Bean, 'I believe this is yours'. I watched him anyway and noted that he would quickly lower his head to the ground when anyone walked close. I was sort of looking at him as he stood still below, when he looked up, and MY GOD did I know the meaning of that famous aspie stare... He really did stare up at me for at least a minute, and I was turning my head this way and that and shifting in discomfort and I thought to myself, 'Serve me right for staring at him!'.

But anyway... I watched and I thought,,,he is clearly a pretty severe case, that is for sure and...surely I don't look like that when I do such and such, but the sad fact is, although my OCD doesn't take place in any store, it is just as repetitive and weird, and my stims, if anything, are more exaggerated... but I do keep myself relatively clean and am more socialised I feel...

Anyway, I felt I would share that and ask of others experiences.

One time I was in downtown applying for jobs and I decided to take a trip to Lloyd Center and look around. I get on the light rail and as I ride through downtown, this guy gets on and he looked dirty and his clothes looked like they needed to be washed. He was a mess but not too bad. He was rocking his head and then he was rocking his body and he was sitting right next to me. He did talk but he was talking to a guy in front of us and he was asking him about where to get somewhere. he sounded a little odd in his voice but it was close to normal. I suspected autism or aspergers but I wasn't sure if that's what he had. I didn't even ask if he was autistic or if he has aspergers. That's how shy I am. I didn't even pitch in to help. I just kept quiet and then he got off where Satruday Market is held.

WOW, **I** am usually the one looking down! At my last job, a coworker mocked it! At my current job, I have come to be REAL self conscious. I AM clean though. I may be the cleanest one there. And though I could easily spend half my day with that stare, I tend to interact at least more than that with the world.

Steve

There is a fellow on my course at university who I think is probably on the autistic spectrum, or if not, some other type of personality related condition. I always notice that he has a very peculiar walk; he tends to keep his head low and leans forward, almost as if he were climbing a mountain. He always has a strange smile on his face as well; as if he is laughing at something, at first this made me nervous because I thought he might be laughing at me but then I noticed that he had the same face all the time; even when he couldn't see that I was there. I have only heard him speak a couple of times in lectures, he has shouted out a couple of times some objections to what the lecturer is saying or pointing out a small mistake. I have also heard him speak to professors after class; he tends to call them 'Sir' which strikes me as quite odd but perhaps that is just something he learnt at his school. In a way I think it is quite a shame as he and myself are always alone at lectures and we both obviously have one interest in common yet I don't know how to approach someone and say 'let's be friends' or something like that. I would feel a lot less self-concious if I at least had someone to sit next to.

Here on campus where I'm at, based upon statistics, there are roughly 65 other people who are on the spectrum. I know of one for sure. I had him in a science class. He looked like an exchange student from the netherlands, but I saw him do a head bobbing thing, I managed to talk to him a couple of times. Definite apsie.

There was this one girl at my school, Sharayah, whom I was sure had it. She doesn't always say the right things in social situations, she has trouble with her voice pitch, she definitely had the obsession thing down, she often wears the same outfits (which aren't in style and never were), and she is incredibly blunt. And sure enough, I was right. She told me she had AS. I was her friend for a while, but her dad doesn't like me (because in his words, "I'm too rich and spoiled and that might be a bad influence on her") and I got really fed up with her bluntness. After all, I absolutely hate it when people are blunt toward me. I'll have a fit because of it. Also, my mom also suspected her dad had AS as well.

In my high school there were 6 aspies I know for sure. They were all out of the closet. I wasn't out, and I think I was the only closeted one. They got a lot of crap for it, I watched first hand. I'd even hear conversations in the student lounge when they weren't in there where I would listen to groups of the NTs make fun of the uncloseted aspies. They did it right in front of me because they didn't know about me. I'm ashamed to say I even joined in the make fun of fest (not that ashamed, those 6 a-holes were not very nice to me), I secretly enjoyed the fact that the NTs doing this had no suspicion of me, it made me feel like I had almost become normal and was fitting in. I don't know of any that are out of the closet in college although there is one I am positive is severely AS. Sometimes every once in a while I think a spot one, I think I'm pretty good at it because I've been around a few of them before.

Lets see..in Jr. high..there was this girl named Bonnie..who hardly ever spoke and was always alone and dressed like an oversized little girl...in pasteles and everything had her name on it if big letters. I tried to befriend her, because I was in a habit of attempting to befriend oddballs...but she was too much in her own little bubble. She might have been in special ed...there was a big population of special ed kids at that school.

Now, the place where I live, SHFL..is an aspie/oddball magnet....I have only run into a few girls who seemed to be somewhere on the spectrum.., but there are a few out and out aspie guys who come around.
One is VERY outgoing..has no understanding of personal space. Another is odd and quiet and a cross-dressing comix artist...(these are the two who have said they have aspergers, and they are very different from each other...and from me) There are plenty of others who are definitely not NT...
But i don't want to be in the habit of diagnosing everyone who walks through the door.
Some of them are intolerable..some of them might be the way they are because of too many drugs..or a combintaion of AS and too many drugs....like this one artist kid who's mind was blown on mushrooms and he is a hyperprolific artist, but it is impossible to communicate with him because he is in his own little world...at least i am incapable of communicating with him...and he is definitely one marble short of a bag.

There's a guy who runs the quiz night at my local Borders and I think he might be in the groovy gang. Not that I would ever tell him that.
I've seen people who I've thought were in the groovy gang by their actions - stereotypical behaviours and noises in certain situations. I have thought about telling them but I don't suppose they'd thank me for essentially marching up to them and saying, "excuse me, it occurs to me that you are broken in the head".

I know I was rather upset the first time it was brought up that I was AS.

I suspect that some of the patrons who come into the library may be on the spectrum. There are some people who don't know how to talk quietly and their voice pitch is odd.

i sat next to a dude yesterday at the library who i was fairly certain had some aspergers, it was a very akward look like we both knew something was going on. then i left to go buy my owl

removed my post -sorry, but the answer is yes. Totally obvious and the parents totally clueless.

I am sorry..I never meant to imply that all aspies are oddballs and all oddballs are aspies.

I meant that we get maybe a larger concentration of people here who are "different"...for example we have friends who come here who have other types of mental conditions...like schitzophrenia for example...in addition to quite a few who seem like they could be somewhere on the spectrum..I mentioned two, but there are more who seem like they could be.

Hopefully I have not written myself more into a hole. When i say oddball..i mean it affectionaltely to describe people who appear to stand out from the herd.

I had a friend in highschool who had a brother who was autistic and started highschool right when I was finsihing up my years.
Toward the end of sinior year, during my off period, I would sneek into the orchastray room and be with my best friend. (who I believe has some aspie traits herself. I guess that's why we get along so well!)
So durring one of those times I was drawing a fairy and my friends brother was watching and then pointed to the picture and said loudly "Why is she naked?" And I said "Because she's a fairy." I got a little embarassed. But he reminded me of myself! (back then I didn't know what AS was) I could just picture myself saying something like that if in his shoes with out a doubt! If I could I would have gotten to know him better.

Now that I think about it...all the people around me where some how odd and diffiernt. Durring highschool I had a best friend and a the first person that I could relate to so well. She had a group of friends that adobted me in. What used to bother me so much was the fact that I couldn't identify what catagory our little group was. And I liked to catagorize things. Order, protictability, understandings and what not. (you know durring highschool you have like the jocks, goths, emos, preps, gamers, anime fans, band and all those groups.) I couldn't place anyone of us in any of those groups because we were all so diffirent. And then while I was researching all the autism and nurodiversity stuff. It struck me, We All Had Something Mentaly Odd About us. And for some reason we all kinda gravataded to one another. We where all odd and diffirent in our own sense but it's the fact that we were diffirent that chained us all together. Like Attracts Like apparently . I thought that was a bit interesting.

But other then that boy I havn't meet another autistic or aspie. Though I can't wait to start collage! Maybe I'll meet one and find out that they are no diffiernt then I am and that I was looking so hard for the people I have allready meet.