Childhood memory-repost (ToM)

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I'm going to repost a childhood anecdote:

I remember that when I was 5 years old, there was a green eye candy pistachio ice cream that had just came along in town, so one day my dad and i were nearby his working place, and we were heading to a shop with the intent to buy ice cream, and there he remembered about that new product and told me enthusiastically about it 'Look!Something you haven't eaten before'. Actually, I had tried it once, but i only mumbled this answer so he didn't understand me because I didn't want to spoil his joy of surprising me.

This is the opposite of the brutal honesty usually linked with Aspergers, but I'm still curious to know if anyone can relate to this kind of reaction.

im not sure what your asking but i was always kind of blunt about everything but my parents taught me to be polite so i kind of adapted at an early age, i guess its not an automatic thing to not say exactly what i think, i usually do have to whisper it or go somewhere else and say it to myself. I think i answered your question?


if you want an example.....

once a while back, when i was a kid, (actually this story has a similar background) i wanted to get this ice cream because it was this italian place and they do great ice cream but we didn't go because nobody actually listened to me, weird to my behavoir i actually kept quiet about it.... until i got to my room where i complained to myself that nobody listened to me.

My parents love to tell this story (they don't know I have AS):

I was like 3 years old. During a party out our house we were seated at the dinner table and my father jokingly asks me in front of everyone else to give him the smallest cookie from the bowl. I dug through the bowl and gave him the smallest one.

And one of my memories which took on a new meaning once I learned of AS:

At age 5 I had art classes at this cool art gallery place. We were give a take-home assignment to make pencil drawing portraits of our families. A few days after I handed in the assignment my instructor bumps into my mom in the hallway. He grabs her by her arm and tells her "I have a kid's drawing from my class, and you look just like the woman in the drawing. Do you have a son in my class?" What happened here was that all other kids made stick figure drawings while mine was anatomically accurate (details like philtrum, columella, antihelix, lacrimal caruncle, etc). They were also proportional, though of course lines were a little crooked because they were still a kid's drawing.
The drawings were sent to an expo in Italy. These people had a fascination with this novelty, when in reality it was just a product of an AS brain. Now thinking back I feel like a roadshow freak.

LOL....the first example is something a typical three-year-old might do......take something quite literally.

The second example...makes me envious! At age 55, I'm still barely beyond the stick-figure stage.

That's the "other side" of Aspergers: at least some Aspergians have exceptional ability in something. I don't happen to be one of those Aspergians.

I am of the opinion that one should make use of one's exceptional abilities, rather than try to sublimate the ability due to a desire to appear "normal."

If there were many cookies in the jar--yes, that would indicate savant ability if he found the smallest cookie immediately.

However, if there were only a FEW cookies, this would be an instance of a three-year-old taking something too literally.

Hi Eloa,

The father was kidding around. Nobody would ever give a guest the SMALLEST cookie. If this was what the host intended, the host would be seen as being a cheapskate.

To give the guest the SMALLEST of anything--especially food--would be seen as being a disrespectful act on the part of the host.

Three year olds tend to take things too literally.

Thank you, kraftiekortie!
People do jokes like this with me all the time.
If someone would ask me to find the smallest cookie i would do it.
Until people start laughing and saying that it's a joke.
Then I say: "Oh, ok".

funniest thing i did to my mother when i was younger was she taught me how to make a coffee (i asked) and i dont like coffee but i wanted to be able to make it to be fair whenever i went to make a cup of tea for myself id make her coffee, she said, "so you kinda make it in two halves, one half is coffee and the other is the milk" SO i made her coffee that was litterally exactly half coffee and half milk, which she was nearly sick when she drank it.......she didn't mean litterly, i was supposed to only put about a 1cm of milk in.....oops.....then again ive always taken everything litterally so what did she expect? to be fair on her though she always thought i was making a joke everytime i did something litterly (even though i wasn't....)

Random: This was a time when your mother should have been totally literal with you.

Any kid could have made the same mistake.

My mom likes to tell this story and it has to due with lack of social filter and perhaps reading social cues.


When I was ten, we were at my school for the carnival. My mom was there working as a volunteer. I notice she is talking to one of our neighbors, someone I thought she said to my dad she doesn't like. So I came up to her and asked her why she was talking to her, she doesn't even like her. The neighbor had wide eyes and backed away and walked off. I made my whole family the family outcast on the entire block because she and her husband would throw parties and invite all the neighbors except us. They would even invite my mom's best friend too there and her other friend who also lived next door. My neighbor said to my mother "She will get over it, that's Beth." Apparently she never did. My lack of social filter had caused all this madness.


I have seen in the family video from when I was two that my mom would put a pillow down next to her and hit her hand on it and tell me to jump. I would get off the couch and start jumping up and down. I ignored her hand gesture because I didn't know what it meant and why she put the pillow there and hit it. But she didn't seem to learn because she made the same mistake again and I do the same action. She didn't tell me to jump to that spot.