Damn you, cruel fate!

There's a terrible twist to having Asperger's Syndrome that leads me to believe it was either designed by the devil, or I have been a very bad person in a former life. It goes without saying that I'm not the best face-to-face communicator which makes it all the harder for starting relationships. I can only really meet women in quite controlled circumstances… pubs and clubs are out of the question, as are overly noisy places or places where there are lots of distractions. Hopefully also a place the same woman habituates to allow me to gradually get to know her and work what little charms I have. Now let's throw into the mix the fact that all of my pastimes are either solitary or male-dominated, and it'd be easier finding a bacon sandwich in a mosque than a suitable partner.

My quiver is not entirely devoid of arrows though. Via a focused and controllable medium like e-mail where it is just me, the canvas, and time, I can be quite eloquent. When the social barrier that stops me taking part in the world is not a factor I can let my real self come out, I can express myself and engage with people. I imagine that the way I communicate through e-mail is the way normal people communicate face to face. These keys…these fingers…this is my face.

So at a certain level I am able to stir interest in a member of the opposite sex…but why do we e-mail people in the first place? Because we have no physical access to them, usually because they live far away. And that's the sand in the Vaseline. The one social skill I do have rendered completely useless.

Catching up

Just a few things that are going on with me really.

I'm on a bit of a self-improvement kick at the moment with my usual mixed success. I'm trying to turn my Asperger's Syndrome (AS) to my advantage by developing "positive" habits and routines to combat some issues I have. One habit I've already managed to break is drinking mid-week, something I haven't done for quite a while. My next target is to stop drinking on a Sunday as it affects me quite badly on the following Monday at work. While still in the moment I set up a reminder on my phone for next Sunday at 7pm that urges me not to drink and explaining the reasons why. We'll see if it works. Alas I didn't break the habit last Sunday so I didn't feel up to going to the gym this week. Which brings me to my next point…

I did something rather spontaneous tonight and decided to go to the cinema. I haven't been in a long time really and I'm not quite sure where the idea came from…but what the hell? I went to see "Bruno" because my humour is usually in the gutter anyway and it was laugh-out-loud funny in a fair few places. Was also good to see an Autism joke in the movies (good news…Autism is "in" this season)…not something you see much of, though Sasha Baron Cohen's cousin is an autism researcher so I'm sure there is a connection there. Alas it did also remind me why I hate being around other people.

The other routine I'm trying to get into is a cleaning one. I had a fairly large clean-up two weeks ago and I'm striving to do less but more often to keep it up and I think I'm doing quite well. When I see something that needs done I try and do it rather than postpone it. I'm cleaning the oven hob and bathroom sink etc more frequently so that it just needs a quick once-over and that's it done. I'm trying to keep clutter down and mess cleaned away and the recycling done rather than letting it pile up, and also get the dishes done rather than those also piling up. So far it's going ok I think. I've been here before though so I won't be too surprised if I gradually slip back to my old ways.

To close off this Christmas letter, I had a girl I was "involved" with when I was younger contact me after tracking me down on the internet. It's been about 16 years I think since I last saw or spoke to her, but it was good to hear from her (stalking tendencies forgiven). To be honest all my life I've regularly thought back to my relationship with her, as brief as it was. It never really progressed the way I wanted it to even though I really liked her and I could never understand why I acted as I did. Now, looking back knowing I have AS it all makes perfect sense and I now understand why I did the things I did. So to have her contact me out of the blue was a mix of emotions.

We've since exchanged a few emails and I confess that I've fallen for her again. It's like she hasn't changed one bit and those 16 years never existed. It's like I last saw her yesterday. It's like she is some kind of key to my life, something I need to tie up the past. I'm torn, though. Up front I'll say that nothing is going to happen…she is 700 miles from me. But there are so many things I want to tell her. I want to tell her that I can now explain why things happened the way they did, I want to spell things out to her. But what's the point? I could detail so many things that are fresh in my mind but she probably doesn't even remember them. Could I face the fact that the things that have dogged me all my life are so insignificant to her that she can't even remember them?

I dunno…I'll sit on it and think about it. Why are the people you want never available? I suppose I should really just leave things as they are. Knowledge isn't always good; sometimes ships just need to pass in the night.

I like watchin' the puddles gather rain

I stepped outside my comfort zone this weekend and visited someone I knew a fair bit from the internet. They'd moved into a new house so I went for a visit. I travel light, but I took my laptop with me also as I pretty much take it everywhere. It's the only thing I have of any real value so I don't like leaving it at my flat when I stay somewhere else. It doesn't have any monetary value, but it has all of my email, documents, and a lifetime of dead projects for which one day I may unlock a spell to resurrect. This laptop is my whole world.

The friend that I went to see was quite typical in that their life seems to revolve around other people. I found it quite exhausting just listening to it all, and in a way it made me feel quite odd too. It's hard to explain really, but it was a mix of inadequacy and confusion. When people are so fascinated by things that you have no facility for processing it's hard to imagine how normal people think. It's not like someone liking sport but you don't, or someone liking pop music and you don't, but when people's lives revolve around bonds and interactions with others that you have no means of creating, and they have such glee in knowing information you yourself have no way of amassing it's a glimpse of a world you'll never know. But that's how it is for people not like me. It brings home that my solitary world goes beyond just doing everything on my own, it brings home that I'm not just like normal people only a little different…it shows me that I'm nothing like normal people. At all. Everything that is life to them means nothing to me at all.

Something else I learned was that other people's lives seem so…complicated. It's like the more people you involve in your life, the more complicated your life is. As if their problems and issues osmose into your life, and your issues and problems into theirs. The more people you surround yourself with the larger the collective pool of conflict you bathe in. I couldn't do that. On reflection my own life is incredibly uneventful, my problems minor and my drama almost non-existent. Not only that but my problems are seemingly my own…they are neither shared nor halved. I have no particular desire to involve people in the issues I do have. The whole experience was quite eye-opening, but it isn't a world I could live in, the idea frankly terrifies me.

So in the morning I picked up my laptop, my light travel bag…tossed my only baggage over my shoulder and came home to my DVD, my XBOX. My so-called life.

I'm an Asperger in Neuro-typical world

The world is moving on but not always in ways that are compatible with Asperger's Syndrome (AS). I've been interested in computers and electronic games from their very beginning when the gods at Atari gave us Space Invaders, Pac Man, River Raid, Missile Command and Pitfall. I've stayed with games and computers through the Amstrad CPC, Amiga, then onto PCs and XBOXs. However now games seem to be all about "multi-player", with some games even being multi-player only. I'm fine with games having a multi-player element, but it seems there are forces at work in the games industry to make games only about multiplayer. It's like some self-serving gaming guru has decreed that multi-player is the future and we will be beaten and cajoled until we are all heading in the "right" direction.

I don't want to play multi-player games. I don't want to be forced to communicate with someone over a headpiece to negotiate playing a game. While playing a game I don't want to have to be communicating with other people, either giving or taking instructions. It's not just the unwanted communication, but have you ever played games on-line? It is populated with netizens who are 12 years old and think that throwing racist or jingoistic abuse is funny. Then there is the whole aspect of actually getting a game. No "press A to start" here…oh no. You have to find a suitable "session" that you can join. Then you have to try and last 5 seconds before being booted from it. If you do get to join a game you can do badly and get booted, do well and get booted, or be mediocre and hope to last a few games…before being booted.

In my rare forays into multi-gaming I've always found it best to host my own games. That way I just let people play. If they're rubbish noobs I don't boot them, if they're 1337 and totally pwn me I still don't boot them. I like to be fair…but it's often not enough. You see people come to expect communication from you as the game host, such as unofficial rules or even what we want to play next. So people often don't stick around to play with me much.

Then there is the internet. Once a tool for researching movies, settling arguments and finding out the news of the day, it has now been taken over by "social networking". It's the latest bandwagon and there are many sites onboard. It seems you're nobody if you don't have a facebook account, or a myspace or bebo. No group of adults can be together for more than 5 minutes without talking about facebook, or their wall or their status. Every picture taken at a nightclub is on facebook no more than 20 minutes after being committed to the camera's memory. It's like the world's biggest club and I'm not invited.

And, like multi-player gaming, it seems there are forces at work that want to force you onto their bandwagon. Facebook has launched a technology called "connect" that lets you interact with third-party sites using your facebook details. Is their dream for the future one where everyone is on facebook? That it is all of our home pages?

I guess some people with AS would actually welcome this trend. Maybe I'm being too hasty. Maybe social networking on-line is a boon to those who can't do it in real life? Not for me, though, I seek the companionship of on-line people as much as I do real people. I would get no comfort from seeing all of my "friends" crammed into a box.

Still it's not all bad. Aren't self-service checkouts great? No people on the till, no small talk, no chatty checkout girls, no feeling that people are judging you by the "meals for one" that you're buying.

How the other half live

I'm involved with a club that runs mainly over the internet, but does meet up from time to time too. We had a small meeting not long ago where my attendance was required, nothing big, just a handful of folk. It was business more than pleasure so it wasn't terrible on a social level, but being among these people…"normal people" without Asperger Syndrome (AS) really drives home just how different we all are.

Despite the fact that we're all part of the same on-line club they all know so much about each other and the lives of other people in the club. There was so much talk about who was doing what, who was saying what and to who, who met with so-and-so at the whatever. Me? I don't even know these people's real names never mind anything else about them. They obviously all spend a lot of time communicating outside of the club, or on "MSN" or "FaceBook" or the other myriad social advances that have left me by. It's not just my lack of social skills that is highlighted, but my complete and utter lack of interest in people. I really don't want to know anything about other people, I have no desire to connect with them.

The worst thing is though…it makes me feel bad, it makes me feel inadequate. I sit alone in my own world dealing with no-one and I'm quite happy. I then meet other people and just how anti-social and barren my life really is, is slapped across my face. I hate meeting people.

Physician, heal thyself

I sometimes wonder if I'm the only person in the world who actually has Asperger Syndrome (AS). You see I went to a psychologist and underwent testing to obtain a diagnosis. The only other places you get to "meet" people with AS are on the internet...but they're all "self diagnosed". How can you self diagnose such a thing? If your car engine won't start do you "self-diagnose" what the issue is? Then go around telling everyone that your widget has broken? If the central heating stops working in your house do you "self-diagnose" the issue and go around telling everyone your gromit has split? Of course not...cos if you're not a professional in the field then your diagnosis is worthless.

Yet there is a massive movement of people out there who claim to have AS because they did some pop test on the internet. These tests just ask basic questions and assume that AS is black and white and if you're fascinated with dates you have AS, and if you're not you don't. What rubbish. And how can an on-line test assess the impact your symptoms have on your life? None of these tests ask your background or attempt to eliminate other possible diagnosis. Basically…they're rubbish.

However people post their results on forums with pride, as if being AS is a sport and he who is "most" AS is the winner. Who is to say they didn't take the test a few times until they got the result they wanted? And they don't just stop there. Again I am seemingly the only person in the world who has not only diagnosed myself, but everyone in my life with AS. "My brother, who I'm sure has AS" "This guy in my class, who I'm sure has AS" "My mother, who I'm sure has AS". These are things you'll see plastered all over the internet. If diagnosis of such a complex thing is so simple then maybe I'm in the wrong job? Maybe I should take up psychology instead, and walk around dousing all and sundry with my armchair diagnosis.

As well as the self-diagnosers the other most common posting on internet forums is people asking complete stranger laymen to diagnose them based on a few traits they think proves they have AS.

Why are people seemingly so keen to wear this label? Is it an emo thing? Are people looking to justify their perceived failings in personality? Do they think that if they have AS they can stop blaming themselves and maybe even gain sympathy?

Another extension of this issue is the number of women who "have" AS (I put that in quotes as again they are always self-diagnosed). Official statistics tell us that it is rare for a women to have AS, but a quick search on the internet paints quite a different picture. There are almost as many women who claim to have AS as there are men. Either the professionals have got something terribly wrong, or these "self-diagnosed" women do not have AS at all. Maybe it is self-diagnosis that is wrong?

Sex, lies and YouTube

Isn't YouTube great? It gives you access to copyrighted material that you'd otherwise have to pay for, let's you see all the music videos you never knew existed, and allows you to find out that Thundercats was actually a bit crap.

It is also being used as a video version of the web based version of the log. You'll find lots of Asperger Syndrome (AS)-focused users airing their thoughts and opinions, as well as general users who also happen to have AS but don't make it the focus of every video they post. And aren't they all boring? People bleating and whining about their problems. People posting complete misinformation as fact. "There aren't many videos on YouTube about ass-burgers so I thought I'd make one" is the mantra they all start with, followed by descriptions of their woes in life and what ass-burgers means to them. You can tell they're all American as Americans are determined to destroy the English language. Why do they pronounce it "ass-burger" when there is no "b" in Asperger? Are Americans really that obsessed with McDonalds?

My favourite piece of misinformation is contained in one of the more popular AS videos on YouTube. In it our host explains that if you have AS you have "half autism". You're half autistic and half non-autistic so have some autistic traits and some normal ones. Geez guy, buy a book and read it.

As well as the people posting the videos you get people who post responses to the videos. These responses are usually from people who think they are "more"AS than the person who made the video, or that the person who made the video does not have AS at all.

Power to the people

Continuing from what I was saying about using the term "aspie" as a gateway to paint Asperger Syndrome (AS) as something positive, I only wish it could end there. I've spent some time looking at AS forums, web sites and videos, and much of what I see and read leaves me feeling a little uneasy. There is a sub-section of people whose delusions that AS is something that makes us "better" is so strong that they seek to personify it. They think that there should be a special educational system to teach people with AS to be the future leaders of the world. Or think that people with AS should form some sort of uber-society of elite individuals. Yeah, and I bet the AGM will be a laugh riot with a bunch of folks milling around not wanting to interact with anyone. The only thing I don’t know about these pro-AS zealots is their stance on gassing Jews.

What's in a name?

Self reference seems to be an issue with people who have Asperger Syndrome, and rightly so...it's a bit of a mouthful. Personally I use the universally accepted standard of abbreviation, loved the world over by organizations such as NATO, NASA and the USA. To keep in such illustrious company I refer to Asperger Syndrome as "AS" and I refer to myself as "someone with AS".

Alas I am seemingly alone in this practice. The preferred language on the internet is to use the term "aspie". To me that's just a cutsie name and you give cutsie names to dogs and cats, not to mental disorders. It's like calling AIDS "aidsie" or referring to a heart attack as a "harkey". It seems to be another facet of people with AS (do you see what I did there?) to dress up something negative as something positive. The only thing more apt of the phrase "you can't polish a turd" is actually attempting to polish a turd.

AS is a disorder, it is an impairment, it excludes you from the large section of society that is called "normal", it forbids you from interacting with the world on the world's own terms. Why give it a cutsie name like it's a good thing, or a positive thing? Like it's something you should be proud to have, something you want to have curled up at your feet.