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me: i think i'm gonna start a blog about asperger's syndrome

me: and how to live with and love someone who has asperger's.

victoria: oh, interesting!

victoria: do you know someone who has it?

me: i think Grace does.. i thought i told you

victoria: oh really? no, you didn't.

victoria: but she seems normal to me..

Right. Because those with A.S. are high-functioning and incredibly adaptive, by the time aspies are adults, they become really good at mimicking normal social interactions.

Ok, let me backtrack a bit-- Aspies (and I am generalizing here) don't experience and learn social interactions as intuitively as you and I do. And I think this is because aspies are empathically BANKRUPT. When I say an aspie is completely void of empathy, I don't mean they don't feel sad when fluffy puppies die. I mean they do not intuitively sense what another human being is feeling.

Example? Ok, story time!

I was talking to my officemate Tony about John Stuart Mill's feminist ideology once (jealous?), and when he started "uh huh"ing at regular intervals and typing away at his computer, I got it-- he just wasn't interested (no one is). This realization was instant and intuitive. Aspies, on the other hand, don't feel that burning shame that we all choke down once we've realized we are utterly uninteresting. Tony's body language would not intuitively mean anything to them.

This picture pretty much sums up what I mean:

"La la la la... wait, is something going on?"

So an aspie's social survival depends on how well she can memorize and improvise social scripts, and I will elaborate on this in my next update. By the time aspies are adults, their social interactions are as natural as... a veteran closet gay making love to his wife.