Asperger syndrome Blog--- Social Interaction/issues- Copyright Robert Fullarton

The neurochemistry of an Aspie is fundamentally different to that of a neuro-typical. For a start, I can state that a select handful of thought associations and the very associations of these thoughts, form a pattern, a cognitive lineage or contingency of distant memories and feelings that form the obsessions and routines which Aspies identify and fulfil. 

This is the reason why Aspies think randomly and why these thought associations are often very remote and obscure, because Aspie thought associations and thought patterns are generally obscure. 

Any person with high functioning Autism will randomly and selectively associate and distinguish themselves from thought associations that come to define their own personality, their fears and joys. The Aspie can act incognito, to mimic and emulate the NT, often this can be done by acting out the seemingly bizarre behaviours of many infamous characters from both films and TV programmes alike. This can be a measure adopted for an Aspie to try and read the indivisible and invisible codes of social behaviour. The Aspie is often concerned with their thought associations and their codes of behaviour which are based on the logic of everyday facts, not on the everyday code of social behaviours and body language. This is why when Aspie males try to entice an NT female, this may be one of the most difficult and constraining of all activities, the language of gestations, subtle moves and oscillations of the arms and eyes are so difficult to read. The dating critique is not based on the logic of maths or language but on the codes of appropriate social behaviour, a sort of genetic, utterly generic, evolutionary rite, or instinct that has been practised out by the sexes since time immemorial. 

The physically adept males were sorted and separated from the physically inept by the performance of the competing males for the alpha female or beta female. The inept male –the omega male- mated with an omega female, when the time was right, for such relationships, I would suppose that the competition was less challenging than the vanity based courtship of the chief breeders themselves. I myself am not trying to talk social Darwinism at all, but I am trying to state that today things have changed dramatically. It is the intellectual man of the species that dominates in matters of knowledge; he concerns himself with logic, striving to know the gravity of distant worlds, the philosophy and the matter of every subject that takes his fancy. He is conscious that he is an individual and the “I” in every case is itself a source of conscious knowledge and a subject in itself. The greater the sense of knowing, the greater the risk and the greater the responsibility for the addressed individual.

However with the subtle gestations of our social skills –in particular with our courtship process- the old competition finds new ground and a new arena to operate in. The man of the mind is often undermined in a society that is still as primitive as ever with regards to the instinctive mating process that has been reimbursed in our society by the media and our “popular culture”. Today the sexes are more divided than ever, the shallow pettiness of an old practice that is out of time and place still continues because of the media and its drive to cultivate a sort of ideal man and woman, which we must prescribe to. 

We have no doubt- witnessed a sort of second sexual revolution –a revulsion of mind- more potent than the Freudian revolution, because this revolution has come with the mass expenditures, accumulations and generic wealth and sense of privilege that has come for the post war generations. Big business means exploitation and manipulation over many gradations of time, consumerism is the means by which a people can be fooled to buy the very junk they do not need and of course even become the very person that every generation hitherto loathed, that is a sex symbol. The narrow spectrum of understanding, the tunnel vision of society and the categorization has been made complete. Men of the mind likewise become bookish devotees and they become the modern day omega men. An effeminate man is made for his shadow, a masculine woman –so common these days- is made for a common masculine man, this subterfuge of western society, is an obstruction in the face of truth and progress. The man of the mind is not the omega man but indeed the alpha male, but such a case is still ruled under the thumb of mediocrity and arrogance by the supposed Alpha males themselves. I wish to state that many Aspies themselves have felt this estrangement with society –the sort of social alienation of which Marx himself once originally theorized.

The web itself, chat rooms and social networks themselves are adequate to the Aspie who finds socialising strenuous and challenging but they still are not a means to social activity, but rather an obstruction to it. The virtual web, the virtual profile of the user itself, is just another means of degradation, a retrogressive means by which peoples, communities and societies are exposed to a modern phase that promotes the unhealthy use of technology and computers as a new means of connecting with people and this is one of cheapest forms of entertainment too. No social skills are required for the Internet companion, messaging is needed instead. This is certainly the new method for Aspies to socialise, but not a solution to the social isolation, of actual groups, associations and gatherings that commonly resemble each other. It is a fantasy, wrapped up in the dream like qualities of encapsulating bubble. The craving for the social forums are a mere distraction from what really must be done. I believe that Aspie social groups like the one I attend on Sunday are the answer, plain and simple, they promote mutual understanding, friendship, commonalities, connections, they rid the old sense of alienation which the minorities sense from the common bravado of the majority. 

Every misfit must join an association for misfits and get organised and that is what I might have felt I was once upon a time, but I can tell you the members of the Dublin Asperger Social Group are not misfits, they are not your average human being, they have endured through their disorder, its symptoms and associated complications, and yet people from the autistic community in every variation, form and manner and of course those suffering from bouts of mental illnesses alike are a full equation of the human condition, that are the victims of the age old prejudice of a society that rotates around pleasure and self gratification in plethora. The two sides of the coin make up the human species; the pain factor and the pleasure factor, more innate in some than others, there is an open awareness –in its educational aspects- in some more than in others and I state that a generic ignorance still subsists because too little time and effort is given to educate the children of our generation. I have experienced more modesty in the exceptional nature of the members of the Dublin Asperger Social Group than I have with the immodest people I have known right through my school days and adolescence and in such cases no brilliance comes with arrogance but a pollution of human patience and tolerance. Social alienation runs rife throughout our society and it is the greatest void in the hearts of our youth in this generation.

The vagaries of the Aspie mind, far removed from the mind of the average NT are a wholesale examination of where paediatric studies, psychological studies and new investigations into the social sciences need to be met. How the human being reacts very differently when under pressure, in regard to their demeanour when calm.

Likewise from all the individual cases I have met from the group, from each human being I have discoursed with –who has Asperger Syndrome itself- I have found that

stress and anxiety are almost quadrupled in those with Asperger Syndrome, the awareness and the conscientiousness of this disorder, gives the individual an acute knowledge of their, social, genetic, psychological and even cultural differences that drive their world in motion. I have known many obsessions from different people, each one idiosyncratic in its own right, but specifically valuable for the individual themselves. One person revels in their fascination with minerals and rocks, another with having a baby, another with finding love, with superman movies, history or even the very dress code that they adhere with. As I stated before each individuates, actualises, and perpetrates, the pathology that assures comfort, safety, familiarity, control and even a sense of belonging. The routine that people with Asperger Syndrome build for themselves is intriguing, in one way an acute obsession may bare the fruits of a talent and an a sense of belonging, to emulate the easiness which NT’s usually feel with active socialisation. For others of course an acute obsession bares the signs and the warnings of an obvious danger, disorder or traumatic experience that may be present in the life of the sufferer. Obsessions often can be crippling, can be burdensome, tiring and perplexing to those who have no understanding for the bizarre behaviour that may be acted out by the obsessive individual.

I theorize that as a more succinct hierarchy of the social orders have been formed, along with the domestication of a previously wild mankind, coupled with the conscious knowledge that came with the growth and development of the mind and the brain, certain aspects of the new, modern society are apportioned a selective gene pool that reflects, acts out and fulfils the autistic gene pool, a conscious new group of people, from many different diverse races –a Diaspora- became introverted thinkers of the sciences, the arts, mathematics, metaphysics, philosophy and spirituality. 

The conscientiousness of a growing mankind, a new understanding and a knew knowledge of what was previously unknown to the social orders, emulates the radical reforms, discoveries, dissertations and struggles of countless great minds, geniuses, pioneers and explorers that have pushed and broken the boundaries of what man thought was proper and what was possible. As I have said previously before –rather briefly- the “brands of genius”, call them Einstein, Newton, Mozart, Beethoven, Wittgenstein, Kant and Tesla, all the protégés of their great projects and discoveries to the world of facts. The world of facts and the world of nature, the pre-existing world of matter, mathematics, sound, sight, vision, gravity, factual honesties and logical conclusions all belong to the textbook understanding that can be learned and read so much more excessively, conclusively and pragmatically by an Aspie in retrospect than the world of people, social events, body language, the obscure hidden gestations of romantic dealings and everyday events. The Aspie learns their own language so well, that they usually don’t possess even the slightest vestige for the capacity of a bilingual knowledge of the unobtrusive and hidden, blatant messages they desire to obtain from the common man and woman of society. Confidence is difficult to come by when, you are so conscientious of the risks, the calculated probabilities and dangers you face when trying your hand to chat up the opposite sex. As I have said before the Aspie mind is always fresh with the rigours of many challenges, dilemmas, fears and repressed desires, because often –especially with a high functioning Aspie- there will be a higher level of prudence and meticulous effort devised in contrast to the calmness, the assurances of confidence and coolness practised by the average NT.