Asperger types
are described
as incapable of being social or emotional, but this is a misunderstanding on
the part of the social majority. Unlike standard social interaction, which is
pro forma and fleeting, successful Asperger relationships are
founded on intellectual give-and-take and may take long periods of time to
develop. The focus is on shared interests rather than shared emotions. Honesty
and trustworthiness are prime requirements and these personal characteristics are
non negotiable, hence Aspersers people may have few friends. Being social for
the sake of being social holds little to no appeal; an Asperger individual may
put in an appearance at a gathering if necessary, but then vanish as
quickly as possible. Constructing and maintaining a socially acceptable charade,
especially in which one has no interest, is exhausting. Many of us don’t bother
– which earns us the wrath of the socially addicted.
The Asperger ability to experience deep emotional
attachments to animals, objects, equations, theories, and classes of things
like transportation, machines, space exploration or numbers may seem improbable
or impossible to neurotypicals, but it’s true. Some, like myself, feel that a specific
landscape, or rock formation, or river, or mountain range – indeed the whole of
nature’s manifestations, ‘speak to us’ emotionally or spiritually. This intense
feeling of being embedded in the environment is
possibly what animism was originally, before this intense identification became
blurred with the magical fear that active spirits, which are capable of
conscious acts of good and evil, interfere with human lives. The Asperger’s
prime attachment is to physical reality and not to a manmade ‘supernatural’
dimension.
It takes time for the Asperger ‘get to know you’ process
to work and most social people just don’t have the time or interest to wait, or
to participate in growing a relationship. Asperger individuals often don’t ‘get’
that the neurotypical person isn’t interested in getting to know them or anyone
else for that matter. We do see that the social person wants immediate superficial
attention. Status seeking neurotypicals are out to ‘score a hit’ and the less
invested in time and sincerity the better. We instinctively don’t like this shallow
treatment of human beings.
Surprisingly, what neurotypicals fail to understand
is that permission to lie is apportioned according to one’s location on the
pyramid, with those in power having almost unlimited sanction to lie without consequence.
No one should be surprised therefore by rampant social and economic inequality,
but amazingly, supposedly socially savvy neurotypicals don’t have a clue. It is
a given that politicians lie to get elected and then promptly do whatever their
funders have paid them to do. This has been happening election after election since
politics (a social endeavor) appeared, and yet neurotypicals never catch on.
One way for an Asperger to cope with the social charade
is to imagine that each and every neurotypical is running for an office – even
if it’s a tiny niche somewhere in the vast social hierarchy, and that each exchange
with another person is only a campaign stop. Unless you have (relative) wealth
or power, you aren’t worth a second handshake.
