I'm 33 right now, was diagnosed PDD-NOS back in 1991 at age 11. I pass pretty well for normal and have had quite a few close friends albeit having this still rocked by world - especially in that while I can generally read other people's body language etc. pretty well they can't entirely read mine, historically it would come out as 'flawed' which would raise alarm bells with people, and to this day I still find myself micromanaging my body language (which is what has a lot of us I think looking standoffish - we're too used to getting emotively shot at for trying to do the same thing the next person would).
I've also often mentioned to people as well that I really don't think 'social skill disorder' really hits the mark. Even when we do have very good social skills it seems like social communication success is 10% rote social skills, 30% your 'air' about you from the way your gestalt looks, and the other 60% of it is sheer center-of-bell-curve neurological conformity. What I mean by that last 60% - my boss can say things completely out in left field at random and everyone would think its funny, for myself I know from experience that saying things out of the blue or at random - most of the time - will cause a good 15 seconds worth of crickets in the room. There's also the lovely experience of saying things that are on-topic but where there's two choices of on-topic everyone else would instinctively veer left, you veer right by yourself, and they end up seeing you as a drag.
It just goes to show how little society really seems to understand its social a priori and I can't help but think that ASD's are God holding up a different kind of mirror for society to see itself in and perhaps identify where it does hold broken a priori or tautologies on what it considers acceptable identity. Obviously yes, there are standards of decency but there's also arbitrary conformity that exists at times for no other reason than conformity's sake which leaves those of us not intuitively wired that way looking standoffish, quiet, or unconfident. I can't even begin to express what looking 'unconfident' does in terms of closing doors in life. Luckily for what life's dragged me through I've had enough ballast in terms of good friends and good parents, as well during my darkest times I realized that I had an absolute refusal to be rolled under the wheels by life and that stubbornness has lead to inward adaptability.
I've also often mentioned to people as well that I really don't think 'social skill disorder' really hits the mark. Even when we do have very good social skills it seems like social communication success is 10% rote social skills, 30% your 'air' about you from the way your gestalt looks, and the other 60% of it is sheer center-of-bell-curve neurological conformity. What I mean by that last 60% - my boss can say things completely out in left field at random and everyone would think its funny, for myself I know from experience that saying things out of the blue or at random - most of the time - will cause a good 15 seconds worth of crickets in the room. There's also the lovely experience of saying things that are on-topic but where there's two choices of on-topic everyone else would instinctively veer left, you veer right by yourself, and they end up seeing you as a drag.
It just goes to show how little society really seems to understand its social a priori and I can't help but think that ASD's are God holding up a different kind of mirror for society to see itself in and perhaps identify where it does hold broken a priori or tautologies on what it considers acceptable identity. Obviously yes, there are standards of decency but there's also arbitrary conformity that exists at times for no other reason than conformity's sake which leaves those of us not intuitively wired that way looking standoffish, quiet, or unconfident. I can't even begin to express what looking 'unconfident' does in terms of closing doors in life. Luckily for what life's dragged me through I've had enough ballast in terms of good friends and good parents, as well during my darkest times I realized that I had an absolute refusal to be rolled under the wheels by life and that stubbornness has lead to inward adaptability.
