I'm beginning to learn something (it's taken long enough). That it doesn't matter whether your an NT or AS, your worries are just about the same

When you're young....or young enough to know that you're going to be on your own some day, you start to worry about "no one is going to love me." Why is that? You can look in the mirror (like a lot of people do) and say, well, there's nothing to love. But you can't hold a mirror up to a personality. Or at least I've never discovered that bit of magic.

Of course, you can say, "well, look at me. I have melt downs, and I don't have friends, and I'm totally weird....and on and on.

But wait a minute. NTs worry about the same thing, and NTs sometimes don't do anything about it either, and they don't have melt downs, and some of them have lots of friends, but they're all "hi how are you?" (no one really wants to know) friends

And if they you're a guy, you probably tell yourself, well, I'm so strange no one could love me....and if you're a girl....you might tell yourself.....look at me, I'm so plain, and guys don't love plain girls.

Well, maybe some girls don't love "weird" guys (I have yet to find out what that expression means (a little like the word love), and maybe some guys don't love plain girls. But most of the time the way you look isn't what people look at after that first meeting. It's who you are....and (like it or not, how you'll fit into their context). This is a people problem. Not an NT or AS problem.

Of course if you're still so hard on yourself that you don't go out there and try, you're in trouble. It all comes down to the fact that you're trying to read someone's mind.

And no one I know of is a mind reader

Sometimes, you get that first encounter, and you might not know it, but the person you're talking to is just as up tight and scared of him or herself, and that they'll say something wrong, and you'll reject them as you are of yourself.

No, I don't believe it's easy to find someone, but I don't think it's impossible either.

I'm saying this, because I see a lot of down people on this board sometimes. People who are perfectly wonderful, and they just hide. And that troubles me.

Today, I was sitting in a taco bell and I was in there myself (I'm usually with my son, but he was in school) so I was looking around, which I usually do anyway (people watching) and I saw two people....a man in and a woman, and they were (as my generation used to call it, making out).

Ok, so times have changed. It's okay to kiss someone in public....and sometimes a little more. Why was it so interesting?

Because they were both in motorized wheel chairs.

And finally, the woman looked up at me and smiled, and I smiled back. And she said, I hope we're not shocking you?" and I answered, well, no. I'm just from another generation.

No, she replied, I mean because we're both paralyzed from the waist down.

And that's supposed to mean that you can't fall in love? I asked.

"Well, that's not what I think," I replied

and they went back to each other. And I started thinking, you know, those of us who are AS are just as handicapped as they are, except ours isn't visible....

But that doesn't mean we can't find someone, someone we want, not someone we're settling for, because we think no one else will want us.

Life might not be fair, but unless we push back, it's going to push us around, and that really isn't fair

I'll stop ranting now

I am beginning to question. Quick, quick, get the brick bats, we can't have people question. That just won't do.

I am beginning to question whether Hans Asperger was wrong. Are we the normal ones and the NTs the odd ones?

Aw, jeeze, this guy is really dangerous!

Seriously. Okay, so you don't pay attention when you're a little kid. You don't make eye contact, you think about things differently, really differently.......and as a result, you have a miserable life growing up.

But wait a minute. If you never question.....if 1 and 1 are always 2, instead of, oh, maybe, 11, (ok, bad example), but if you accept what other people say is the right way to do things.....does that make you abnormal, or does it just make you a little brighter than the rest of the herd?

I mean, if someone were to say, class, today we're all going to jump off the second floor of the school....wouldn't you be the normal one if you said, "well, I'm not!"

And if that sounds weird to you, think about all the scientific discoveries mad by people who looked at the way things were done....and done....and done....with the same unsuccessful result, and said "That's nuts. If you did it this way, it might have a better chance of working

And it occurs to me that if you're in one situation, "they" whoever "they" are say "Oh, that's alright, she's a little odd, don't pay any attention to her." But if you're in a different situation (same way of looking at things) you get invited to Sweden to accept a Nobel Prize

Bool said "you can represent all quantities with just two numbers, 1 and 0. I'll bet he had to take it in the neck for that one for a long time, at least until they realized that all modern computers work that way.....and he was writing in 18 something

And then there was some woman (I mean that very respectfully) at the USGS who told them in the 1950s that there was an ancient glacier running from the West Coast of Canada down through California, Nevada, and down into Mexico. They did a little more than laugh at her. They made her life miserable. And then along came satellites with infrared cameras on them....and low, and behold, they announced that she'd been right. There was a glacier that ran exactly where she said it did. Didn't do her much good though, she'd been dead for 10 years. AND SHE WORKED IT OUT WITH A PEN AND PAPER. THEY DIDN'T HAVE ACCESS TO COMPUTERS.

So what's my point? My point is that maybe, just maybe, when we see things in an AS way.....we're the ones who are right, and they're the ones who are wrong.

Anyway, that's the way I'm thinking tonight. And if you think I'm totally crazy, (and maybe I am) pm me and disagree. I like to argue.

A Beginning

Well, so I don't blog most of the time, I mean, who is interested in what I have to say....but here's this feature, and so I suppose I'll use it....for awhile.

First, who am I if anyone cares

I'm an old man. I mean, let's face it, compared to most of the people on this board, I'm an old man. 1942 is a long time ago. And I spent most of my life in film and TV, nothing you've heard of (well, maybe, but that's not important), and now I run a small publishing company. I also write, which is a lot more difficult than doing stuff like this, because you have to think when you're doing it, and I don't think too well when I'm tired, which is most of the time when I get online these days.

I love this board. There are all kinds of interesting people on it (even the ones I don't like), and when you think that I remember when there was no Television, well, it is just a little strange to be sitting in California and talking to someone in New Zealand. Sorry, I don't live in California anymore. Not physically anyway, my mind is still there. I caught myself giving my phone number to someone the other day and starting it out with 650.....not anymore! I live in New Jersey.....or maybe I'm being held prisoner in New Jersey, but if that's true, it's a prison of my own making, so I can't complain that much.

That's enough for a first entry. If people can leave comments, I don't mind. I don't know that I'll read them, but you can always PM me if I say something really dumb or offensive.

You get old, if you're lucky. The way you get old is the most important part of it.