Weird Boring Friendless Pedantic Nerdy NT = Aspie?

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Why is nerdy considered boring?

You know we live on a fascinating planet with much history and all most people want to do is talk about shopping for shoes, small talk and gossip. Personally I consider that to be boring. God forbid they should use a brain cell for something useful and interesting.

As for the difference between a Nerdy NT and an Aspie I don't know. I am still trying to figure out which I am myself.

Assuming these aspies say fascinating things. I don't know about you, but my peers don't find anything fascinating about Hawking Radiation and the role of virtual photons and quantum fluctuations in a blackhole's evaporation.

Previously, I had always thought that when I would meet other nerds in my higher level science and engineering classes that I would fit in. I can hardly notice a difference. I don't feel any more like them than I do with the random yahoos I have in my other classes.

(I) Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:

(A) marked impairments in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, and gestures to regulate social interaction
(B) failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
(C) a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interest or achievements with other people, (e.g.. by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest to other people)
(D) lack of social or emotional reciprocity

(II) Restricted repetitive & stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following:

(A) encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus
(B) apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals
(C) stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g. hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements)
(D) persistent preoccupation with parts of objects


(III) The disturbance causes clinically significant impairments in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

(IV) There is no clinically significant general delay in language (E.G. single words used by age 2 years, communicative phrases used by age 3 years)

(V) There is no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in the development of age-appropriate self help skills, adaptive behavior (other than in social interaction) and curiosity about the environment in childhood.

(VI) Criteria are not met for another specific Pervasive Developmental Disorder or Schizophrenia.

Differential diagnosis

(...)

Normal variant of personality

All the features that characterise Asperger syndrome can be found in varying degrees in the normal population. People differ in their levels of skill in social interaction and in their ability to read nonverbal social cues. There is an equally wide distribution in motor skills. Many who are capable and independent as adults have special interests that they pursue with marked enthusiasm. Collecting objects such as stamps, old glass bottles, or railway engine numbers are socially accepted hobbies. Asperger (1979) pointed out that the capacity to withdraw into an inner world of one's own special interests is available in a greater or lesser measure to all human beings. He emphasised that this ability has to be present to marked extent in those who are creative artists or scientists. The difference between someone with Asperger syndrome and the normal person who has a complex inner world is that the latter does take part appropriately in two-way social interaction at times, while the former does not. Also, the normal person, however elaborate his inner world, is influenced by his social experiences, whereas the person with Asperger syndrome seems cut off from the effects of outside contacts.

A number of normal adults have outstandingly good rote memories and even retain eidetic imagery into adult life. Pedantic speech and a tendency to take things literally can also be found in normal people.

It is possible that some people could be classified as suffering from Asperger syndrome because they are at the extreme end of the normal continuum on all these features. In others, one particular aspect may be so marked that it affects the whole of their functioning. The man described by Luria (1965), whose visual memories of objects and events were so vivid and so permanent that they interfered with his comprehension of their significance, seemed to have behaved not unlike someone with Asperger syndrome. Unfortunately, Luria did not give enough details to allow a diagnosis to be made.

Even though Asperger syndrome does appear to merge into the normal continuum, there are many cases in whom the problems are so marked that the suggestion of a distinct pathology seems a more plausible explanation than a variant of normality.

(...)

The reasons for personality variations are so obscure that classifying Asperger syndrome under this heading does not lead to any testable hypotheses concerning cause, clinical phenomena, pathology or management. A more limited, but more productive, view of the problem is to consider it as a consequence of impairment of certain aspects of cognitive and social development.

Among other nerds, a nerdy NT would fit in. An aspie would not. At least that's what I'm thinking. Previously, I had always thought that when I would meet other nerds in my higher level science and engineering classes that I would fit in. I can hardly notice a difference. I don't feel any more like them than I do with the random yahoos I have in my other classes.