What came first, an antisocial tendency or special interest?

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There is a theory that people who are neurologically challenged when it comes to socializing replace that ability with a special interest. For example, I could never socialize with my peers when I was a little kid, so I took an interest in animals, specifically dogs. They always made more sense to me than humans. I know alot of people here apply that same reasoning to their respective special interests, no matter what it happens to be. It's a "filling the void" idea.

I also think NTs employ focus when it comes to socializing much the same way aspies use hyperfocus for their special interest. If you people-watch and you notice the topics that NTs usually talk about, it's usually something related to their friends and relationships; that is there "special interest". If you watch a group of aspies interact, the topic of conversation usually revolves around autism or a shared special interest.

There's also the view that the special interest makes you less able to socialize. You can only talk about your interest, so no one wants to be "bored" by you. Also, you don't want to be bored by talking about something outside of your special interest. In both these cases, the special interest is causing the social removal.

So, do you believe your lack of social intuition caused a special interest to form, or do you believe your special interest made you less sociable? Neurology is the common factor in both cases, since this is responsible for both our lack of social intuition and hyperfocus.

My social withdrawal came before my special interests.

I think that my antisocial tendencies came before my special interests, not the other way around.

I'm not sure how to answer the question. Neither one causes the other. I've always had interests, and I've always been withdrawn socially. I just find my interests more interesting than small talk. But that doesn't mean that it's the cause of my antisocial tendencies because even when I did have a handful of friends when I was younger I still preferred to have a lot of alone time with my interests.

Neither caused the other.

It's "asocial" people! Asocial! Asocial and antisocial are completely different.

For me, my social withdrawal came before special interests, although I couldn't say how long before.

I don't think they are related. I think it would be possible for some to have one or the other or both or none.
Personally though, I'm honestly not sure. I never started off social, and it's possible that my special interests only started once I had the mind to comprehend it.

I believe that my special interests began well before I began to realize my social difficulty, but I do not believe that special interests caused asocial behavior, or vise versa. I think what really happened was that my social skills were never very good, but I didn't begin to realize this until mid kindergarten. I remember, for example, being delighted and fascinated with the tiny plants that grew in my back yard that I thought looked like miniature lilly pads, around the time when I was 3 years old. I spent long periods of time looking at and touching them. I was very fond of them, and they were very important to me. Around the same time I began to attend preschool, which I didn't particularly like. I made a friend there, who I really really liked. I can still remember basically what she looked like, and even what her name was, to this day. But she didn't stay there for very long, and I was very very upset when she moved away. After she left, my preschool experience became very solitary. Somehow I had ended up friends with that girl, but once she was gone, I realized I had no idea how to make new friends. As a result, I was constantly bored, and developed a fascination with these little electronic nozzles that would continuously spray mist onto the patio of the playground, as it was very hot where I lived. I really enjoyed the sensation of slowly becoming wet while standing under them, and I was very intent on understanding how that worked. Eventually, I figured it out.

As a conclusion, I don't believe that special interest causes asocial behavior and vice versa, but rather special interest is more of a side affect asocial behavior, and vice versa. I would have preferred to play with the other children, but as I didn't know how to, I would find something else entertaining that I could do independently. Sometimes it would be a special interest thing such as the nozzles, but sometimes it would be something more mundane, such as arts and crafts.

At about 5-6 yrs old, I started developing budding "casual" type interests into more intense focused interests (reading, art, drawing, animals) in order to cope with my sense of isolation and lack of friends. This started out mildly, but by about third grade I was "that weirdo in school" that everyone either teases or shuns and so I took to spending lunches in the library reading and my after-school hours shut in my room drawing & refining my art skills. By junior high I was openly pranked and persecuted and had developed a very defensive and hostile "social skill set" to cope with the daily attacks and mortifications which widened the gap even further.

Now, as a parent to youngsters and with decades of practice in social settings, I have some friends and a great husband (also most likely an aspie, he has many classic traits). Now, I use my special interests for solitude and stress relief (still get worn down by group social activities) but my ability to socialize better seems to have lessened the intense focus and amount of time spent on special interests. I still have them and still enjoy them immensely, but not to the same intensity as in those years of total social animosity and isolation in my youth. So, it seems that the two traits are interdependent in a dynamic balance, acting on each other, for me.

Now, at age 39, I only recently discovered Wrong Planet and my own Aspie traits when a friend on another internet group posted the Aspie Quiz. I took it just for kicks and suddenly my whole life began to make so much more sense, in retrospect, through the Aspie lens. If only I (or my parents) had either known about AS earlier and gotten some coaching and/or help, I could have had a much more positive childhood and adolescence. I guess I lucked out in managing to learn some "fake NT" social skills over the years albeit the very hard way.

I still have blind spots that get me into trouble and I lose friends "out of the blue" so it is by no means perfect. But now, I know that there is nothing "wrong" with me and I understand the mechanism I've developed to cope with the hurt and stress (special interests) and treat myself accordingly. The nice thing, now, is that I am free from the guilt and worry that I am "broken" somehow or that I'm stupid for "messing up again".

I no longer feel that my special interests deprive me of a "normal" social life, because I am beginning to appreciate them as a beautiful coping mechanism for the social isolation and hurt I experience when one of my "out of the blue" social disasters happens, yet again. They are my refuge when the NT time-bomb explodes and a launching platform of common experience for meeting new people and starting new friendships when I finally feel safe enough to venture out and try making a friend or two again.

Now that I have a better understanding of NT/Aspie relations in general, thanks to the wonderful folks here and web in general, I'm hoping to be able to screen potential friends a little better for better compatibility (I always seem to draw/get drawn to) emotional extroverts *sigh* and to learn some better "coping skills" to negotiate the treacherous social waters...

Your Aspie score: 156 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 64 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie

I have always seen special interests and being social as completely orthogonal to each other. To me there is no causal relationship between them at all.

Please be careful with the word "antisocial" because it has a connotation of someone being unfriendly, hostile, and wanting to disrupt the social order. I do not see autistic people fitting this profile. GG Allin was antisocial.

I have noticed the distinction drawn in these forums between "antisocial" and "asocial". I wanted to emphasize and clarify that I used "antisocial" here intentionally, in reference to myself, because I was hostile. I expected to be attacked, teased or subtly mortified in some way in every social interaction that did not involve an adult. I never knew when the next prank would happen. My life was an experience of hypervigilance against the nasty surprises that punctuated a monotonous routine of continual shunning. I saw the worst in people, expected the worst from them and viewed every situation and scenario from the worst possible interpretation. I had been persecuted and bullied so harshly for years that I developed a survival mechanism to reject people first, violently, before they could jump on the bully-band-wagon. It was a case of a social preemptive strike, rejecting them and striking out before they could do so to me. There is no doubt it was very destructive behavior, no matter what it's cause, development or who was to blame, etc. To me, that fits the definition of "antisocial", is compatible with its meaning as is used on these forums, and does not extend that moniker to anyone else here, being purely self-referential to my past experience.

I got up the courage to attend my 20 year high school reunion a couple years ago and several people not only approached me and were friendly to me, but remembered me positively saying they had always admired my artistic ability (my focused special interest). Some people even went so far to say that they had felt rather intimidated about approaching me, despite wanting to get to know me better. So, clearly IMO, my mental state and behavior during those years of my life actively harmed my potential social interactions considerably. Needless to say, my HS reunion was a very healing experience for me.

More on-topic, did the special interest cause isolation? In my case, I think not. My negative behavior was shaped by negative social reinforcement. That was its' primary cause. My special interest was fueled by a need for interaction with *something*. I had conversations with my paintings and they came alive in my mind, dreams and even waking consciousness. For a long time, I preferred this interaction to socialization with people, since it was much safer. But, in the form of joining groups of common interest, is has also been the springboard for me to make friends with people and learn some better social skills and come back out of my shell. So, in a way, my special interest has actually helped my social life a bit.

Now, I consider myself to be a generally-successful "faker" socially and "asocial" at my most withdrawn. "Antisocial" behavior is toxic and doesn't help anyone, including the one struggling with being socially inept. I repeat, if I or my parents knew then what I know about AS now, much of what happened to me in my youth could have been better understood, and possibly mitigated with coaching or training in social skills.

In answer to what you mentioned about AS's not being typically "antisocial", perhaps I am an extreme case, in terms of developing extreme hostile behavior, since I was also verbally and physically abused (hit/beaten/etc. not sexual abuse) as a child and into adolescence by my extremely social, extroverted (an insecure) older brother. He outperformed me socially, so I did what I did best and left him in the dust with a 4+ GPA and teachers who swooned over me in report cards (hositlities with my "peers" took place outside of class away from teacher eyes). This was the seat of the rivalry that escalated into extreme bullying and beating at home beyond "normal" sibling squabbles. I had a very violent mental and physical home life despite my mother's attempts to protect me in later years as she came out of her denial about what was happening. A better understanding of NT/AS relations could have possibly mitigated many of those issues there as well or at least given me a better understanding of that dynamic as I went through a series of abusive relationships later on, until I finally stumbled on to some things that worked better. But, through it all, my special interests, art, animals and reading, have served as a coping tool for the inevitable stress.

Through all my life, I have felt alone, isolated and like I was some sort of alien living among a different race with incomprehensible unwritten rules that everyone else seemed to know. I see that many people here seem to have had similar experiences, so even if my exact experience is not "typical", perhaps it will still resonate with some and maybe some suffering can, thereby, be alleviated before it has to happen.

I've never had anti-social tendencies

I think there could be a mistake in how the other person interprets the word, but it's totally situation dependent. You can exhibit antisocial behavior by being shy, or you can be hostile. I have no problem using that word because if you look it up in the dictionary, both meanings are delineated. Just by the act of withdrawing and being shy, you are disrupting the social order because you are not an active participant in the main pack. I'm not hostile, but I have no problem using the word to describe my behavior.

I think there could be a mistake in how the other person interprets the word, but it's totally situation dependent. You can exhibit antisocial behavior by being shy, or you can be hostile. I have no problem using that word because if you look it up in the dictionary, both meanings are delineated. Just by the act of withdrawing and being shy, you are disrupting the social order because you are not an active participant in the main pack.

My asocial behavior came first before my special interests, I don't have one specific special interest though. As far as I can remember I used to watch cars go down the road and I would memorize the makes and models. I also began to take things apart to figure out how they work, then put them back together. I got into technology such as video games and computers too, we had a family friend who had 5 kids (a couple of which were of my age), but I would spend more time with their father trying to learn more and more about computers. I also took a special interest in music, especially electronica music, i started to create my own tracks the i bought turntables and a mixer and started to mix. I never really had much social interest growing up, even though I wanted to but couldn't. It wasn't till recently that I found out what aspergers was, until I met my girlfriends old friend who has aspergers from when she was younger, then I did some research and came to the conclusion that I have it. I could never figure out why I never fit in and why I've always been alone and why I am the way I am, it's all clear to me now.

According to my mom I was social as a child and became less social as I got older. I remember talking about my interests as a kid and mostly getting ignored so I learned to keep my mouth shut.