I Gave A Girl The “Syndrome"

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Sallamandr.

I have a question: you said you had seen first hand the destruction caused by Maxine Aston.

Would you mind elaborating?

That sounds important.

Problems that arise out of not knowing is exactly what it means for problems to arise out of xenophobia - when dealing with people, of course.

Last edited by MrDiamondMind on 06 Jun 2010, 9:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I live in UK not very far from her. I know and sometimes work with people in education/special education and other areas that are sometimes connected with autism. She's pretty famous around here and I'm often bothered by the way some otherwise educated and reasonable people adopt stereotypes (that she promotes - like AS people are selfish, cold, don't commit etc) without doing their own research. This creates a certain image and most of us have to be very careful who we tell we have AS as this will make a lot of people assume some pretty stupid things about as.

Second, I've met women (and heard of some) who go to see her or read her site and then decide that their AS partners are to blame for all the problems they have as a couple or think that only they should change or make compromises because they're the "defective" ones. You said yourself that both partners should make an effort - people won't be willing to do that if they are told only the other one is at fault.



Thank you. I hope you'll find what you need - it doesn't necessarily have to be an aspie

@Poppyx, I think that's part of the problem: there isn't a valid "cookie cutter" approach regarding what to expect in an AS/NT relationship. I haven't read Rudy Simone's book, but I can tell you that I disagree with several of the bullet points you've excerpted from her work.

There are commonalities among Aspies in terms of disabilities, but the degree to which Asperger's impacts an Aspie's life can't be easily defined. There are so many influences, like the severity of the disability; the person's family background; age at diagnosis/awareness of ASD; psychological problems/trauma; mental illness; degree of support provided....the list goes on an on. Lots of Aspies have been traumatized because they weren't diagnosed until later in life, or even if they were diagnosed earlier in life, they were bullied (inside and outside of the home). That bullying experience alone will screw a person up. So if you put an Aspie and an NT through a dysfunctional, abusive "raised by wolves" childhood, they're both going to come out of it scarred. And that scarring is going to work itself out in unhealthy ways when it comes to relationships - for both the Aspie and the NT. The end result is that not every unusual behavior exhibited by an Aspie partner is due to his/her Aspieness.

For me, it comes back to what I've said in the past: the key is not just about being aware that a partner is ASD - its about understanding the problems in the relationship that are ASD (probably not modifiable), and the problems that are non-ASD (can be helped, healed, modified, etc.). That's a very complicated task, and takes unflinching honesty and incredible commitment from both partners. It also requires a willingness from both partners to assess and modify behaviors that aren't healthy.

Well I can say that I have been out with 4 AS guys. OUt of those 4, only one of them I would say is an emotionally distant person.

The other 3- two were very affectionate and one was a little less but still could be called demonstrative. The one who is more distant I would say even affectionate in some ways. I also went out with another guy who was emotionally distant, but he was NT.

I can see how a woman may have difficulty with an emotionally distant man if she is not distant herself, but emotional distance-ness and AS often dont come in the same package.

All 4 were very into their interests or routines in one of the cases, but I thought that was normal so I wasnt bothered... I guess an NT woman may find it pretty baffling though and posibly feel rejected in favour of the interests.

Personally, I prefer to date AS men, they are in the same realm as me somehow.

Hows the other guy a "prick" when you could have talked to her but didn't?

The reality is NT partners DO get upset and frustrated with their AS other half.

I just look at my parents for that example. I've frustrated the f*ck out of NT guys because of my aspergers.

Also if you know this girl is "in love with you" why don't you ask her out? Sounds more like you're playing mind games with yourself.

He's a prick for reasons that have no relevance to this discussion. Rest assured, I'm not calling him that because she spoke to him.

This was over 2 years ago. I haven't seen her since 2008. And even if it was happening now I still don't know how to "ask someone out". My version of asking her out was me asking her if she wanted to sign up for a similar class with me for next semester.

Are you sure it wasn't a dillusion?

I'm not calling you crazy, we all have them (think someone's in love with us when in reality they aren't)

There were all the usual flirting gestures like hair flicking, smiling, laughing, wrist flashing, etc. And at one point there was even a slight "aww", as in cute. If you couple flirting gestures with a cute gesture, is that not strong evidence for romantic affection?

I agree Hale_Bopp... i had an NT screw me around like you're screwing this girl around. It's got nothing to do with being an aspie, I've got NT friends who are afraid to ask people out / flirt with people back. I think most people, NT or aspies have trouble with relationships at some point in time. If this happened in 2008, why are you bringing it up now? (sorry if I missed something in the post)

Are you aware that some girls do that all the time and to everyone of the opposite sex? I know of a lot, its a common trait of NT girls, and its air headed if you ask me. I used to delude myself into thinking guys were "checking me out" when they wern't.

I wasn't screwing around with her; I didn't know what to do. How is that me screwing with her?

Since I found out about this Cassandra effect in NT/AS relationships recently, I recognized the symptoms in this girl. And I just wanted to put it out there that this effect arose in her, due to my ASness (and her NTness), without us ever even being in a relationship.

Okay, but now combine that with frustration and Cassandra symptoms. So now we've got: flirting gestures, cute gestures, frustration, and Cassandra symptoms. This is too heavy not to be some sort of fondness.

I think from her point of view she could think you're screwing her around? at least that's what I thought about the NT, maybe he had legitimate reasons for acting the way he did. You could've at least told her what was going on, to some extent. that's all I'm saying.

Point taken on the second quote.