It's very possible my fiance is an aspie...

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It could be what drew us to each other in the first place.....

He's always been shy and kinda socially inept, although he does have friends. He's known for being somewhat eccentric, and hysterically funny. When we speak to each other it's rare that we are looking into each other's eyes. He always has a current obsession...this time it's collectibles from Sideshow, like the 40-year old virgin did, figurines, busts and statues from movies and comics. Another current one is the history of the Roman empire. He bought a bookcase full of books about it. He currently owns over 6000 DVD's the shelf to hold them takes up an entire wall of his bedroom, and he has piles of them everywhere. When we were younger he was all about colleting action figures.....he has quite a collection. I used to think it was kinda strange ten years ago when my then 22 year old boyfriend was constantly going into Kaybee Toys to buy Starting Line up figures, or why he never opened and played with his GI-Joe's when he was little....they are all in original packaging (and some worth a lot of money)....

Another thing that kinda makes me think he isn't NT, is his musical talent. When he was two and a half years old his older sister was playing Stairway to Heaven on a keyboard. She left the room for a moment and when she came back her two year old baby brother was playing it. He has perfect pitch. He can also mimic voices of male singers almost exactly and has a huge vocal range.....He can identify any note played on any instrument, and tell you if said instrument is even the slightest bit out of tune. When he listens to a piece of music once he is able to play it. When he hears a song, he hears all of the instruments separately and play the bass line, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, or drums...or the piano. One of my splinter skills is having a perfect color sense.....not so good with music, but I can distinguish and describe the differences between two colors that seem identical to someone else....his musical ability is similar to the way I see color.

Another thing I notice is that he is very naive. He has no issues with asking me if raisins grow on trees, if it was possible to buy liquid hydrogen on eBay for the rocket ship he is building in his basement, or is British English and American English speakers use the same alphabet. Some of the things he says are really funny, although he doesn't realize he's even being funny. Like for instance...his phone is messed up and he has to re-do some wiring, and he calls me and says "there's is spaghetti in my walls." He also feels the need to inform me via email that he was eating chicken noodle soup and he laughed and it came out his nose....he wanted to know if there was a hole in his head that connected his nose and his mouth.....I know he's not stupid.

He runs a successful business..He is a land surveyor and is very good at visualizing maps of sites...he can draw a map of any site before he takes the shots, come home and draft it on AutoCad, and have it be almost identical to the one he drew when he first arrived at the site when he had no actual measuraments.

These things about him are part of the reason I love him so much. Is it possible we were so drawn together because he is also somewhere on the spectrum? Or am I just reading too much into his behavior?

hi and welcome

and how do you feel around him?

Very comfortable actually. That's kinda what drew me to him in the first place. We've been together for twelve years actually, it's not a new relationship. I have an ASD myself. I was dx'ed with LFA when I was little, but became a HFA adult...I started dating him when I was a teenager and somewhere in between low and high functioning. He's a little older and was a neighbor of mine (old enough that we were never in the same school)....we met at another neighbor's house. We just kinda clicked. We both were shy, and kinda quirky. We liked the same kind of music. I don't know why, but I never felt weird around him....like he was never judging me for me weirdness. I told him I had autism when he asked why I always looked down when I was walking, and why I moved my hands in funny ways.....his stimming (if it's considered stimming at all) his much more subtle, and he only does it under stress....he was like "what's autism?"

Really he wouldn't ever get evaluated to see if he was an aspie. He believes the only label he can be given is his name.....he doesn't even like when I blame something on autism....like my disdain for loud noises or my desire to be smothered by blankets and pillows, or my sensory issues. He just says that I'm me and to stop being hung up on this label so much.

I understand where he's coming from....in real life I'm not very open about it. I know people think I'm weird. I do my best to try to fake it and I must say I've gotten good at it. But ASD's are genetic. If both of us have some form of an ASD, that means if we had children we'd have a pretty good chance of having an autistic child. We are engaged will be thinking about starting a family at some point.....not that I wouldn't want a child like me, I just don't know if that's what he would want....

I think it's good that you are thinking about this issue. There are many positive traits that come with being on the spectrum but we can't over look some of the negatives that come with being on the spectrum. It can't be an easy life to be hyper sensitive and non-verbal in an environment that does not accommodate for those differences.

The problem is that we lack good research about this issue of genetics. It was implied that the "Silicon Valley syndrome" was the cause of a rise in LFA in that area because geek males and females were having children. I wouldn't believe this with out checking out the data yourself. The implication was that two aspie = increased chance of LFA children. I don't know if this is true. I don't even know if they have good scientific data about this or if it is just hypothesis. Did they take into account anything in the environment in Silicon Valley that may have triggerred genetic mutations in addition to AS parents that could account for some of the LFA issues? I wouldn't buy the theory with out seeing some hard numbers....there is some "bad science" out there and manipulation of statistics that can be very misleading.