(I am an NT married to an Aspie. This is a note I wrote from our FB page called Happy Robot Inc, named by my Aspie husband. We are teaming up to make communication between the two cultures a bit easier.) During our marriage, Mark and I would often have strange to me conversations. At the time I thought he was waxing philisophical. He would ask me questions like, "What does motivation mean to you?" or "What does love mean to you?" So we would have a conversation and I could feel that he was still in a quandry when it concluded. So what does motivation mean? Dictionary.com says motivation is the act or an instance of motivating. It gives me the option to look up motive which leads me to the definition: something that causes a person to act in a certain way, do a certain thing, etc.; incentive. What is that something? An aspie would have no idea. I know Mark has looked up many definitions of words. Even our dictionaries are emotion based. Words that have baffled Mark: love, drive, motivation, empathy, sympathy, boredom, pride, etc. Some of these are words that I had never considered to be emotion based, and in this consideration, I have questioned my own emotions and how they limit me, but that's another note. I asked him how he makes himself go to work if motivation is absent. He said he sees work as a rule and abides by the rule. And at work, he learns the rules and works up to the standard of the rules. ( NTs break the rules ALL OF THE TIME. This is a thorn in his side. He is working on trying to relax a little. A word that I'm not sure he knows what it means.) So we could be sad about this, but I'm not. I've lived with him a long time. He is a content, lovely, non judging person to be with. He copes quite well in many matters and I love his perspective on life. It really is like he's living on the wrong planet rather than being broken. He's quite happy with himself as far as I can tell. I know he wishes that he understood the NT language better just as he wishes he could speak Italian. So if you have an aspie in your life, consider the words you are using. Check the aspie dictionary first.