Friend might have aspergers?

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Hey everyone, I've got a friend that exhibits a lot of behaviors that I've recently started to realize may indicate some form of asperger's. I wanted to get some other peoples thoughts/opinions on it, so I figured this place was the best place to do it. I found this site a few weeks back and have been lurking a bit, learning more about AS.

Anyhow, I'm sure this post is going to be long and drawn out, but I appreciate anyone that takes the time to read it and let me know what they think. I'll try to keep it as concise as possible.

There's a lot of behavior my friend exhibits that seems like AS. One of the most recent and clear examples was recently, he was hanging out with a gay friend of his from college. Anyhow, my friend (we'll just call him Mike) was invited back to his friends house to watch a movie. They ended up watching Brokeback Mountain. Part way through the movie, Mike's friend started resting his head on mike's shoulder. When Mike was telling me about it it was clear that he had no interest other than friendship with this guy, but Mike didn't really know what to do in the situation, and so just let it go. Later in the movie, his friend rested his head on his lap, and ended up playing with his hand and rubbing his stomach.

Now to me, this is very clear that his gay friend was coming on to him, and were it me I would have put a stop to it early on and made it clear I had no interest. This whole experience clearly made Mike uncomfortable from when he was telling me about it later, but he didn't really know what to do in the situation. I'm guessing he was worried about offending his friend, and may not have fully picked up on the fact that his gay friend was coming on to him, that's all just speculation though. Anyhow, i just thought it was interesting because most NT people would realize what was going on, and put a stop to it if they were not interested.

He acts in a lot of ways like he may have AS. He has a very rigid posture and gait, he almost seems hypersensitive to stimulation sometimes. Awhile back someone dropped something on the floor behind him in class and he half jumped and snapped back to look at it. He does stuff like that pretty frequently, hear a noise or whatever and kinda jerk back to look at it. He also has a few different repetitive movements he does when talking. He touches his chin alot when talking, cracks his neck very frequently. I've been trying to notice if he doesn't make a lot of eye contact when talking, and it does seem that way, he looks away pretty frequently.

He also has a very hard time socializing with other people. People just dont get him. He tries to socialize a lot, but he just doesn't seem to pick up on social cues and social norms. Also, it can be hard to have conversations around him, because the conversation will go one direction, and he will try to bring it back to something someone said before, that reminded him of something that is somewhat related, but pretty far off of the original topic. Then nobody knows what to say because often they can't follow his logic to getting to that new subject, or we were on a completely different subject at that point.

Sometimes when talking to him it just seems like he is waiting for his turn to say what he thought of, rather than listening to what you are saying. Someone else actually mentioned that about him, I hadn't really picked up on that until then. He is constantly throwing out new subjects that are hardly related to the discussion at hand, which I think is the main thing people don't like. Lots of obscure movie references, with only tenuous threads of logic connecting them. Almost like he expects other people to think the same way he is. People just don't "get" him.

He's also very intelligent. We're in a pretty demanding program at school, and he did exceptionally well on our huge standardized test, better than 90% of the people in our class at least. He's also ambidextrous, don't know if that has anything to do with AS, but I read a thread about it here.

He was very socially withdrawn in undergrad from what I understand. Sometimes I feel like he thinks he missed out on life experiences by doing that, so now he's trying to go all out and regain those lost experiences. by being as social as possible. He always goes out to the bars or parties with the whole class, but honestly never really seems to have fun.

I'm posting here to kinda see what people think. I'm probably the closest person to him in our program, because I do make an effort to hang out with him from time to time (honestly not all that much, I sit by him every day in class, and hang out every once and awhile), and always invite him out when everyone else is going out. Most people in our group hardly give him the time of day, because he can be very awkward or say inappropriate things at times, but I try to be patient with him. Part of an issue is that he has really latched on to me, which is fine, but sometimes it gets to be a bit much. He gets into everything I'm into, does a lot of things like me, and really parrots me in ways that are somewhat unnerving at times. Any hobby I have, he really gets after in an attempt to get common ground with me I think. In some ways he'll imitate me or say opinions that sound alot like mine.

I've tried to help him where I can, but I'm not really sure what to do at times. I try and teach him some social norms here and there, or tell him when things are not ok, or give him advice on things occasionally. I honestly hang out with him very little aside from in class, but I talk to him pretty frequently on facebook or gchat. I don't mind hanging out with him from time to time, but he seems to want to do everything I do and go everywhere I go.

Anyhow, I'm sure I could write a ton more about this and come up with a million examples, but in the interest of keeping this short I'll leave it for further discussion.

I guess I'm just looking for advice, or other peoples thoughts.

Thanks

Have you raised the possibility that Mike may have some form of Autism with him?
I couldn't see from your post - but perhaps he already knows and simply hasn't mentioned it to you.

I haven't raised that question with him. Only in the past couple of weeks did I start to think this was a possibility, so I'm trying to decide where to go from here.

He was a psych major in college, and he's pretty open with me. I assume if he knew he would have told me by now. I've known him for a year and a half.

Hmm well, not necessarily.
There can be many reasons why people wouldn't tell others, and one in this case might be that he thinks you'd reject him if he told you.
You're probably already aware that some people have very odd and hurtful opinions about Autism and maybe he's been burned in the past.
Or, he's simply not that bothered about the label aspect of it and doesn't feel any need to 'confess'.

Of course there is one way to find out, but that would need the right moment to do it and to be handled sensitively.
You may uncover a can of worms he would rather have kept hidden, so tread carefully.

Good point. I hadn't really thought of it like that. I guess I just assumed someone with AS would generally tell people, in hopes of people being more understanding or patient. The only person I've had experience with that I knew had AS was a girl in one of my undergraduate classes. She actually did a power point presentation in one of the first few class sessions, in hopes people wouldn't misunderstand her.

I hadn't really thought of reasons why someone with AS wouldn't tell people, but there clearly could be many.

Yeah, some do make a point of informing people - and that Powerpoint presentation sounded really good!
I don't mind too much and I'll tell someone if it seems relevant to a particular problem that's occurred, but I don't make a point of wearing a badge or trumpeting about it. It's just not necessary for people to know, in most cases.