Training an aspie

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Some background: I consider myself to be almost completely normal (with the exception of monotone voice at times, synthetic facial expressions, and periodic obsessive interests), and have only been called out for being weird a few times in my life. I was formally diagnosed with AS in late 2010. I have a friend with a far more severe case of AS than myself, and have recently taken it upon myself to correct his behavior such that he may function as well as I do around other people. He has a tendency to talk incessantly about his (to me as well as others around me) moot and esoteric special interests, and often over-reacts to humor. He will often laugh and exaggerate the comedic effect of a joke far more than is warranted, and will ask questions based on taboo and unspoken of subjects (most of his special interests focus on ancient history and fringe theories such as aliens and gods influencing it). These compiled characteristics have made him alien to the social construct established by a neurotypical world, and we are both in our senior year of high school. I cannot let him out into the "who you know, not what you know world," with his extremely limited skill set. Despite my almost absent internal controversy over doing this altruistic deed, I still would like the moral confirmation, and maybe some advice from my acquaintances at WrongPlanet. Let me know that you are out there!

*Additionally, I know that I am more normal than he is, because I often hear friends of mine talk about him behind his back, and if they suspected that we were anything alike, then they would not talk to me about him.

Do you care more about the well being of your friend or what your other friends who talk about him behind his back would think if they knew you had the same disorder as him? And not everyone is able to perfectly copy NT behavior correcting someone all the time to try and make them change how they act entirely is probably not the best way to help.

Well, I actually administer the lessons over lunch every day in a fairly controlled setting, and as for what I care about more: some of my other friends do know about my disorder. I try to make certain that he is not as much offended by my extension of assistance as he is helped, but sometimes "tough love" is necessary. I do not want to see a perfectly good human life go to waste; he is capable of so much, but he needs the assets to communicate his skills effectively. Thank you for your insight, also: do you know of any other means by which I could help him (practically, not emotionally).

I think you'd actually help him a great deal if you came out as AS yourself. His autism is more obvious than yours, so you could serve as a "translator" when he can't figure out the NTs or the NTs can't figure him out.

BTW, I think the best approach is not to try to "train" him. By that, I mean, don't try to just teach him procedures that are meaningless. You know how if you teach a dog to shake, the dog has no clue that shaking hands is a greeting? That's "training" and it's no good. I don't know whether it's the same thing you mean by "training", though.

Better to get him a lot of information, general theory--translate the NT response, and translate for him for your NT friends. So, rather than telling him "Don't talk about aliens," you could explain how our culture considers conspiracy theories to be eccentric and sometimes off-putting; about what a taboo is and why societies have taboos, and under which circumstances they may be broken. You may talk about how to express one's mirth when hearing a joke so that the NT who told it knows you find it funny, but doesn't find your laughter annoying.

Remember that this guy is not your "project"; he is your friend. You may find him helping you, too. I have been helped by people who are more autistic than I am, because when they have severe versions of the problems that I have mild versions of, they have often been forced to learn to work around them, while I've been trying to brute-force my way through. What they learned are things I can use. And, believe it or not, passing as NT doesn't necessarily mean you are better at coping with the world. Sometimes, the people who pass the most easily are actually more impaired than the people who are most obviously autistic. There's more to autism than social skills, after all.

You talk about altruism. Well, here's a bit of altruism for you: Are you willing to become less popular so that you can better defend your friend? If so, it might be worthwhile to consider telling your gossipy NT friends, "Hey, look; I have AS too, and it's not cool to talk about him behind his back for stuff he can't help."

Please remember that I only teach him over lunch every day, this is not an all-day event. Suicide and anorexia are, in fact, similar to this situation because if I did not stop him from being pathologically self-destructive in social situations, he will have effectively killed himself to the rest of the world.

Has your friend actually asked for your help?

If not, you may find they get bored and annoyed with your attempts to correct their behaviour (even if you only do this at lunchtime every day) and no longer wish to be your friend.

It would drive me bonkers. I do sometimes ask for help from friends to get the correct interpretation on a social interaction that didn't go too well. But if they offered this advice unsolicited I'd get annoyed ...

Somebody actually tried this to me here on this site, and I eventually clammed up when he sent messages trying to correct me and to stop me from talking about a special interest that I had at the time. He got very frustrated and angry and abusive with me and broke off his friendship with me. I went through a very bad and rebellious phase for two and a half years after that, just to get the angries out.

If someone told me I need to stop talking about or obsessing about my speical intrests, I would punch them.

Yeah, I'd rather be alone than have someone constantly telling me I'm doing this wrong, doing that wrong, making a mistake here... That's the most discouraging thing in the world.

I wouldn't want to have fifteen or twenty faces to show to the world; I would be afraid to lose my own identity under all those masks. I have only one face--myself--and yes, it's eccentric. I am who I am, unapologetically, and my only social strategy is to treat people with respect. I refuse to spend my time constantly and neurotically asking myself whether I am doing the "appropriate" thing.

There are many more important things than being normal; being yourself is one of them. I prefer solitude to trying to deceive the whole world about who I am, what I enjoy thinking about and doing, and what my experiences of the world are like. If people like me only because I am doing my best NT act, then the best that can happen is that they will like the act but have no clue who I actually am. That's not "making friends"; that's method acting.

Ironically--especially once I got past the dog-eat-dog world of high school--many other people think that's just fine. They don't mind my being eccentric; they know I will accept their oddities, too. If something I do were to hurt someone, I would want them to tell me so I can stop doing it--and I would want them to be open about what they think just like I'm open about what I think. But if what I do is odd and hurting no one, then they can suck it up and deal with it, or else find someone else to hang out with.

Why don't you ask your friend what his goals and the areas he wants to improve on are. Personal growth is a choice, and he will be more likely to succeed if he's being coached in areas he's motivated to improve in.

His goals may be more general than specific, he may not say he wants to work on his eye contact but rather he wants to be more successful in a certain situation, which you may suggest could be more positive through better eye contact.

So yeah essentially, ask for his input a bit I'd say, otherwise "you can draw a horse to water...."