Meeting other aspies and feeling like a fraud

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What are your experiences in meeting other aspies?

I ask this because last night I was invited to "hang out" with the son of one of my mother's friends (who is aspie) and several of his friends (most of whom were also aspies). It was an interesting experience and I'm glad I met them, but I was left feeling a little confused. I'm used feeling like the odd one out in group situations because I'm different, but here I felt a bit like the odd one out because I was too "normal." It was very strange. I also found being with three other aspies pretty overloading because they were very loud, and often talked over each other. I'm a very quiet person and found this hard.

And while I know this may sound rather silly, I felt almost like a fraud. My aspie-ness is relatively subtle (I wasn't even diagnosed until I was almost 18), but the other aspies were all very, very obvious. After meeting them I feel kind of badly about calling myself an aspie (even though an AS specialist says I am) because they are so much more affected than myself. It's a strange conundrum. I feel too autistic to be normal, but not autistic enough to feel completely comfortable calling myself autistic.

I guess maybe I was expecting too much from an "aspie gathering." See, I met my boyfriend through WrongPlanet and from the first time I met him I completely felt as though I had finally found someone who was genuinely like me. It was an amazing experience.

So now I'm wondering about other people's experiences in meeting other aspies. I know we're all very different, but is their necessarily a kind of "aspie kinship"? Am I the only one who's had the experience of feeling a bit like a fraud? I'm curious to see what your experiences have been like.

Well, aspies are quite different, there's no aspie like another, from what I've heard/read/etc. For myself, my experience with other aspies is that I tend to get along great with them (only talked to two, except people on WP). My lodgers ex was diagnosed AS, and when I told her I suspected that I could have AS she said, "oh, so that's why I like you so much". Also, one summer, I was into this community that collected data for music albums and such, and, I ended up talking alot to a guy that I found out had AS/ADHD.

I think it all depends on who you talk to, and, what you talk about. AS is not a stereotype. I see it as a colour. Like, the whole spectrum of colours, they are all in the same spectrum, but blue is not the same as red. If you know what I mean . My view of the stereotypic AS/HFA-person is the one that goes around in the city, not aware of anyone else, and all he does is to love taking photographs of buses, but that, for me, is just the most extreme form of it. I know some people thinks that you are like the character in Rainman if you're AS. It's just not true.

We're different, but we're all different in our own way

Last edited by funkfisk on 25 Nov 2007, 2:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think that would be my problem if I met other aspies. I'd probably be "too normal".

It's very hard to hit it off, because each person has a different degree of aspiness. The fact that two people are aspies doesn't mean they have anything in common except a few traits in different degrees of intensity.

It's like gays say: the fact that the friend of your sister's boyfriend's aunt is gay doesn't mean we have enough in common to go on a blind date together.

It depends on where you are and the other aspies are on the spectrum; I may appear 'normal' to other aspies, but 'mildly eccentric' to NT's and other aspies all at the same time. It depends on where your point of reference is for normal 8O

I don't know. It is ODD! I sometimes feel the same. But I DO stim. Heck, I did a youtube video for someone that was AS, and found I started rocking! NORMALLY, I would have stopped, because it could be distracting BUT, considering the audience, I just kept going.

I visited one aspie(DIAGNOSED and OBVIOUS). She and I probably seemed more alike than anyone else there. SHE had her husband to keep her company though. Out of perhaps 10+ people there, I had NONE. MAN was it a let down. I was led to believe many there were aspie, and it turned out she was the only one, outside of one guy that came in late and was kind of quiet himself.

Still, younger aspies, DIAGNOSED EARLY and in support groups are likely to not change much, and may even seem MORE autistic. The rest of us DO change and seem more normal.

Sometimes I feel closer to the NT side of things when I'm with other aspies. Then again, I feel really aspie in a group of NTs. Sometimes I feel like I'm forever doomed to not fit in. What a scary prospect. Whenever I get on WP, my husband says, oh, she's with her own kind. As if we're all aliens who only commune in cyberspace....wait a minute that was a bad analogy...LOL...anyway...I think it's forever that feeling of just not clicking with other people. So, it prolly doesn't matter who we are with, we feel like we don't fit because we can't interface with other humans easily.

I have very little outward signs. I don't feel like I would fit in with stereotypical aspies much more easily than I fit in with NTs.

I feel very comfortable admitting to everyone I meet that I have AS. I've only been to a support group for adults with AS, but no private gatherings like you mentioned. Of course we are all different from each other.

I've had both experiences. Everybody's different. We're all human at our core, after all.

Besides, if you're having doubts, check out this article: The Discovery of the "Aspie" Criteria, http://www.thegraycenter.org/sectionsdetails.cfm?id=38 by Tony Attwood and Carol Gray. It focuses on our positive characteristics.

I'd probably make everyone question my diagnosis of Asperger's that Attwood and his crew gave me...twice. I'm the only one I've seen rocking/flapping in the reception area.

I've now had four diagnoses: 2 to Kanner, 2 to Asperger.

They're tied.

Last Monday, I travelled to Charlotte for an aspie meetup. One guy there was quite obvious. Another one was less so, and the last guy who was at the meetup was not readily obvious. I was kind of stressed out and disorganised with travelling up there and getting a hotel room, as well as with having to relearn the city a little bit.

This spectrum of behavior is also common with people that I've met over the past 20+ years that I now suspect as having some level of autistic deviation from the norm.--Some I've been freinds with, and some not.

Last edited by Fogman on 25 Nov 2007, 8:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Very, very true. I met a diagnosed aspie once, he was all right but we couldn't keep a conversation going - our social difficulties added up instead of canceling out. Also, I strongly suspect my boss is an aspie (makes all sorts of social faux pas in spite of being highly intelligent, doesn't seem to socialise with anyone, is a very focused person, is widely seen as aloof and arrogant though i don't think he really is like that, etc) and i am as unable to connect with him as everyone else is (I don't even particularly like him, though not because of his social mistakes, which i can understand).

I struggle with those kinds of feelings a lot. I don't have insurance and can't afford to fork out a few hundred on a psych. visit. I feel 100% sure that I have AS. I often really want to tell people that I have AS because of the way they've judged me for certain symptoms. But without an official diagnosis, I don't feel I have the right to be like "Well hey, I'm autistic, just thought you should know. I've never been diagnosed, and I know I look normal to you but I'm really not." I often feel that since I've overcome so much on my own, way before I knew AS even existed, that I should just keep it to myself or I'm looking for undue pity. Really I just want understanding. I don't know, it's just rough.

I also see a lot of people on here who's symptoms seem way worse than mine, and it makes me feel like an ass for thinking I have so many problems when so many others' seem worse.

Anyway, I can sympathize.

Too weird, yet too normal. Is there anywhere we'll be comfortable?

I don't think I show my Aspie-ness too outwardly; most people just think I'm very quiet or unfriendly. You'd have to crawl around in my head for awhile to find it, unless you know what you're looking for. Anyone with Asperger's would probably figure it out quickly enough. I don't know that I'd fit in with a group of Aspies, since I've never been in that situation.

Addendum: it is a spectrum after all. Family members of those with diagnosed autistic disorder exhibit autistic traits; they just aren't severe enough to affect their lives.

Not talking and constantly stimming to not noticing it at all.

Wait! You said you met you're boyfriend on WP...that probably means you are female. But you were hanging out with all AS guys. Well then that's one reason you would feel out of place. AS women and AS men in my experience are vastly different. The AS men I've met I cannot relate to at all.

Then again I did experience what you explained of all but one of the Aspies I have ever met, including females, were all very loud, would not shut up for one second to let you get a word in on the conversation and I am very quiet most of the time. So I find other AS irritating in person. Apparently I may be mild AS yet I will stim more than those who are said to be worse Aspies or even Kanners. I've kinda been questioning my own diagnoses even though I've been diagnosed 3 times with Aspergers. I'm definitely not normal. I am beginning to think I should just go back to my original self diagnosis of "weirdo" and leave it at that. I am so frustrated by other AS, the local AS group and even get peeved at co-workers I know have AS even if they don't know.