A woman goes to the philharmonic in New York City alone. She meets a guy who is also alone. He asks her for a date, she goes once, doesn’t want to go again. She doesn’t return his calls. He sends an e-mail demanding to know why. Woman is so astounded she posts it on the Internet.
Read An investment banker’s cover letter for a second date, on Reddit.com.
Story suggested by a Lovefraud reader.
Hi Sky,
You are totally right. I didn’t mean to say that just because someone has Aspergers that they are never “evil”. I actually mean that an Aspie, unless afflicted with another disorder, is pretty much the same as most people when it comes to intentions. The average Joe can be a good guy or a bad guy. He might have a bad childhood, become an alcoholic, commit crime, etc. An Aspie could do this too. I just mean that the main difference between them and a spath is that a spath is ALWAYS evil. They have bad intentions. I doubt an Aspie is any more likely to be a rude, mean, spiteful, angry, narcissistic, etc person than anyone else.
The reason I thought that was an important distinction is because, on the surface, an Aspie may appear to have many traits in common with a spath. However, the desire to do harm isn’t an Aspie trait. It’s a spath trait. Plenty of non-Aspies do bad things, just like plenty of psychologically typical people do bad things. Yet for a spath, this is an MO.
Okay I’m drinking at the moment, so I think my answer might be ridiculous. Not sure. I’m a bit tipsy
Sky, I notice that article quotes Dr. Baron-Cohen’s book, but one I have not read. I may get that one….I’lll put it on my list. I am on a BOOK BUYING DIET until I can read the 6-8 ft. of books I have on a shelf now that are not yet read.
Am reading a good one now, fiction but GREAT STORY that many of us can relate to. A older woman who is mentoring to a younger woman from her (the older woman’s) perspective as a former victim of abuse…the name of the book is “Wire Grass” which is the name of the town it takes place in. It is really a good read and one that I would recommend as it has a lot of healing information in it, and points of view.
Panther, your answer is good, I get it.
I think that as we get to different levels of understanding about the disorders the need for labels begins to change.
I remember Kathleen Hawk saying that the labels were superfluous and I disagreed because I was at a place where I NEEDED the labels to make sense of things. With regard to my mother, I could not LET GO of my need for her until I could see that she fit the diagnositic of a psychopath. But as I grow and learn I’m seeing that need for diagnostic labels is beginning to fall away. People aren’t going to fit any one category – except for my uber spath – most of the time. We are all a mishmash of traits. And even those traits are going to be on a spectrum.
What I disagree with Dr. Baron-Cohen on is that he says that being high in empathy makes a person low in the systemizing mechanism. I can agree that this is generally the case, but I don’t think it is a rule.
I’m a pattern person. I’m obsessed with seeing patterns in everything. I’m not an organization obsessed person, so IMO that means I have no desire to IMPOSE patterns on anything. What I like is to “see” patterns which exist. This is how I make sense of the world. I reduce everything to abstracts, to the lowest common denominator and I can then use an analogy to incorporate the information into what I already understand. This isn’t always done intellectually, sometimes it happens more as a “sense” of patterns. Such as my sense of aesthetics or fashion sense.
Despite my pattern obsession, I also have high empathy, most of the time. I hate hurting peoples’ feelings. I am generally in touch with my emotions and like seeing other people happy. I can read peoples emotions and I can demonstrate emotion.
If it weren’t for those abilities, I would classify myself as aspie because of my pattern obsession. LOL!
So I guess, we’re all a myriad of traits which GENERALLY can be assumed to group together – such as being very logical can generally be assumed to be less emotional, but not always. These are tendencies but we have the choice to TRAIN ourselves to be different and to act different.
Oxy,
((((HAPPY BIRTHDAY))))
You’re 65 years young! yay!
There was a lunar eclipse this morning. It’s a good omen I think, for your birthday.
Yes, I’d like to read more of Baron-Cohen’s books. He has collected a lot of data.
Milo, Ox,
My exes parrot (African Grey also) used to say goodnight when you were turning lights an tv off at bedtime. She never said it any other time so ye they do seem to know. She had incredible timing and used to regularly call my ex a kn*b head but used to blow me kisses. Milo, I think he still has her. Poor thing
For the little brain they have, birds show tremendous learning abilities and situational intelligence. Not to mention their incredible eyesight (spotting prey from high up in the air) and their orientation sense to migrate.
Did anyone watch the lyre bird video I posted on the previous page? I’ve seen that one so often and still I sometimes wonder whether the BBC and Attenborough faked it… A bird mimicking a camera shutter and a chainsaw… just WOW
And HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Oxy!!!
I loved the lyre bird video, thank you for sharing it, Darwin’smom.
We put a bird feeder on the garden window of my office. Now I sit here and watch chickadee drama all day. It’s very distracting.
I decided some chickadees are evil because they are mean to other chickadees for no reason!!
😉
🙂
Ding Dong Ding Dong Christmas Bells are ringing ~!
oh my, wait ! That was Birthday Sirens I heard – Ox is how old?
I had my first-aid exam today… I passed.
But oh boy, what an afternoon… a clear example on how stress makes me so easily disfunctional, and unless I’m not well prepared, I wouldn’t get anywhere.
This is what happened: Printer was out of ink, so I googled the directions to get there, and then drew and wrote it down (the old way). I left an hour before the exam. It would take me half an hour drive to get there I expected, and even if I’d get lost, I’d have an extra half hour to search. Then a car accident happened right in front of me. There was either a defect car or accidented car on the left lane (the speediest one), right after a traffic light (weird highway: I think it’s the sole one in the world having 2 heavy trafficked lights) where the cars pull up speed. The car coming onto it had stopped far ahead in time to avoid it. But the car in front of me, and right behind the car that had managed to stop safely, banged right into it.
I had noticed hte car was breaking, and though I was surprised the car went hard on the breaks, I had enough distance between us to break well on time. But of course there was a moment I feared the car behind me could not stop on time.
I saw the smoke coming out of the car in front of me, meanwhile a guy in a neon jacket from the defect car was waving right at the left of me for the oncoming cars to slow down. He scared the bejeebus out of me, because it was so unexpected to see someone standing there, waving.
I didn’t notice any obviously wounded people, and so drove on, and decided to call emergencies anyway. The waving guy had been calling on his cell phone, but not sure it were police or ambulance. And it was such a dangerous spot, it could create more accidents.
I couldn’t stop anywhere so I did call while driving, and hten the woman started to ask questions (the exact name of the spot) I could not precisely answer, while I arrived at an area where I had to keep my wits to stay orientated and take the right exit. Even when I fully concentrated on orientation, because I had done my call-it-in duty and wasn’t on the phone anymore, I still managed to take EVERY wrong turn I could. Furthermore, Brussel’s directions signs are HORRIBLE. And all I had to do was simply drive on ahead (but ahead is with curves, and not always easy to be distinguished as straight ahead).
Finally I arrived at the point I knew was maybe but 500 m away from the center where I had to do the exam, and then I still took 2 wrong turns… I was already 40 mins too late, and almost ready to just drive back home and throw in the towel of defeit. I didn’t have a phone number of the center either.
But then I reasoned, as I drove back to the point that was 500 m away, to try the last direction I could try there… just one more effort. And there it was. I was super grateful I had studied the Google Street View of the office building and parking lot earlier on, so that I could recognize it.
When I stepped out of the car, my legs were like jelly from all the stress: the accident, how lucky I had been, the disorientation, the being late for an exam… Aaaagh.
Luckily, the people were very understanding and allowed me some time to gather my wits again for the theoretical questions, the CPR exercise, and the simulation exercise. To be honest I still don’t know for sure what was the matter with the simulation patient (asthma or heatstroke), but I did stood by him, asked as much as I could and he could sign to have info for emergency workers. I advized against drinking for him. And when he passed out I did the right things to get him from the chair onto the ground and stretch his head to ensure breathing, and passed on the necessary info for the one to call in emergencies.
I’m thinking I would help myself a lot if I were to buy a GPS. Still proud, that despite the stress and my orientation breaking down because of it rapidly, I persisted in doing the exam and passed it.
Darwinsmom,
Wow, you did good! And passed the exam! Congratulations.
Oxy,
Happy Birthday! (did you get the tatoo yet?)