Navigating love and autism

Here.

Great dating advice

Here.

Advice to the infamous rejected e-mail guy.

This answer is so good it makes me wonder if Michael P is Coach Roissy. No-bullshit, uncensored social-skills advice from the cool brother or friend (wingman) you should have or wish you did.

(What Roissy would say to e-mail guy, among other things: Jumbotron test. Girls don’t like big, impassioned speeches. Movies and TV are garbage.)

Word: with online dating you too can parallel date.

BTW here’s e-mail guy’s online-dating profile. Good-looking and rich. No wonder he gets lots of first dates. Now that I see him I wonder if he’s really autistic. He writes like it. Shows the danger of long-distance diagnosis. He may be, or he may just be used to having his way because he’s rich and handsome, or maybe both.

(He looks like a stone alpha but sounds like a beta.)

A few years ago online I met this smoking-hot divorcee six years older than me. Brunette with killer rack. Smart enough, hot pics, accepting flirty IMs, great. Went on an eight-hour first date (spring afternoon and evening in a romantic little town). I could tell she wasn’t very into me but she was in no hurry to leave either and most important wasn’t rebuffing my advances. Even made out a couple of times in the bar later that night. (Rare on first dates but I’ve had it happen more than once.)

She disappeared after the first date. She was back trolling the dating site, and evasive when I called her, once, to find out what was up. Didn’t know game yet but learned enough not to say a lot.

It happens. To normals. Don’t worry about it.

(Game hindsight: I made some aspie beta moves, too clingy, that probably turned her off.)

Another story: I made a similar mistake as e-mail guy in writing (this was before there was e-mail) with my second girlfriend. Live and learn.

P.S. If he weren't a sperg, he wouldn't need a dating service.

Normal people suck

Ho, ho, ho.

Merry Christmas anyway.

Recent true story: how not to handle dating rejection

An investment banker makes a fool out of himself.

A snippet of living with Asperger's

Here.

With understanding and thus the right kind of help, it's not a prison sentence.

Misleading assumptions about quiet people

Here.

How to read people at a bar by how they hold their drinks

Here.

Two from GRASP

• 9 pieces of advice.
• Infantilizing the autistic.

25 acts of body language to avoid

Here.

How to survive at work when you have AS

Here, by AS blogger Penelope Trunk.

The Onion makes fun of the autistic

Autistic Reporter: Train Thankfully Unharmed In Crash That Killed One Man

Oh. My. God.

This humor site's always sneered at those less fortunate; underneath political correctness and transcript/résumé-polishing "community service" that's what the upper-middle-class snobs who write and read the thing really think of them. If they had their way they'd test for autism in pregnancy and abort us, a "final solution," ja? (The Nazis called the disabled "useless eaters.")

Something these things can teach us: fact is the world is cruel and makes fun of us, and we have to know that. We may not be this obvious but we're on the autistic spectrum; in little ways we might be making these mistakes.

That said, Onion, you suck.

How to avoid conversational narcissism

Here.

Ten things women never want to hear on a first date

Here.

"The Social Network": does Mark Zuckerberg have AS?

Saw it last night and thought so.

The debate.

A case against it.

"I don't quite belong in the world we're in"

I fairly often find I’m with people who forget I don’t quite belong in the world we're in. I find I put a foot wrong – it could be pronunciation, an arcane bit of English history – and suddenly I’m there naked, as someone with a pass, a press ticket.

– Playwright Tom Stoppard

How to handle a woman talking down to you

Part of having AS is giving off a weakling vibe without meaning to, for the most part not being able to help it. Being naturally clumsy doesn't help. Doubly bad for men, because as Coach Roissy says, girls hate sweet, weak "betas" and love strong "alphas." And that's not just the hot chicks, although it's doubly true of them since of course they have much higher standards/they're not desperate. Long story short: most people don't take you seriously. As Tony Attwood says, you attract two kinds of normal people, mothers (patronizing) or predators (bullies).

That and being slower to pick up social cues or, my point today, adapting to changes in them.

Having a presidential IQ and a professor's vocabulary doesn't change any of that. Life's not fair.

I can tell the difference between a real compliment - like when the guy's guy of a boss says he likes how I now dress up for work, which I've done for about a year (and for a good reason: I get to go out of the office and deal with the public; not bad for an AS person), or the hot (of course taken) part-timer's supermodel smile saying, "You look nice!" - and a fake one.

What about the formerly friendly chubby girl who sees you by the water cooler or copier and says, "What's this? Are you going on a job interview?" A note of sarcasm you never heard from her before. Red alert! You're thrown off your autopilot routine/script for handling this person, a weakness of AS people.

"I'm a ____ (name the job)," stressing the last word, sounding rightly annoyed. Good move so far.

"So what are you ____ (name the job) now?" in the same patronizing tone she probably uses on her five-year-old nephew's claim to be Spider-Man.

AS mistake: assume this cow's still friendly and give a literal if flat answer.

Better: almost getting in her face (walking a step or two closer to her only if you have to), keeping your expression neutral, look her in the eye, and say, "I don't like your tone." (This should work if you keep your tone flat.) Then turn and start to leave.

If this person says, "Well, sor-ry!" or "Well, gah!" (sarcastic), keep walking and don't say anything more. If it's a long, patronizing "sorry" trying to sound all sweet if it's a girl, look her in the eye again (but don't walk back to her), wear the same deadpan expression and use the same neutral tone, and say, "This conversation's over." And walk away.

Front personalities to study and adapt for you: tough-guy movies and TV. (I said adapt. Don't overdo it by acting note for note or it will backfire or you'll get in trouble.) AS men think their wordiness works; it doesn't. Remember, alpha males don't talk a lot. If it wouldn't fit on the Jumbotron in big letters, don't say it.

(An alpha wouldn't give off the vibe to get teased like that either but you can still learn to react like one. Rehearse it until it becomes a habit.)

20/20 hindsight.

You're welcome. :)

AS on TV: Brick on "The Middle"

Article. A reason to watch besides Patricia Heaton's charms.

AFAIK like a lot of us the character's undiagnosed but totally one of us, down to repeating things in a whisper just after he's said them, the way some of us think aloud.

Honest Graduation Song

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.