Bad news for us spergs: rolling back diagnoses

The news is the proposed revision of the diagnostic manual (DSM) is tightening up the criteria for diagnosis so only about about a fourth of the diagnosed would still be. Part of eliminating AS as a separate diagnosis from full autism. Of course we shouldn't use the AS as an excuse and just to ask for handouts, but this is going back to the bad old days of blaming us.

Michael John Carley of GRASP:

Once again, the New York Times is speculating that the new criteria would qualify only 76% of those currently diagnosed with classic autism, 24% of those currently diagnosed with Asperger's, and 16% of those currently diagnosed with PDD-NOS. This means that:

• Children who do not qualify for a diagnosis under the new revisions will almost certainly be denied special education funding by their cities and states (after all, what school board will spend money on a child with no officialy recognized learning challenge?)

• Many adults on SSI, SSDI, or Disability who barely meet the criteria for these services may not have those services (and health coverage) anymore.

• We risk a possible return to the days of 1993 and prior where negative interpretations of behavioral differences were rather status quo.

The motivations behind these mind-boggling changes, are very much unclear to us. While the autism world in our current void of information is speculating a multitude of possibilities — the most dramatic being improper influence of insurance companies — we would urge people to continue pressing the DSM-V committee with the idea that the current committee members have experience only with the more challenged end of the spectrum. None have any real experience with the end of the spectrum whose challenges are less physically visible.

Why do we want autistic kids to have superpowers?

On TV.

Read it here.

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.