Electronics and experimental psychology were much more intriguing than clothes. My peers spent hours standing around talking about jewelry or some other topic with no real substance. What did they get out of this? I just did not fit in. I never fit in with the crowd, but I had a few friends who were interested in the same things, such as skiing and riding horses. Friendship always revolved around what I did rather than who I was.
Even today, personal relationships are something I don't really understand. And I still consider sex to be the biggest, most important «sin of the system,» to use my old high school term. It has caused the downfall of many reputations and careers. From reading books and talking to people at conventions, I have learned that the autistic people who adapt most successfully in personal relationships either choose celibacy or marry a person with similar disabilities. By successful adaptation, I mean being able to lead a productive, satisfying life. Marriages work out best when two people with autism marry or when a person with autism marries a handicapped or eccentric spouse. The two partners get together because they have similar interests, not because of physical attraction. They are attracted because their intellects work on a similar wavelength.
I've remained celibate because doing so helps me to avoid the many complicated social situations that are too difficult for me to handle. For most people with autism, physical closeness is as much a problem as not understanding basic social behaviors. At conventions I have talked to several women who were raped on dates because they did not understand the subtle cues of sexual interest. Likewise, men who want to date often don't understand how to relate to a woman. They remind me of Data, the android on Star Trek. In one episode, Data's attempts at dating were a disaster. When he tried to be romantic, he complimented his date by using scientific terminology. Even very able adults with autism have such problems.
In News from the Border, Paul McDonnell describes an experience with dating, explaining that «things were going fine between us until I started being obsessed with seeing her very often.» Paul realized that he was pushing the woman to spend more and more time with him when she just wanted to be friends. He was not able to recognize that his girlfriend didn't want constant togetherness. Autistic adults with more rigid thinking have even worse problems when they attempt to date. They have no idea of appropriate behavior. One young man became interested in a girl and went to her house wearing a football helmet to disguise himself. He thought that it would be all right to look in her windows. In his literal, visual mind he thought that since he would not be recognized, it was okay to stand outside and watch for her.
Although business relationships can easily be learned by rote, dating is difficult. The social skills one needs to rent an apartment and keep a job were easier for me to learn than the social skills for dating, because I have very few emotional cues to guide me during complex social interactions. After one of my lectures, I received a totally inappropriate Valentine from a young man with autism. It was the kind of Valentine that third-graders give to each other. He expected me to consider it as a serious proposal and was disappointed when I ignored him. I did not write back, because I have learned from experience that responding to this kind of mail just encourages it. His teachers need to explain to him that making a proposal to someone you have just met is not acceptable. Like me, he has to be taught the rules of social interaction just as he is taught spelling. When I have to deal with family relationships, when people are responding to each other with emotion rather than intellect, I need to have long discussions with friends who can serve as translators. I need help in understanding social behavior that is driven by complex feelings rather than logic.
Hans Asperger stated that normal children acquire social skills without being consciously aware because they learn by instinct. In people with autism, «Social adaptation has to proceed via intellect.» Jim, the twenty- seven-year-old autistic graduate student I have mentioned in previous chapters, made a similar observation. He stated that people with autism lack the basic instincts that make communication a natural process. Autistic children have to learn social skills systematically, the same way they learn their school lessons. Jim Sinclair summed it up when he said, «Social interactions involve things that most people know without having to learn them.» He himself had to ask many detailed questions about experiences other people were having to figure out how to respond appropriately. He describes how he had to work out a «separate translation code» for every new person. Similarly,Tony W had an intellectual awareness of how other people felt, but he did not experience those feelings himself Donna Williams described how she copied emotions so that she acted normal, but it was a purely mechanical process, like retrieving files from a computer.
I do not read subtle emotional cues. I have had to learn by trial and error what certain gestures and facial expressions mean. When I started my career, I often made initial contacts on the telephone, which was easier because I did not have to deal with complex social signals. This helped me get my foot in the front door. After the initial call, I would send the client a project proposal and a brochure showing pictures of previous jobs. The call enabled me to show my qualifications without showing my nerdy self-until I was hired to design the project. I was also good at selling advertising for the Arizona Cattle Feeders' Association annual magazine on the telephone. I just called up a big company and asked for its advertising department. I had no fear of anyone's rank or social position. Other people with autism have also found that becoming friends with somebody on the phone is easier than building a face-to-face relationship, because there are fewer social cues to deal with.
Autistic people tend to have difficulty lying because of the complex emotions involved in deception. I become extremely anxious when I have to tell a little white lie on the spur of the moment. To be able to tell the smallest fib, I have to rehearse it many times in my mind. I run video simulations of all the different things the other person might ask. If the other person comes up with an unexpected question, I panic. Being deceptive while interacting with someone is extremely difficult unless I have fully rehearsed all possible responses. Lying is very anxiety- provoking because it requires rapid interpretations of subtle social cues to determine whether the other person is really being deceived.
Some researchers don't believe autistics are capable of deception. They subscribe to Uta Frith's conception of autism, wherein people with the syndrome lack a «theory of mind.» According to Frith, many people with autism are not able to figure out what another person may be thinking. It is true that autistics with severe cognitive deficits are unable to look at situations from the vantage point of another person. But I have always used visualization and logic to solve problems and work out how people will react, and I have always understood deception.
As a schoolchild, I played hide-and-seek. I learned how to trick the seeker into going the wrong way by stuffing my coat with leaves and putting it in a tree. I also had my entire boarding school believing that they had seen a flying saucer when I swung a cardboard saucer containing a flashlight in front of another girl's window. When she asked me about it, I told her she had probably seen a piece of insulation falling from the roof of our unfinished dormitory. I had rehearsed a whole bunch of explanations for the sighting, including the falling insulation, so she wouldn't connect my absence with the appearance of the saucer. My ploy was successful. Within two days, most of the students thought that a real flying saucer had been sighted. This deception was easy because I had gone over in my imagination all the stories I was going to tell.
I've always enjoyed these kinds of tricks, because they require a vivid imagination, which I have in abundance. I'm motivated by the same challenge that makes hackers break into computers. I really identify with clever hackers. If I were fourteen years old today, I'm sure I'd be hacking away just for the thrill of seeing whether I could do it. I would never engage in harmful deceptions, though. In some ways I guess these tricks are a substitute for deeper human connection. They enable me to penetrate the world of other people without having to interact with them.
Often people with autism are taken advantage of. Paul McDonnell wrote about the painful experience of being betrayed by somebody he thought was his friend, having his money stolen and his car damaged. He didn't recognize the social signals of trouble. It is easy for me to understand the concept of deception when it involves playing tricks with flying saucers or stuffing coats with leaves, but understanding the social cues that indicate an insincere person is much more difficult. In college I was betrayed by students who pretended to be my friends. I told them my innermost thoughts, and the next thing I knew they were laughing about them at a party.
Over time, I have built up a tremendous library of memories of past experiences, TV, movies, and newspapers to spare me the social embarrassments caused by my autism, and I use these to guide the decision process in a totally logical way. I have learned from experience that certain behaviors make people mad. Earlier in my life, my logical decisions were often wrong because they were based on insufficient data. Today they are much better, because my memory contains more information. Using my visualization ability, I observe myself from a distance. I call this my little scientist in the corner, as if I'm a little bird watching my own behavior from up high. This idea has also been reported by other people with autism. Dr. Asperger noted that autistic children observe themselves constantly. They see themselves as an object of interest. Sean Barron, in his book There's a Boy in There, describes having conversations with himself to figure out social mistakes. He divides himself into two people
