Big Brother again

Apologies for my non-UK readers, and the 99% of UK readers who don't watch Big Brother :)

There are two people who are interesting me this year. Well, three. I am finding Faye interesting as she is quite emotional and seems rather sensitive, but what interests me about her is that when someone does something she doesn't like, or says something that upsets her, she will spend a few minutes on her own and then go and talk to that person to explain what they said/did and how it upset/offended her. I'm the exact opposite; I'm a brooder. I wonder if things would be better and easier if that is how I behaved. I sometimes think that when someone does something to upset me I should say, but every time it does happen, all those thoughts go out the window and I retreat into myself and the shutters come down.

The flip side is that other people seem to be reacting badly to her and think she is too emotional. So is this a better way to behave, or not? Or is there a happy medium?

Aaron is also interesting. I see a lot of myself in him; we both seem to take things very personally and are "sensitive" and easily offended on very deep levels. Like me, he is also a brooder rather than a talker. Again this behaviour is also starting to annoy various other people, mainly with his withdrawn nature.

As well as being deeply offended maybe more easily than I should be, I also see myself as being the only one ever hurt in a situation, and that other people are indifferent and not feeling the hurt that I am. And that seems to deepen my despair. Further I find myself more likely to withdraw from a situation or circle in order to remove myself from the hurting presence, yet the other party never seems to feel the need. Again this piles more onto my misery as I feel that I have to suffer and stop doing things or going places whereas others just don't seem to care. I don't know if they do care and are also hurting but are better at hiding it, or not being affected by it, or if I'm just always being "too sensitive".

Regardless, it seems I always end up the "loser" in any given situation, the one who always has to adjust and suffer, and I see that in Aaron too.

The third thing to interest me is something that I've always suspected, but it is nice to see it played out in flesh and blood. No matter how big a dick you are, as long as you're attractive women will forgive you anything.

It's good to think - but not too much

As I was reading this news link I was thinking about it being related to autism before it was even mentioned.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11340881

Butterflies and rocks

In my head I see the conversation we have in situations I lack the courage to engineer. I wait like a coward instead. Wait for the situation to occur naturally, of its own will as I lose mine and remain silent like a coward instead. You walk off to your life, I walk back to mine.

Autistic Superstars

The BBC are doing a series of programmes about people with autism and on the whole they've been very good (such is the advantage of license-funded television :) ) and one such show was Autistic Superstars. The show aims to show-case the savant-like talents that some people with autism can exhibit, although it was concentrating mainly on those with musical talents.

One such chap I want to concentrate on is Derek Paravicini, who is a blind pianist. One of the party tricks he did on the show was for people to shout out songs and he would play them as an example of his incredible memory for songs. The thing is…is he a musical genius? Or just someone with an incredible memory for songs? For him is a song just a series of notes, like a computer program is just a series of ones and zeros for me? It is also known that autistic people can have a talent for patterns so this all that Derek is actually demonstrating? Not music per se, but patterns.

When he was playing his songs there was an incredible lack of warmth in his playing, the songs were mechanical and cold. I know it's a hard thing to put into words, but his songs just don't "sound right", they don't sound like music. This was best shown when someone shouted for him to play "Poker Face" by Lady Ga Ga. I assume you're aware of the piece :) It's not quite Beethoven, and it has some rather repetitive elements with a certain note in particular being repeated, and when he came to the repetitive bits he just literally hit the exact same note in time with the song. Ok…it might have been technically correct…but it wasn't music. What song has a pianist just hitting the same note, twice a second for 5 seconds and nothing else? It was like he knew the notes and the order and the timing but he was unable to interpret and produce what we consider to be music. He wasn't able to inject warmth or emotion.

There was another girl called Carly Ryan who could sing, however there were incredible similarities with Derek. Was she really singing, or just replying those ones and zeros in the right order with the right timing? When she spoke she would often use lines from movies and songs as sentences and she would recite them in the same style as they were uttered at the source…almost like an imitation, so she would seemingly break into an American accent while reciting what seems to be a sentence but is actually a line from a movie. Were her songs just imitations too? If she was given a new song to sing could she sing it? Did she know what notes were and how to hit them?

Obviously I don't want to knock these people for their extraordinary talents and abilities; I just thought it was quite a fascinating insight into what is maybe going on under the covers with these savant-type skills.

Update on work

I've been at my job for over 6 months now and I've pretty much settled in…as have others settled with me. The person I sit beside has already remarked that I eat the same thing for lunch every day. Winter's gone so at least I'm not getting comments about never wearing a jacket any more. It also turns out an ex-colleague went to university with someone at my work. I know their name but I'm not too familiar with them as a person. I had met up with this ex-colleague and he asked me if I know such-and-such and I said "not really." Someone else who was there asked "does he know AS4L?" to which the ex-colleague replied with a smile "oh, everyone knows AS4L". I don't know if that's good or bad. I'm hoping it is in reference to my legendary comedy skills :)

As for my colleagues in general…it really is same s**t different day. The things that annoyed me in my old place are just annoying me slightly less in my new place. It seems that other people's flaws are universal. Again I am finding myself frustrated at other people's lack of attention to detail and inability to come up with decent solutions to things. I know that the detail thing is maybe just me being too focussed on detail, but I don't know if it isn't also that they're just slack or don't care. Maybe it's a bit of both.

On a related note I can see myself doing some things that, in hindsight, maybe weren't the best ideas I've ever had. One colleague brought me to his computer for me to look at something they had finished but I didn't like the way they had done it. I didn't like it at all. I advised them of a better way that was in keeping with good principles and practices and would be more flexible for the client and less prone to errors but they didn't seem to care, in their mind the job was done. So when I got back to my own computer I completely re-wrote everything they had done. When my way was finished I showed the colleague my method and explained why it was better. It was only in the following days it dawned on me that it would probably piss me off if I showed something to someone and they went and re-wrote it. I suppose it could be considered disrespectful…but he should have taken my advice and implemented my method himself so I didn't have to do it for him :)

Similarly I went over reams and reams of another colleagues work and noted down every error. I fixed most of them but left the more complicated issues for them to fix. When I was done I sent them this big list of things I had fixed and a list for them still to fix. My intention of telling him the things I had fixed was so he was aware that he had done them wrong so he could look at the updated version and learn from it…but again it was only in the following days that I realised he probably just thinks I'm a prick :)

Turning off

Since I've started my new job I've been almost over-stimulated mentally and I'm finding it hard to switch off when I leave. It's not just when I leave either; I often work through a bit of my lunch too. It's like I'm so focussed on what I'm doing and what the next step is, that I just want to get to that step. Usually I'm lifting my feet up for the cleaners while everyone else has gone home, just wanting to do that little bit more. When I finally leave I just can't turn off and what I need to do the next day just goes around and around my head.

In the evening I usually send an e-mail from my home account to my work account detailing what I have to do the next day and in it I make any notes about things I need to check, things I need to make sure other people are doing and so on. It seems to help me and I do go down a gear after I've sent the email, almost like it's the full stop to the working day. It can be worse on Friday as I have the whole weekend to mull things over before I can get back to it!

I'm sure it's partially just the novelty factor and it'll wear off, but I've obviously had jobs before and don't remember ever being like this. It's good in a way as it shows I am focussed…but it's bad because no-one wants to come home and be plagued with thoughts of work - you want to relax.

Something else I'm having to deal with is the meeting culture. I'm rubbish at multi-tasking and switching tasks. I like to do one thing and see it through, but when there are meetings set up left right and centre you just have to stop what you're doing to attend. It isn't just you but other people have all resolved to get together at that time and you need to attend there and then.

Thinking outside the box

I had an interesting day at work today. One of the main differences between my new job and my old one is that at my current job everyone is quite competent at what they do, and I'm also the "middle" developer with one developer more senior than me. So I don't spend as much time helping other people with their problems as I did in my old job.

However today we were dealing with a problem that no-one could solve or even much understand. Lots of people had had a hand in solving it to no avail. Now in these situations, what often happens is an unofficial coding free-for-all where everyone works on the problem at the same time with the aim that the person who solves it first gets the kudos.

So we were all pretty much focussed on solving this tricky problem and to paraphrase the situation, imagine a chain of events from step 1 to step 5, and step 5 is failing quite spectacularly. My colleagues were all spending their efforts looking at the ins and outs of step 5 and really tearing it apart and pouring over every line, trying to understand why it was failing. However I was the only one who seemed to contemplate the issue as a whole, and despite the obvious failure at step 5 I didn't want to make assumptions about where the fault was. So I took some time to analyse not how step 5 failed, but why it failed. After spending a few minutes on that I made some discoveries that all of my colleagues had missed. Mainly because they were looking at something else. Using my findings I back-tracked to step 4 to see the problem emerging, then back to step 3 to see the problem starting. It was step 3 that had the problem, and like dominos it was step 5 that exhibited the failure.

I'm now no more than 15 minutes into my attempt to solve the problem and I'm investigating an area none of my colleagues are. I am now confident that none of my colleagues has a chance of solving this problem as they are looking in the wrong place, so I soldier on and after half an hour I had finally solved the problem that no-one else could.

Now I'm not just blowing my own trumpet here :) the whole incident really taught me a few things. What struck me most was that my colleagues were acting in exactly the same way that my colleagues at my old job did. I was always frustrated as I felt people wasted too much energy looking for solutions in the wrong places after making too many assumptions. Not only that, but at my old job I'd often get annoyed at my colleagues' constant dialogue about what they thought was wrong, as to me that was just a distraction to my own train of thought. I'd feel like saying "stop wasting your time and stop speaking to me…you're looking into the wrong thing, you'll never solve this problem". Again today the same thing…I had to put up with a constant dialogue from my colleagues about this step 5 and I just tried to "yeah" and "uh-huh" the talk away and not let it distract me from looking at step 3.

This is a very clear-cut example of what people mean by out of the box thinking, and how the way my brain is wired gives me an advantage in problem solving over my non-autistic colleagues. When presented with a step that fails they get polarised by that step and can't see outside of its confines to contemplate that the real problem might be elsewhere. Whereas my first thought isn't "I wonder what is wrong with step 5", but "I wonder if step 5 is the problem". It's such a simple thing, such a simple concept yet other people don't seem to get it. Now that my new, rather competent, colleagues are exhibiting an identical problem solving approach to my old colleagues I can only assume that their way of thinking is just "normal".

So the sun does indeed shine on a dog's arse some days :)

Hello darkness my old friend

"When you meet one person with Asperger's you've met one person with Asperger's" so the saying goes. We all suffer different symptoms to different degrees, but a symptom I never really identified with was one where people get single-mindedly focused on a task to the detriment of everything else. Mainly because at work I do often have to switch active tasks, and it's something I've been aware I'm not 100% happy with doing but like many things I just get on and do it.

Last night I had a few tasks that I needed to do, and I've also started on a new personal project. I started off doing a bit of my project until I was too hungry to concentrate much, so broke for diner, then got back to my project. I was always keen to do just a bit more, then just a bit more. I knew I had other tasks to do but wanted to keep doing just a bit more. By the time 2am came I had not done any of my other tasks. I still had to finish a document I was writing for work, finish an e-mail to someone, have a shower, prepare lunch for the next day and also iron a shirt. It was 2am! I had been on my project for 5 hours.

So the e-mail just had to wait, the document was half-arsed but I knew I could finish it when I got to work, and I had to soldier with the other tasks. I didn't get to bed until just past 3am and I still couldn't shake this project from my mind and what plans I had to enhance it, what the next stages should be etc. So my mind was racing and I just couldn't switch off or get to sleep.

Then it dawned on me that this situation wasn't unique, it wasn't the first time I've done this…start a project and got so engrossed in it I just can't pull myself away and can barely sleep for thinking about it. Then thinking about it all day at work, just waiting to get back home to repeat the cycle. Yet whenever I hear about people with Asperger's Syndrome (AS) getting so focused and set on a single task that you can't break them free from I always thought "that's nothing like me." It's everything like me.

This is one of those times when knowing what is wrong with you really helps you understand yourself and your behaviours and recognise when your behaviour is the result of AS. If I didn't know I had AS I'd never stop to look at the trees instead of the wood.

Losing the plot

I'm a big fan of movies and I tend to enjoy all sorts…or most sorts. Even if a movie isn't that great I always like to think I at least got something out of it. I'm also a collector of movies and I like to see my collection grow. There is one thing I sometimes have problems with, and I'm beginning to wonder of it's something relating to my Asperger's Syndrome (AS).

With some movies I tend to have problems following character-related plot elements. Not always, but there are just some movie plots that revolve around a lot of characters and their interactions and relationships with each other. Invariably these change at some pivotal point in the movie and it is then that I tend to lose track of what is happening. When the defining moments come I often can't remember that particular character's past story and motivations, and their relationships to the other characters. I can tell something meaningful is happening but as I don't remember the "old" I can't compare it to the "new" so the point of the change passes over me. Often I don't even recognise people as being the same character when their role changes - I don't connect that this is the same person who has just changed and not a new actor in the movie It's especially bad in foreign language movies that are subtitled, and for some reason movies that involve the same actor playing multiple characters.

A possible reason for this is that my AS is stopping me fully connecting with, or relating with people. Stopping me engaging with their motives, desires and feelings. Maybe I'm failing to record in my mind their past deeds as it's not something I'm used to doing, so when the plot twist forces me to recall their emotional journey I just draw a blank? The dual-character issue could just be a doubling up of my problems as to me they are the same person. Maybe it's too much of a stretch to remember two sets of past motives for what is the same person given I have problems remembering just one. With subtitled movies I find it very had to relate the voice to the character and it's almost like everything is just swimming around in one big soup. All mixed together as any character could be relaying what is being related along the bottom of the screen.

Of course it could also just be that I'm not intelligent enough to be watching anything that isn't laden with special effects.

First day of school

I started my new job yesterday and today (Friday) was the end of my first week…so to speak. The day before I started I was just pacing up and down the house, not knowing what to do with myself. How to kill the time.

So the job is going ok so far, but they're obviously not expecting me to be running the whole company for them yet, I'm just on light duties at the moment but that's par for the course in this industry. Helping resolve minor problems in existing systems is the best way of learning your way around how things work and how they're put together. I'm quite sure I've surprised them with how quickly I've picked things up…but I'm like that; I just look at code and I understand it, it's how my brain works. I've already played a good part of getting something finished on time which isn't bad going seeing as this is a massive computer application that I spent the morning of my first day looking at and was fixing issues with from lunch-time onward. I just hope I can rise to the real challenge which is when they start to expect more of a leadership role from me.

The people I work with are nice, quite agreeable and easy to get along with. They're quite juvenile but that's fine with me as I'm hardly Mr Mature myself so I quite like the low level of the banter and humour in the office. I far prefer it to people who are more serious and grown-up.

Alas they're also really, really social. It's a big company and the whole company seems social but our little group in our little office are very social among each other too. Naturally they expect me to just slip into this fast-lane of uber mixing but it's all too soon for me. It's too soon with these people I've just met, and socialising the way they want to in noisy clubs is just too much for me period. But what can you do? You can go along and hope to cope, or politely decline and look like the office outsider. I liked going out with my old workmates but I had time to get to know them all. With my new colleagues it's like I've been pushed into a busy road.

As well as the weekend activities I have avoided, there is an unofficial "networking" event happening at a local pub next Wednesday that apparently lots of local companies in our industry go to. They were telling me about it with glee at lunch, how great it is and what a laugh it is…drinking and meeting lots of new people. Great for you maybe…hell for me. Again I can either not go and have it look like I'm not a team-player, not fitting in, not mixing, not caring about my career…or I can go and look like a deer caught in headlights and be all awkward and drop the ball whenever someone tries to talk to me. I mean…I can't "network", and I don't want to either. There is also the risk I'll want to stick with my own colleagues and end up looking like a lost puppy following them around. On top of all of that Wednesday is a gym night. I'll either have to just get out of it, or go but say I can't stay long.

Being suddenly dropped in this world of hyper-sociality has made me feel quite disorientated and inadequate. It reminds me how different everyone else is, how much social interaction really drives their whole lives. How much joy interacting with people brings them.

Normally with smaller firms this stuff isn't an issue, but with these big firms how you "fit in" is a big thing for them, as important as your actual work. This is where them knowing I have Asperger's Syndrome would probably help as it might give me some leeway and let them know I can't help drowning in their lifestyle. I mean I know I get better given time…I just need that time to slowly adjust and integrate, and to get to know people. I can't just instantly morph into a social animal.

Which leads me onto the next thing. My line manager's wife is a teacher at an autistic school. Great. When he brought it up someone in the office said that the kids would be great to take to a casino (in reference to "Rain Man") and he corrected them on the difference between autism and being a savant. So he obviously knows a little about it all and there may be trouble ahead there. Though on the other side, if it comes down to it and my lack of "fitting in" is causing me problems I guess I'll have an ally there if I do decide to tell them. Though I can't see it getting that far. I've long suspected through my whole career that my technical abilities have helped negate the downsides of my personality and helped carry me when normally I'd have been dropped.

Interesting times ahead so batten down the hatches.

In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king

One of the more commonly known issues with Asperger's Syndrome (AS) is empathy. When I think of empathy I always think about putting yourself in the shoes of someone else when they are undergoing a physical process...like being hurt when falling down, or feeling sad after a break-up. It seems that empathy tends to encompass more than that though, such as how another person sees the world in general. I found this out after reading some research material about autism (not specifically AS) and what tests have been conducted to show the differences between autistic children and non-autistic (NT) children.

One of the tests they do is seeing if a child knows how another child perceives the world. The classic example is that Child A has a ball in a basket and leaves the room, and Child B takes the ball from the basket and puts it in a box. When Child A comes back to the room do they look for the ball in the basket or the box? A child who knows how Child A perceives the world will say "basket", but a child who only knows how they themselves perceive the world would say "box".

What interested me most was the importance of the age of the children involved when it comes to these tests. The study is quite explicit in that it isn't saying that NT children will say "basket" and autistic children will say "box". What the study shows is that NT children of a specific age (4 in this case) will say "basket", where an autistic child of 4 would say "box". However by the time the autistic child reaches 6 they would also be saying "basket". It brought home how important it is to diagnose autism in children and how hard it must be to do in adults. It also explains the rather blasé attitude I found in professionals when trying to get diagnosed myself. After all...if these key tests can't be done at the right age then in fairness how can they ever be sure to truly diagnose autism? All they can do is give it their best shot.

It also comforted me in a way as I've read the odd thing about how children with AS act that sometimes don't resonate with me. However maybe that is because while I don't remember exhibiting a certain deficiency, the real issue is that I'm remembering how I was at an older age. So it's not that I was exhibiting "normal" behaviour so maybe I don't have AS, but that that "normal" behaviour was only happening years after it should have been happening. So while I remember thinking "basket", I was thinking it later than I should have been. Further that it is this delay in the development process that is the vital key to knowing if a child is autistic. I now fully appreciate why childhood diagnosis is so important, or failing that information from the parent if it is an adult that is seeking diagnosis. I can't be expected to know at what age certain behaviours came and went, but my parents should.

This possible delay in development ties in with my memories of my parents always showing concern about how immature I was and how I tended to prefer the company of children younger than me. Maybe my development was out of phase by a year or two? If autistic children do eventually learn what their NT counterparts learned a few years previous I suppose it's not unusual that we develop many coping strategies and grow "more normal" as we get older.

The paper did occasionally mention AS specifically and said that sometimes children with AS were able to pass these "theory of mind" tests even though children further up the austic spectrum often could not.

This concept of knowing how others see the world made me think about another vivid childhood memory I have; when watching television I'd often wonder if other people were seeing the show in the same way. When the news came on and the newsreader had a moustache I'd ask someone "does that person have a moustache?" When I saw a red car I'd ask "is that car red?" It must have seemed quite strange to others, but I was genuinely wondering if everyone saw everything the same way. Was my desire to understand the world causing me to confront my lack of knowledge on how others saw the world?

Coming full circle - I initially said that I considered empathy as knowing how someone felt after a physical event...this paper also touched on the fact then when asked what functions a brain did, autistic children tend to concentrate on the physical (tells our muscles to move, heart to beat, let's us see) while completely ignoring the emotional functions, but NT children consider both.

The man who wasn't there

There's a curious aspect to my life that I find myself putting down to my Asperger's Syndrome (AS), even though I can't possibly understand why it is connected in any rational, scientific way. I'll give you some background here - in my own life, and in my recent journeys, I have come across situations already that I have no rational explanation for and put them down to things we don't yet fully understand…I'm mainly talking about thought processes. It is only since I have realised that I have AS that I've appreciated that my more advanced thought process are not normal. I have no explanation for them other than "it's just how my mind works". To the casual observer it may appear almost in the realms of genius, but to me it's just how I think. I have also seen, first-hand, feats of incredibly memory and I'm sure if I asked these people how they can remember these things their answer would be exactly the same; "I don't know, it's just how my mind works."

It's no big secret that we don't fully understand how the brain works, so writing these unusual thought processes off as something we don't understand now, but might in the future, is a fairly easy thing to do. However the phenomenon I want to address here is something quite, quite different.

It's like I don't exist.

I'm not talking about how if there is a social function that I want to attend I have to invite myself as no-one will think to invite me themselves despite inviting everyone else. I'm talking about when I'm walking down the street and I always have to get out of the way of other people…sometimes quite abruptly. People just bound down the street toward me and if I don't jump out of their way, or quickly go side-on, they'd surely knock me over. They don't even flinch like they've not been paying attention and have had a last-moment realisation that they're about to bang into me. They don't even acknowledge that they're forcing me from my stride. When I look around this isn't happening to anyone else. If two people are on a collision course what is going through the other person's mind that they decide it is them who will walk on uninterrupted and it is you who should get out of the way? Some days I wonder to myself; "Can people actually see me? Am I really here? Did I get ran over three streets ago and I'm now a ghost?"

Is this down to my AS? Are we all connected to each other with some form of unseen social tethers? All tied together but not realising it…the ties stretching, disconnecting, breaking, re-joining and interweaving as people walk through this huge web as it lives and breathes around them. Around them. Not me. I'm the odd one out, the one not playing the game, not joining the system. No-one is connected to me, joined to me…no-one feels my presence, no-one knows I'm even there. Instead I crash through the web, bounced from person to person like a Whiffle Board.

Maybe in the future they'll prove the existence of aether and demonstrate that people with AS really are disconnected from the world in more ways than was originally thought.

You should have been in my shoes yesterday

When I was younger I used to walk a lot. It all started when I was a teenager still living at home with my parents. I'd sneak out the backdoor when everyone else was in bed and just walk and walk. We had a dog at the time which was quite active so I would take it with me and she loved it too. When it heard me come creeping down the stairs, or go near the back door at night it'd prick its ears up, asking if we were going out again.

I was born and raised in Scotland by the shore so there were always loads of walks, loads of great views and interesting places. I'd have all sorts of routes I'd go on, a lot by the shore, but some high up to the hills behind my home town where you could see for miles. When you have insomnia and a mind that never stops racing, just getting out for a walk can be quite calming and relaxing and I'd always have my Walkman for company. It beats being cooped up indoors with things just running over and over in your mind. Even when the dog eventually passed away I'd still go on the same walks into the early hours.

When I had to move away from home to spend my placement year in industry I was once again by the coast, once again racked with insomnia and restless thoughts. The difference now was that I didn't need to sneak out, but I still had miles and miles and coastal walks, walks around town too. This was back when Sunday trading laws were still tight and the whole town centre would be deserted like a scene from "28 Days Later". I don't know where everybody went…but I still walked around.

For my first real job after university I moved into a land-locked concrete jungle, however I was soon finding good routes to walk at night, although walking soon gave way to driving and I'd go on nightly jaunts in my car rather than walking. Again I'd have all sorts of routes that would loop through local towns and villages, maybe stopping at a service station along the way, then back home.

When I stopped living on my own the walking kind of stopped. The main reason is that people thought it was "odd". How could I explain to a girl that I was just nipping out for an hour or so. "Where are you going?" "Nowhere, just for a walk." "Where?" "Nowhere really". In fact I even recall being stopped by the police on one of my early hours sojourns and they wanted to know what I was doing out at such an hour. "Nothing, just walking". When the late-night walks stopped I think a part of me stopped too.

I have moved again and once more I have found myself back at the coast, I don't think I could ever really live away it from it now. I've been here for years but still no routes. No walking routes or driving routes. Instead I spend the early hours watching DVDs or TV or drinking or playing my XBOX. I was feeling quite cooped up and agitated tonight. I'd had a bad day at work and was feeling anxious about a few things. To get myself out of the flat I took a walk to Blockbuster for some popcorn to accompany my movie for the night. It's only a 10 minute walk so I was there and back with my salted treats in no time. Except I didn't go back into the flat, I just tossed them into the porch and headed out to the beach.

I can't believe in all the time I've lived here I've never taken a late-night walk down to the beach. It wasn't that late so some people were still there, disturbing the silence. The piers are closed but there was a small group sitting around a fire on the beach playing acoustic guitars. Further along people were still kicking a ball around under the promenade lights. I took the long walk away from the promenade, into the darkness and toward where the waves were crashing. Such a sound, it's hypnotic. I walked along the water line where the sand was firm under foot and not hard to walk on at all. The sounds of the guitars and balls were soon lost to the sea's waves and I stared across the massive, black void to be alone with my thoughts.

Do you think I asked for a 12 inch pianist?

As lacking in social skills that I am, there is one arrow I seem to have in my quiver in that I think I have a good sense of humour. Now I suppose everyone says that, however if I rationally analyse a social gathering (which I can easily do, after all I'm always on the outside looking in even if we're standing next to each other) then my jokes seem to get more and harder laughs. Unfortunately it does leave me looking a little like Chandler from "Friends" in that I stand there until I have something funny to say, then shut up waiting for the next joke to float along. This is to the extent that I have actually had people watch my face, smiling already, as I add something not intended to be funny to a conversation only for their face to relax at the end and add "oh sorry…I thought you were telling a joke." Hell, I've even had some people say I should be a stand up comedian, and I admit I've thought about giving it a go, however I'll stop short of believing my own hype for the time being.

I actually think that my Asperger's Syndrome (AS) has something to do with this…in a "God giveth and God taketh away" kind of deal. The same "out of the box" thinking that helps me in my computing career can seemingly also be used to find the funny lines that others didn't think of, and find them quite quickly too. Add to that my lack of empathy and "nothing is too much" attitude, not only can I seem to find lines that others didn't think of, but my range of possible material is also a lot more diverse as no subjects are "taboo" to me. And even if the end result is not taboo in itself, you can sometimes get there going by way of areas that are taboo.

This wide-ranging aspect to humour is something that I have learned to temper as I have gotten older. Like most social aspects, people with AS have to learn what comes naturally to others. I have had to learn (unfortunately by trial and error) that not everyone finds certain topics funny, and there are some things that you are seemingly never allowed to joke about, mainly gallows humour. However again I tend to apply my rational way of thinking to gallows type jokes and will crack them anyway and if people are offended I can go off on a lecture about how gallows humour has always existed and it is important to help people deal with difficult situations. What I have learned about gallows humour on my own travels is that it seems to split people into two camps…those for whom it is a tool to help them deal with a situation via humour, and those for whom it is a tool to help them deal with a situation by chastising gallows humour via righteous indignation. No matter what camp you lie in, gallows humour is at least of some use for you.

In a way I'm glad that it is at least one social skill that I have. It means that if I am in a group conversation it usually gives me the odd thing to chip in here and there (although it means waiting for others to do the ground work). I also think it gives people something they can warm to about you; it gives you a facet of personality, a hint of likability…just "something". Alas you can't build a circus on a one-trick pony, and if anything it might also make people not take you seriously and think you just mess around and that's all you are. Also as someone or something is usually the butt of a joke it can maybe also make you appear a bit negative and bitchy. Still, overall I don't mind, it's my "thing". If you can make someone laugh it's always good, and girls seem to say they like someone with a sense of humour and I've found that to be fairly true. I'd never go as far as to say I have "laughed someone into bed" (maybe out of one) but my sense of humour has always been a fairly large part of my relationships. Getting back to the one-trick show, however, it's a precarious edge to balance a whole relationship on.

The Devil's in the detail

One of the more positive aspects I feel Asperger Syndrome (AS) has left me with is an interest in detail. I can never just know that something works; I have to know how and why it works. This is great for my job with computers and I usually understand things at a level far deeper than most. When it comes to diagnosing a tricky problem, really understanding what is going on deep inside often helps.

It's not just computers either, my interest in the mechanics of things also runs to physics and the mechanics of the world at large. However (as with most things AS related) it does appear to be somewhat selective. I have no interest in chemistry or politics, and the mechanics of machinery is often lost on me.

I'm going to get on a bit of a high horse for a second, but I think it's important that people take an interest in the world around them and how it works. It angers me when people don't take an interest in the news, or don't seem to care about gaining knowledge. Some people even revel in it as if it's a good thing! It's one of the things that separate us from the animals, and you should always be striving to improve yourself. It also angers me when people are so quick to believe things they hear without first researching it. Gullible idiots who believe the claims from the health industry are one of my biggest bugbears. I'm not asking that you gain a PhD in biology, but at least research the basic facts about how your body works, then you won't waste your time doing 50 sit-ups a day thinking it'll give you a flat stomach.

As well as being interested in the details of how things work, I also seem to focus on smaller aspects of a bigger thing. Like if I'm looking at a big vehicle I'm usually looking in detail at an aspect of the engine, the interior, the suspension. I'll note the width and profile of the tyres, how much tread there is and the tread patterns on the tyre. Obviously this isn't beneficial to anything, but I think it's all tied in to the same thing.

How to win friends and influence people

I'll say upfront that my Asperger Syndrome (AS) is on the milder end of the scale. I'm not a shut-in, I don't live with my parents, I'm not a virgin, I can get a bus if I have to, I can go to new places if I need to. In fact I live on my own, I have a good job and always have had, I drive quite a desirable and expensive car, and I have a girlfriend (chicks dig fast cars).

I don't want to pander to stereotypes, but…yes, computers are my thing. I've been blessed in that from a very early age I've always known that I've wanted to work with computers. It's been a blessing as there are so many people who just don't know what they want to do with their lives and they drift from career to career, being the master of none. Not for me. One aspect of AS is that you often have concentrated and singular interests and computers is it for me. From year dot I have been fascinated by computers. Not just fascinated but very good at it too. You see, another aspect of AS is your thinking and problem solving processes, they're often "out of the box" and that helps immensely with computers.

There were always computers in my house. My dad had one and when I still thought Father Christmas was real I too had one. Sure, I played games and pretended it was helping me with my schoolwork, who didn't? But I also delved into programming and really tearing the thing apart (not literally). I've always had a great need to know how things work at the detail level. I don't just want to know what works, I want to know why it works and how it works.

At school age I continued with computers in my spare time cos there were no computer classes available at my school. After school I went on to study programming at university and in the first year I didn't learn anything I hadn't already taught myself. I stuck university out and graduated top of the year and have had a small string of programming jobs since.

Computers are still obvious to me, and while my skills have been described in all manners of hyperbole I still see computers as easy and simple. I've never met a problem I can't solve and often come up with wild and varied solutions. I'm methodical and pay a lot of attention to detail. No mater the company I work for I always rise quickly to the top and I'm always the "go to" guy when you have a problem you just can't solve. Am I super intelligent? No, my brain is just wired differently. I sometimes get frustrated that my co-workers can't see the solution to problems that I often see as obvious, but I'm always just glad to help.

Not to say that work is plain-sailing. Not by a long shot. I have the obvious problems of eye contact and social issues (my boss has told me at annual reviews that he feels I am aloof). I'm also a big procrastinator and don't deal well with changes in tasks. Once I start something I like to finish it, but the nature of my job means that I can be pulled off something to work briefly on something else then have to go back to what I was doing. I hate having to deal with people on the phone and I also get bored very very easily and spend a lot of time just goofing off and mucking around. If I'm doing something new and interesting I can stick at it, but a lot of the time I'm working at a much-reduced rate cos I find what I'm doing boring and I'm easily distracted. Funnily enough that is something my teachers always wrote on my report card…easily distracted. I felt at university too I struggled really badly with subjects I wasn't interested in or didn't see the use of.

I couldn't do without work though. If I won the lottery I would still work. It aids my social world quite a lot, cos if you think about it you can have occasional 5 minute chats here and there at the water cooler or wherever. You can go to lunch with people if you want, take breaks with them if you want, and go for a drink after work if you want. It allows me to be as social or as ant-social as I want. My workmates and my girlfriend are really the only people I ever deal with.

So you can have AS and have what some might consider a successful life, but there is no guarantee of this at all. I was lucky in that I can make a career from my interest, but your special interest might be the cigars most loved by Winston Churchill, and if it is you're kinda screwed.