Asperger's & Autism Forum

Heyooo, everybody! I wasn't sure which category this would fall under, so I put it here!
Anyway, I would like some input on a decision I've been trying to make.

So, I have this mood ring that I bought a while back, and I'm not sure what to do with it. And before you say something like "wear it, of course," let me explain why that's not a preferable option. I got the mood ring on my first date with Amanda, and now... Let's just say I don't wanna have to keep looking at it. I put it in a little puzzle box (that's a box that is a puzzle, not a box that holds a puzzle) on my desk in my room for now, but I still have a decision to make: what should I do with it?
I came up with a few ideas:
1.) Leave it where it is.
2.) Throw it dramatically into the Mississippi River.
3.) Mail it to Amanda.
4.) Bury it in my backyard and make a map with cryptic clues to find it.
5.) Smash it.
6.) Your idea, whatever it may be.

So! Should I do one of those? If not, what should I do with it?...

Hello again.

First, I'm wondering if anyone on this forum feels like you can recognise high-functioning AS and ASD in other adults, even if the person is a total stranger? If so, what markers does someone display that make you think they are also on the spectrum? How do you feel when you see them "acting out" or doing something that you just know will be frowned upon by the neurotypicals around them? Do you feel empathy? Frustration? Embarrassment? Anything?

Second, has anyone ever reached out to a person in the middle of a meltdown? I had this experience this week. A young woman was going through a pretty public meltdown, confounding the people who witnessed it and practically bringing me to tears. After sitting there for a few minutes trying to figure out whether or not I should attempt to get involved, I finally decided to try to speak to her.

I still don't know if this was the right thing to do. I just told her that I've been where she is and experience the same anxiety and...

I just moved into an apartment in the same town I’ve lived in for about 25 years. When I meet other residents they always ask, “Where are you from?”. I haven’t yet figured out how to answer. Do they mean where was I born? That doesn’t really make since because it was millions of years ago! Do they mean where did I just move from before this apartment complex?
If they want to know where I was born I think they would just ask that. But, when I answer that I come from this town, they laugh, so that must be the wrong answer.
I’m tempted to just make something up because nobody really cares where I'm from anyway. If I tell them where I was born they might think I just moved here from far away and that gives the impression that I’m new in town.
I’ve lived in so many places I don’t really feel like I’m from anywhere!
What are they asking me, I need a translation.
Thank you.

How do you cope when you're really overloaded or really stressed with food/eating?
I have intolerances and bad sensitivities + I CANT make good decisions when overloaded!!! What do you do when you're stressed or have had a meltdown?? Do you just not eat?? My brain forces me to eat and it's the WORST. Advice please? Xxx

I got kyphosis and I get back pain if I must stand all day and there is nowhere to sit.
Because of kyphosis, standing all day makes me suffer both physically and mentally.

What kind of jobs can I do that don't require standing all of the time?

I'm going to take a chance on appearing crazy here, but this event is what made me realize that something was wrong with me and soon after realized then went to specialist and diagnosed with autism.

A few years ago, paying my fourth of the expenses, I accepted the invitation and went to the beach with my youngest daughter and her family, my oldest daughter and her family and my youngest son and his family. The only thing I enjoyed about it was being with my grandkids.

Well, it started out funny when my 2 daughters and I went to stock up on groceries and I went on out with a buggy over flowing with stuff while they were paying for the last bit of stuff and when they came out I realized when they were laughing that I had just put all the groceries into the wrong vehicle. Ok - that would just give us something to laugh about the rest of the week.

By day three I was miserable and called my daughter in law to vent (she and my oldest son's lifestyle matches mine). I complained that...

The few women I do know seem to appreciate me from a distance if at all & I don't blame them. Only one even technically knows my identity & I took eight years to tell her. I'm literally made of baggage, not the least of which being that I don't even know if I have an extra chromosome. On top of that my past is an absolute mess & I'm a coder. One of those coders. Neckbeard level 1337. Geekier than nearly everyone you've ever met put together. At least I'm decently fit but broad autism phenotype sure doesn't help with that.

I am literally made of postmodern red flags. If I were a car I'd be a Chinese limousine. If the industrial chemicals which predetermined my physiology weren't enough I get plenty of plastic fumes from gadgets.

People find me interesting & presumably, way too intense. I'm just here grasping at straws for better ways to make women more comfortable around my obnoxiously preoccupied brain. Ultimately I just want to show some kind ladies that the realm of...

So I'm in a relationship with a pretty NT woman (although she doesn't like her food touching each other & can't stand the feel of socks...) & things seem to be going well. It was a rocky start, both of us breaking up twice, with the longest separation lasting 3 weeks. She lives around 40min away but comes to stay with me on the weekends.

Last weekend she came down with bronchitis, wasn't feeling well & didn't want to give it to me & my kids, so she told me she would be unable to come over this weekend. Perfectly logical.

Unfortunately, while my logical, rational mind can understand this, my mood since the weekend has been very depressed, like a catastrophe is coming. She tells me she loves me every day, & I reciprocate (I have a schedule of when I say "I love you," so very aspie of me...), so I can't rationally think of why I should feel this way, like she's going to lose interest in me. Is this somehow related to being on the spectrum (in another thread someone said that it is...

A post in another thread set my mind racing because someone mentioned something that struck a chord with me. They mentioned shoes in the context of people who are overly conformist.

Conformity does more harm than good to society

I have always used shoes as a measure of people. Whatever information I may miss in their body language or tone due to flooding I have often found shoes to be a good judge of character. I have found that the shoes someone wears and their state of repair has been a good (though not perfect) guide to what I can expect from an individual.
May I ask what unconventional methods the rest of you guys & gals have used to get a measure of people you interact with?

We all have to conform to some degree in order to be socially accepted or otherwise we would be ostracized from society.
For example a shameless man who wears a white tank top at a workplace is going to be socially rejected by coworkers and boss for completely disregarding social etiquette.

Every society needs at least some degree of conformity or otherwise it wouldn't function and it would be anarchical.

I'm not against conformity. I am against mindless/irrational/sheepish conformity or herd mentality that our contemporary society suffers from.

I am not a anti-conformist, I am a little conformist myself, we all in fact are.

I don't despise people who occasionally conform, I despise people who conform for the sake of conforming. People who choose conformity over reason, even in the presence of superior evidence to the contrary.

There is a quote from Rollo May:
"The opposite for courage is not cowardice, it is conformity. Even a dead fish can go with the flow".

Conformists are...