why I love my autistic friends

[This is day #22 of my 30-day microblogging challenge. You can and should still join!

A large portion of my inner circle consists of (mostly) high-functioning “Aspies” (people with Asperger’s).

If you work in any “hard STEM” field (math, engineering, CS, physics) you’re definitely surrounded by them. They love abstractions and analytical thinking and going down very non-pragmatic rabbit holes.

They love toying with ideas, and intuitively separate the “personal” from idea-space.

They’re “high-decouplers”. They know that having their ideas criticized doesn’t mean they’re personally being criticized.

I like these friends because they pursue truth over feelings. Because they have an obnoxious sense of fairness.

I like them because they are creative. They can think outside the box in unique ways, because they never understood the boxes they were meant to constrain themselves to.

I like them because they never lost/lose their childlike sense of wonder.

I like them because they are obsessive about their craft and special interests.

I like them because they’re far less judgmental and more open-minded, because they want to avoid passing on to others the (painful) constraints and penalizations they were subjected to.

I like them because it’s okay to be “weird” around them.

I like them because they don’t automatically accept the rules imposed upon them, and dare to question the systems around them.

I like them because you can have explicit, direct, honest communication with them without dancing around social appropriateness.

I like them because no amount of context is too much context for them; they can handle overwhelming amounts of information.

Them: the ones who want to put everything into boxes, yet they cannot make themselves fit into one.

(I’m overgeneralizing in this post, but this is the pattern I see, and I wanted to take a moment to appreciate this “neurotype”. Love you all <3)