Joel over at “NTs are weird” writes a lot about why auties don’t represent them selves. That was one of the first questions I asked the first time I visited the Autie club in Rotterdam (in the Netherlands). This club is established and run by Neuro Typicals and although there are some auties on the board the NT’s have a big say in the running of the club.
The second question I asked is “why don’t we?” Although, as I understand it Joel has a lot of difficulty in dealing with NT’s, I don’t. I’ve have nearly twenty years experience in organizing clubs with the mentally impaired and with children. It’s a lot of work to start but after a while you share the load and it becomes easier.
Nose mountain
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But after going to the club for a while I’ve decided that I won’t even try. For several reasons. Some of which have to do with autism, some with my personal live.
For one thing to establish a club you have to talk a lot with a lot of people and I don’t like talking. It might be that it will become easier after my big examination but for now it’s not something I would want to do.
But most of the reasons have to do with my feelings for my fellow auties. Or rather the lack of feelings. Auties should be “my kind of people” but they’re not. I feel more alike with my mentally and physically impairmered colleagues at the sheltered workplace then with other auties. I do have the feeling that I don’t have to prove myself. I presume that when I sit quietly in a corner people will know that’s not because I don’t like them but because I don’t like talking.
Not talking to each other also is a point. I’ve been watching the conversation over at Wrong planet for a while and it seems to me that auties don’t really talk to each other. Someone thinks of a subject and hundreds of auties react with a story of there own but nobody reacts to stories of the others.
I see the same at the Autie club. People going round telling there stories. They come to me and I react with something like “oh”, “ah” and “that’s great!”. But I don’t feel the need to pursuit the matter so they go on to the next person to tell the same story. Auties tend to flock round the NT’s because the NT’s do have the need discuss the story. Conversation between auties on the Internet at large also seem to go along these lines. As far as I’ve seen auties are great at announcing something but the NT’s are discussing.
Isn’t that the biggest difference between auties and NT’s? NT’s need to do things together with other people and will go to great lengths to get a lot of people in one room. Where as we auties like to pursuit our own projects, sometimes together with other people but we don’t have the need to be together.
Does this mean that we will never be able to represent our selves?
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