Shyness: A symptom of fear. I draw a box and put myself in it. Interact at a distance, connections sometimes broken. Don’t always grasp casual relationships, especially at work. Thus the stymied career: I stay in my box, because sometimes people are scary.
Major exception: One on one. I pay intense attention to the rare few who are worth it. My women adore me for this. They say I am like no other man.
My son talked about me, and his counselor suggested I am mildly Aspergers. My wife has thought so for years. The preceding are also known traits.
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I wish I could remember the author who learned, while discussing his son with a therapist, and talking about Asperger's, that he also had it. I've been googling for it.
Wow, you're modest too. "My women adore me for this"?
Aspergers I doubt. It could be that you are essentially quite shy and have just found that one avenue where shyness can be put aside. It could be Aspergers or it could be that paying intense attention to the object of one's desire allows you a justified way of shutting out other things.
Just to play devil's advocate further, over the 46 years I've known you, you never displayed any other symptoms of Aspergers on a level that would make anyone think of that kind/level of pathology. These things generally don't manifest just one symptom. Given that unless these things are pathologically intense, such that they interfere with normal progress through society, any one of the symptoms can be ascribed to other things that have nothing to do with Aspergers; things that are completely normal and mild but that have a diagnosis named and set into the DSM diagnostic system (partly for insurance purposes).
Re modesty, that 100-words constraint rather forces one to choose economy over accuracy. ;-)
After establishing that my amateur psychologist ex-wife has taken a liking to this diagnosis without respect to any professional opinions, the salient thing was that this can be a growth point for me. I still find it painful to deal with people I don't know well and have always shied away, preferring at work say to burrow into doing more homework privately rather than to team up, and so on. So if I take this Aspergers model, inaccurate or not, and use it to recognize certain failings I need to be more conscious of and push myself through, then it serves a purpose.
Of more concern is that she has convinced my sons of it, and they will now find excuses for me, for all the countless ways I failed them (and before y'all scoff, I've heard more than I could recount, second-hand of course through their mother but resonating with my memory all the same).
You could be right that focusing on a person allows me to justify shutting out distractions, but actually, I find the focus to be an inescapable reaction to a person's proximity, while still hampered by my brain's tendency to run down bunny trails at even the most inappropriate of times.
I dunno. Maybe I'll just never be comfortable with myself. I don't know that there's much to say for being comfortable with oneself anyway.
I see your point about it serving a purpose. My only concern would be that it remains only a model and not some damaging self-diagnosis. Some people are just really shy, and it ain't got nuthin' to do with nuthin' but being shy.
As for being comfortable with oneself, I think that's just a matter of deciding to be. With your level of self-knowledge, your not that far off. there's also such a thing as being comfortable with a level of discomfort. Morere on this later. I have a ton of work to do.
One of the many things for which I admire Don is that he may settle on a diagnosis for himself, but he never lets that limit him. To date, he has remained consistent in using it to find a way to improve whatever he perceives to be a failing.
I can also agree that his women adore him for his intense attention. What sane woman wouldn't? Facts is facts, man.
Aspies are my life -- in high school I dated a guy with tics who hummed weirdly in class, scored 100% on his SATs and could neck while playing the Goldberg variations (his mom never came down to the rec room). My ex-husband performed in Gilbert and Sullivan (the Aspie's theater track, totally) and played over chess games on our wedding night. Etc. I finally got on a chat board for Aspies and their close friends when I found myself running one for political office ("Jim -- when you feel me pulling your jacket tail, SHUT UP; you're a statistician and genetically unable to tell when the voters' eyes are glazing over"). The consensus there was that I was, without being Asperger's myself, so constituted as to empathize with people who don't play the usual social games and can't take sensory overload. I think I am more of what is called an HSP
http://www.hsperson.com/
and there is a lot of overlap. I suspect that may more accurately describe you too.
I don't know that shyness is fear -- unless it's sensible to feel afraid of subjecting yourself to input that overwhelms you. I am terrific one on one. I hate rooms full of people -- I always feel like it's idiotic to drain my energy placing myself in situations where my presence or absence makes little difference. And it does drain me... do you have that experience?
Gekko, there was never a doubt that Don's women adore him for whatever. Still, I can't let him get away with a statement like that and NOT take the mick out of him a little. What kind of friend would I be if I did?
What I meant to say earlier is that perhaps the level of self comfort is achieved through not ever being entirely comfortable with oneself. I've encountered this more than once. There is something in the constant search for more answers that fulfills a need. I think that's a good thing if it drives one toward constructive and happy and healthy things. A little self examination is good for all of us once in a while. I get concerned when the relentless search for a diagnosis/label that can't necessarily be applied starts to inhibit healthy relationships and general functioning; when that search for a final answer that can't really be given (because we change as time goes by) drives people into an endless cycle of miserable self criticism.
Well, between you, Sled's descriptions, another friend's amusement at the diagnosis, and my usual aversion to bandwagons, I'm pretty much over the Aspergers kick, at least for now. I can be an HSP once in awhile, but only scored 12 on the checkbox test. I really don't know what the hell. It's good though to remind myself that hiding out in my cubicle and my many other avoidance techniques are not helping me or anyone and really aren't necessary. I just (in answer to Sled's question) get worn out by groups, and by having to wend my way through the prickly maze that is verbal interaction with other people. Probably just a typical somewhat-adjusted introvert.
I vote for introvert. Engineers, scientists, some artists, musicians. A lot of people lean toward that without having syndromes, disorders and such applied to them.
Maybe after we finish killing all the lawyers, we can go for the psychologists next?
Aye. I vote for introvert too. Still, you managed to play in the Jazz Ensemble, sing in Concert Chorale, the junior choir, that quartet you were in at work, etc....
When you suddenly start jogging naked on winter mornings while arguing loudly about communism with the little man who lives in your belly button, THEN I will worry about your sanity. If all your doing is jogging naked, then no worries. Long as I don't have to watch, that is.
I hate labels. I'm not shy at all, yet I dislike crowds because of noise, light, erratic movement, odors, etc., all which can trigger migraines. So I may appear to be afraid of socializing, when I'm actually trying to simply avoid pain. Sometimes I say fuck it and go anyway cuz it's fun. Anyway many of these conditions are subjective, along a continuum, and when money can be made from promoting them, well, suddenly there's an increase. Mystery!
All growth and self-knowledge is good however!
But growth while jogging naked would be cause for comment.
I don't think there's just one kind of shy. The kind I used to have might touch on the kind you may also have, shielding a sense of superiority.
Why do I say that? It goes to "the rare few (people) who are worth" your attention.
Perhaps you just don't want to bother with the rest? The minute you stop thinking few people are worthy is the minute you (in the sense of one) stop being shy.
I'm not shielding superiority. The "rare few" are only those worthy not of my mere attention, but of the intensity that I've only given to a handful in my entire life. About half that handful has been over the past several months. I don't meet enough people to be selective, either. I've just been lucky.
@gekko: "I vote for introvert..."
But there's more. Our back channel consensus is engineer. Most of us who go into engineering (or medicine or axe-murdering or many other similar fields) have intense, shutting-out-all-others focus. I hadn't remarked on it before Don brought it up, but that level of concentration does mean we pay real attention to the person we're with (a good thing) or absolutely none at all (not so good).
@Paula: "I'm not shy at all, yet I dislike crowds because of noise, light, erratic movement, odors, etc..."
I can pick a single instrument out of an orchestra but I have trouble picking words out of a conversation in a crowded room. That little hearing deficit means I tend to shy away from crowded rooms.
A therapist who I saw once about my son suggested I read the Highly Sensitive Child. He kinda fit the model, but I took the quiz and answered yes to all but three of the 30 some odd questions. I'm not shy--I'm quickly chatty with people--but I'm painfully self-conscious, easily addled and exhausted by lights/sound/too many questions, I blush at the drop of a dime, and I can't follow a logical thread to save my life because of ALL THESE OTHER NEAT IDEAS! So I can sometimes come across as shy, flaky, inattentive, etc, so that's how I defined myself for a long time. I literally can't answer the question, "You want ice in that drink?" without visualizing the glass, the ice, the liquid, and the process of them all coming together--makes those last minutes before dinner a little tense. Then I read the book (which husband describes as the Hope Instruction Manual), changed all the words in my head and now my self-perception matches up with how much I actually kind of kick ass. It was kind of a watershed moment. But people still have no idea what I'm talking about 40 percent of the time. The ones who know me remember to just let me go and trust it'll all be awesome in the end.
Here's to people with cool brains.
I <3 Hope.
I try to model myself after Robert Mitchum, about whom a blogger on SFGate.com recently wrote that he made everyone else on screen seem like they were having a nervous breakdown.
Of course, I fail miserably at it, but I do manage to deal with humanity reasonably well. Then again, maybe it's only a survival mechanism because I just can't stand too much of the hurly burly anymore.
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