I have it, and like so many others with this condition, I have genuine trouble making small talk and casual everyday chitchat. I think we tend to look at the bigger picture of things and that tends to be our conversational preference as well. I never look anyone in the eye and always avert my gaze in public places to avoid looking at people directly. In truth, I can listen to and understand what people are saying a lot more clearly when I don't look at them during a conversation. It sounds strange, but when someone with Asperger's syndrome looks away while you're talking, it means they're listening carefully to what you're saying.
We have intense powers of concentration as long as we don't get distracted, and tend to be really good at routine and repetitive tasks that drive most people nuts! Order and regular routine schedules are very comforting to us, and it drives us crazy (sometimes literally!) when the unexpected element of surprise or sudden change to our everyday, stabilizing routine comes about; we can really freak out or at least get terribly agitated and irritable about it.
We also have to observe normal people around us to try and understand how we are supposed to speak and act; a lot of what we do and say, especially when we're younger, is merely parroting and imitating what we've seen and heard from others. Also, we tend to take literally what is said to us--in other words, we tend to believe almost anything people tell us, no matter how fantastical it may be, and we trust everyone, including total strangers. Again, most of this happens from childhood into young adulthood.
Socially, we are usually up to ten years behind our peers and tend to act like young children along with still having the same needs we had as kids, too. For instance, I dropped out of college because I missed my Mom and Dad so much that I had a nervous breakdown, and was creeped out and scared when guys asked me out; I just wanted my mommy and daddy! Too much extreme change too soon. We have a REAL problem with that!!
At least it is pretty much true that we each have one thing we are really good at. I think mine may be writing, and now that I'm forty, I hardly think that if I were to go back to school I'd have a breakdown from missing my folks! blaugh I apologize for the fragmented wall of text, and I really hope this helps to identify and isolate some of the symptoms and common tendencies of someone with Asperger's syndrome from someone who has survived 40 years with it on this strange, alien world! wink
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