Asperger's Syndrome and Autism
Dr. Gilmartin estimates that 40% of male love-shys have Asperger's syndrome. This figure is not surprising considering that the major feature of Asperger's, a mild form of autism, is lack of social understanding. When Asperger's combines with inborn shyness, love-shyness often results.
Some of the major symptoms of Asperger's syndrome include impairment in social interaction, repetitive behaviors or rituals and problems with nonverbal communication. To quote the Asperger's article in Wikipedia, "People with AS lack the natural ability to see the subtexts of social interaction, and may lack the ability to communicate their own emotional state, resulting in well-meaning remarks that may offend, or finding it hard to know what is 'acceptable'. The unwritten rules of social behavior that mystify so many with AS have been termed the 'hidden curriculum'. People with AS must learn these social skills intellectually through seemingly contrived, dry, math-like logic rather than intuitively through normal emotional interaction." One observant writer compared having Asperger's to having color blindness of social situations and communications. While the black and white communication is picked up, the subtle coloring of the message is lost.
Additional characteristics of people with Asperger's include making literal interpretations, being too honest, unable to read body language and facial expressions and unable to imitate others. Obviously, these things would have negative effects for one trying to perform human courtship rituals. And these traits would make an already shy child even more withdrawn. Because Asperger's is a brain development disorder, no cure exists.
For those suspecting they might have Asperger's I recommend this online test. If you score high on you probably want to get a professional diagnosis. The test was developed by autism researcher Simon Baron Cohen who classifies autism as extreme maleness in his book The Essential Difference.
Interestingly, many similarities exist between Asperger's and
love-shyness, including:
- Both require intellectually acquiring missing social skills that are normally acquired intuitively.
- Both cause the child to act adult-like and not be interested in standard child activities like sports.
- Both cause the person to have few if any friends.
- Both cause the afflicted to act and/or be perceived as asexual or homosexual.
- Both affect males more than females both in numbers and severity of social isolation. The innately more socially wired female brain helps most females better mask and deal with both conditions. Many females often live undiagnosed with either condition.
- People afflicted with either have difficulty displaying emotion and feelings.
- People afflicted with either often have skin and other sensitivities.
- Both cause underemployment.
- People afflicted with either have difficulty in informal situations. They don't know what to do when there is no "script".
Could one account for these incredible similarities by saying that vastly more love-shys than Gilmartin estimated have a very mild form of Asperger's? Doubtful. Plenty of love-shy people without Asperger's exist to show the correctness of his stated characteristics. Yet, 40 percent is a significant portion for a study done a decade before the DSM mentions Asperger's. A few minor wrongly identified love-shy attributes will likely eventually be found.
The exciting aspect of these similarities leads one to wonder if a thorough understanding of love-shyness and its causes will lead to a breakthrough in the understanding and treatment of Asperger's or even autism. Asperger's is a brain development disorder one is born with, while love-shyness is something created during childhood by the mind. In other words, AS affects the "hardware" of the brain, and love-shyness affects, or at least is caused by, "software" running in the brain. Yet both produce similar symptoms.
Also, there is the problem of others not believing an Asperger's diagnosis.
