Jessica Kingsley Publishers

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Friendships

The Aspie Way

Wendy Lawson
Foreword by Emma Wall

Paperback: £12.99 / $20.95

2006, 216mm x 138mm / 8.5in x 5.5in, 176pp
ISBN: 978-1-84310-427-8, BIC 2: VFV JMH VFJD

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Extract from the Introduction

Although I certainly understand the concept of 'friend' now, as a child I didn't understand this. The concept that other people were separate from me was not a consideration. If I thought a thought, I believed others would know what I was thinking. Therefore, they must have known what I needed. Failure to meet my needs resulted in my feeling angry, hurt and unimportant. Even now, as an adult, I still 'feel' that the other person might know what is happening for me because I feel it. Academically, however, I know that only I know what is going on in my head and heart. But, because the feeling is so strong for me, I still need frequently to check out that the other person doesn't 'feel' it too! Imagine the effect on your friendships if you believed your friends knew stuff about you but did nothing about it.

Tony Attwood (1998) tells us a story about a young girl with Asperger's syndrome who, uninvited, began to tell an approaching postman all about Deltic locomotives. Even when she asked the postman a question (about the trains of course), she didn't understand that she needed to wait for him to answer. She continued on with her one-sided conversation until the postman blurted out a hurried 'goodbye' and left. Could things have gone differently if this young girl had understood the rules about conversational interaction? Was she attempting to be friendly, but hadn't understood how? Why do so many of us, as individuals on the autism spectrum, find it difficult to be 'in tune' with others?

When I was asked to write this book I felt a sense of surprise and amazement. 'Me, write a book on friendship!' I exclaimed. 'I'm not so good at “friends” and quite a number of “friends” I once had are not on my current friendship list.' 'Well that's their loss,' my colleague said. 'I think you do friendship rather well.' Wow, this was a new concept to me. I had never thought of myself as 'doing well at friendship stuff'. In fact, for me, I'd thought the opposite to be true. I seem to have the knack of upsetting people. Many of the individuals I had counted as my friends were no longer my friends. Most of those people, if I met them, might still be polite and even friendly towards me, but they would not see themselves as 'Wendy's friends'. Most of the time they remain aloof, distant and in my past, not present, life. Usually some action I had taken was the reason for their distance. For example, they didn't agree with my choice of partner or career, the house I lived in or my belief systems.

Autism and Asperger's

Being a person with an autism spectrum diff-ability (ASD) means I'm designed to use a monotropic attention system that influences my thoughts, words and deeds (Murray, Lesser and Lawson 2005). Monotropic attention implies 'having few interests highly aroused' which leads to 'tending to perform the task well and tending to lose awareness of information relevant to other tasks' (pp.140–141). So, if I naturally focus from and to any one matter at any one time (within my interest system), but find it difficult to focus outside of that interest system, sharing in conversation and activity, with friends, might not be easy.

For all of us, on the autism spectrum or not, one's attentive attributes are part of one's cognitive state. It is our cognitive design that enables processing of information and prepares us for action (whether in thought, word or deed). Typical individuals tend towards dividing their attention. This will lead them into having many interests less highly aroused (Murray et al. 2005). If one's cognitive and subsequent actions are guided by monotropism (the main river for focused energy, attention, etc.) and its many tributaries (for example, being literal, thinking in closed concepts, having difficulties with forward thinking, etc.), it will mean using energy and attention in only one direction and one domain at any one time. This has implications for many areas in one's life: sensory, emotional, physical, environmental, educational, and so on.

In practical terms, for many of us less typical individuals, outside of our specific areas of interest, we are not good at dividing our attention and energy to accommodate the usual many bits of information that are coming in our direction, all at once. Many of my friends, however, are good with dividing their attention and energies, so they can accommodate their own interests and the interests of others, no problem. Physically and mentally, therefore, because we each operate on different planes of attention, we can miss one another. Misconception, misconstrued concepts and misgivings are commonplace amongst us.

Therefore, many of us, as less typical individuals, try so hard to accommodate a world that is multi-channelled and insists on multi-tasking, so we use up huge amounts of energy trying to comply with the demand upon us and we are often exhausted by the effort. This has consequences for friendship. In typical individuals, dividing attention comes naturally. Therefore, typical individuals can process information and be actively engaged in a number of events simultaneously. It's often not a problem for them to think and feel at the same time. In friendships, they employ these activities on a regular basis. They chat, walk, process, eat and modify their behaviour all at once! They are even able to put their own interests on hold to accommodate the interests of others. Unfortunately, for many of us, less typical individuals, one is expected to do and to be the same as typical individuals. But, for many of us it's difficult to talk and think, difficult to talk and do, etc. We tend not to function well in multi-tasking situations, unless they are primed by our interest systems which are harnessed by our attention.

So, when my own interest system is aroused, I can focus and attend to something for hours without apparently feeling tired. When my friends join my attention tunnel, we can be happily engaged for ages! On other occasions though, in the company of friends who are chatting about things that are difficult for me to attend to, my interest can wander. For example, at times when I have been out walking with a friend, I spot a bird (one of my passions is bird watching); though my attention will be diverted, and it could occur during any conversation, my friends might not appreciate this; they might feel rejected and interrupted, especially when it happens frequently! They assume that I am not interested in them or that I don't want to talk to them. This isn't the case at all. What is happening, however, is that I only have single attention available to me and this can be wholly occupied by my interests, so much so that it means other interests cannot be accommodated. I don't want to have my interest taken away, this is not the answer, but I might need to learn how to widen the window of attention so that I can tap into interests outside of my own.

With the above in mind, it's easy to understand how we, as less typical individuals on the autism and Aspie spectrum, tend to find the whole arena of friendship rather complicated. Having said this, I'm told that even typical individuals can find friendship difficult. It seems that making and maintaining friendships is a bit of an art.

Some literature I have read concerning autism and Asperger's states that individuals on the ASD spectrum tend towards not wanting friends and/or not doing well at friendship. I dispute this argument and suggest, instead, that many of us do want friends but are unsure of the process involved. I hope that this book will unravel the friendship mystery for many and, therefore, make friendship more available and less daunting.