“It's like you are just a spectator in this thing”: Experiencing social life the ‘aspie’ way

Abstract

This study explores the experiences of people with Asperger syndrome (AS) from a sociological perspective using the theoretical approaches of ethnomethodology and symbolic interactionism. In-depth interviews were conducted with 16 people with AS and three key themes of feeling different, trying to fit in and safe spaces are considered here. We suggest that people with AS develop a different symbolic capacity to most people and have difficulties in making sense of social encounters. While these difficulties can be overcome, to some degree, by developing strategies to try to fit in, this learning remains at a superficial level and is not internalised through the process of socialisation. Without being able to derive a firm sense of reality from spontaneous involvement in social encounters, participants feel “unruled, unreal and anomic” (Goffman, 1967: 135) and experience intense autistic emotion (Davidson, 2007a,b).

Full text

‘‘It’s like you are just a spectator in this thing’’:
Experiencing social life the ‘aspie’ way
Sara Ryan
*
, Ulla Ra
¨
isa
¨
nen
DIPEx Health Experiences Research Unit, Department of Primary Health Care, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus, Headington, Oxford OX3 7RF, UK
article info
Article history:
Received 6 July 2008
Received in revised form
28 January 2009
Accepted 10 February 2009
Keywords:
Asperger syndrome autism
Ethnomethodology
Symbolic interactionism
Social encounters
Socialisation
abstract
This study explores the experiences of people with Asperger syndrome (AS) from a sociological
perspective using the theoretical approaches of ethnomethodology and symbolic interactionism. In-
depth interviews were conducted with 16 people with AS and three key themes of feeling different,
trying to fit in and safe spaces are considered here. We suggest that people with AS develop a different
symbolic capacity to most people and have difficulties in making sense of social encounters. While these
difficulties can be overcome, to some degree, by developing strategies to try to fit in, this learning
remains at a superficial level and is not internalised through the process of socialisation. Without being
able to derive a firm sense of reality from spontaneous involvement in social encounters, participants feel
‘‘unruled, unreal and anomic’’ (Goffman, 1967: 135) and experience intense autistic emotion (Davidson,
2007a,b).
Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
People diagnosed with Asperger syndrome (AS) are commonly
characterised as having difficulties with social interaction, social
imagination and communication (Attwood, 2006). These differ-
ences have been the focus of a substantial body of work often
located within the disciplinary fields of psychology, neurology and
psychiatry. In this paper, we think about these difficulties from
a sociological perspective to explore what insights the work of
interactionists and ethnomethodologists, such as Goffman, Blumer
and Schutz can provide about experiencing space the ‘aspie’
1
way.
Interactionism involves a focus upon the processes of action and
interaction (Blumer, 1969) while ethnomethodology offers an
alternative way of understanding how people manage the
complexity, uncertainty and density of social life by focusing on the
‘methods’
2
people use to negotiate social life. We will start with
a brief overview of sociological perspectives focusing on managing
social encounters and an overview of the issues associated with AS.
We then present an analysis of data from a qualitative study
involving in-depth interviews with 16 people with AS. We suggest
that examining the experiences of people with AS using these
sociological insights and conceptual tools provides us with
a window into aspects of social life more typically taken for gran-
ted. Three related themes emerging from participant interviews are
discussed: not belonging, trying to fit in and the need for safe
spaces. In conclusion, we argue that the different symbolic capacity
of people with AS should be understood in terms of difference
rather than deficit.
1. Maintaining social order
Contemporary theorists such as Bauman (2000) and Beck
and Beck-Gernsheim (2002) argue that contemporary society is
characterised by the fragility and fluidity of soci al bonds. Indi-
vidualisation and the (arguably) accompanying weakening of
a collect ive community sentiment (Puttnam, 2000) foster an
enhanced sense of fear and anxiety about strangers , difference
and otherness (Bauman, 1991; Hall, 1993). Because the c apacity
for danger, risk and uncertainty in everyday life is so potentially
enormous we operate in ways that maintain an illusion of
safety and security and this revolves around trust (Giddens,
1991) and reciprocity (Rawls and David, 2006). For Misztal
(2001), social trust is based upon perceptions of normality
which are, i n turn, maintained by rule-following behaviour that
makes social life predictable, relia ble and legible. Familiarity
and predi ctability are, therefore, commonly desired by people
who want to engage in mutually understand able interactions
(Sibley, 1995:115).Misztal (2001),likeCahill (1987) and
follow ing Elias (1978), focuses on the importance of civility and
highlights the way it smoothes and simplifies interactions ,
*
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: sara.ryan@dphpc.ox.ac.uk (S. Ryan), ulla.raisanen@dphpc.ox.
ac.uk (U. Ra
¨
isa
¨
nen).
1
The term ‘aspie’ is a shortened version of Asperger used by many people with
Asperger syndrome; see, for example, www.wrongplanet.net.
2
The methods that members of society use to make sense of, and interpret, the
social world (Schutz, 1962).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Emotion, Space and Society
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/emospa
1755-4586/$ – see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.emospa.2009.02.001
Emotion, Space and Society 1 (2008) 135–143

promotin g greater trust and integration.
3
For Cahill, people are
emotionally committed to a;
code of ceremonial conduct which characterises our religion of
civility thereby becomes the individuals’ own inner moral code
and colours his or her sense of the reasonable, the practical, the
humane and the moral. (1987: 312)
This code is ceremonial, that is governed by etiquette, rather
than substantive, comprising law, morality or ethics (Goffman,
1967: 55). And, for Cahill, failure to fulfil ceremonial expectations
causes feelings of anger, embarrassment, revulsion or shame on the
part of the person who fails to fulfil these obligations.
That the shared framework of reality is simultaneously sturdy
and fragile is discussed by Giddens (1991), who suggests that our
sense of ontological security rests on a sense of confidence in the
reliability of people, which is acquired through socialisation. For
people with AS, ontological security is, as will be demonstrated
further on, elusive. There is an interesting dichotomy within the
literature; on the one hand, the ceremonial rules regulating social
encounters are held to be so taken for granted and ingrained that
they are taken to be ‘natural’ as noted by Cresswell (1996), on the
other hand, people have to maintain a constant vigilance and
wariness in everyday life (Giddens, 1991; Goffman, 1969).
Goffman (1963, 1969) undertakes the work of illustrating the
complex, ceremonial rules operating in interactions. For Goffman,
people have a mutual obligation to facilitate social encounters by
maintaining a ‘‘working consensus’’ (Goffman, 1969) and ‘‘fitting
in’’ (Goffman, 1963). This entails individuals not only maintaining
their own proper involvement in interactions but also ensuring that
others present maintain theirs. Goffman (1967: 116) highlights the
significance of this by describing the acting out of this obligation as
‘‘the spark that lights up the world’’. Moral obligations, therefore,
include being sympathetically aware of the kinds of ways in which
others present can become spontaneously and properly involved,
and then attempting to modulate one’s own expression of atti-
tudes, feelings and opinions according to the company (Goffman,
1967: 116). One of the underlying questions we are concerned
within this paper is the moral obligation of neuro-typical people to
facilitate and support the inclusion of people with AS in main-
stream life.
Of course, there are constraints on the extent to which people
will sympathetically support other peoples’ participation in social
encounters and Goffman (1963) offers us the principle of ‘civil
inattention’ to cover this discrepancy. He suggests that people tend
to only glance at others in a casual setting unless a person behaves
out of turn, in which case stares and glares are effective mecha-
nisms of social control.
Goffman (1967: 49) terms those who fall short of acting out their
involvement obligation ‘‘faulty interactants’’ who make themselves
and others uneasy in encounters. This pejorative term might be
seen to place the blame with the individual rather than focusing
attention on the rigidity of social expectations and normative
behaviour. This draws parallels with medical versus social models
of disability (see, for example, Oliver, 1996).
For this paper, the most important point in Goffman’s analysis is
his argument that;
All encounters represent occasions when the individual can
become spontaneously involved in the proceedings and derive
from this a firm sense of reality. (Goffman, 1967: 135)
Not being able to derive a firm sense of reality, a sense under-
writing any hope of ontological security, leaves people feeling
‘‘unruled, unreal and anomic’’ (Goffman, 1967: 135). In some
respects, Goffman’s analysis of the order of interaction is Dur-
kheimian, or: draws from Durkheim (1984) as it presents what
could be described as a functionalist view of people working to
maintain public order.
Emotions are clearly integral to this work, as anxiety, discom-
fort, embarrassment, shame, fear and so on may be related to the
experience of disrupted encounters. As Davidson and Bondi (2004)
suggest, emotions mediate the way the world is for us. Our sense of
who and what we are is constantly (re) shaped by how we feel. By
the same token, what we feel, or more importantly, how we learn to
interpret what we feel is a product of existing in that world; it is
a dialogical relationship. The emotional fallout of being considered
a ‘faulty interactant’, combined with experiencing the accompa-
n
ying
feeling
of anomie or detachment from mainstream life, can
have a significant impact on people.
2. Asperger syndrome
The autism spectrum incorporates a range of disorders charac-
terised by difficulties in social interaction, communication and
social imagination/theory of mind,
4
including Asperger syndrome
(AS). Some people diagnosed with AS can be described as high
functioning in some areas while struggling in others (Attwood,
2006). Difficulties in social interaction and communication can be
attributed to several factors, not least the lack of mainstream
understanding there is about the syndrome (Portway and Johnson,
2005). For people with AS, a difficulty in understanding body and
facial language, sensory sensitivities such as hyper- or hypo-
sensitivity of hearing, sight, smell, touch and/or taste and a tendency
to interpret things very literally all contribute to making social life
largely illegible and, as a result, unpredictable (Davidson, 2008).
Given the significance of trust and predictability in social relations, it
is perhaps not surprising that intense and unpleasant ‘autistic
emotion’ (Davidson, 2007a) has been linked to the experience of AS.
There is considerable controversy surrounding the definition of
AS (see, for example, Mayes et al., 2001; McLaughlin-Cheng, 1998)
and the existing literature tends to present a stereotypical picture
of people with AS as unemotional, non-communicative and anti-
social ( Stazmari, 2004). Recent non-clinical research as well as
personal accounts written by individuals with AS do, however,
present a very different picture, conveying the range and diversity
of people with AS while demonstrating some striking similarities
(see, for example, Davidson, 2007a; Grandin, 1996; O’Neill, 1999;
Williams, 1995). The picture of the ‘aspie’ experience gained from
this literature suggests alienation and a powerful sense of being
able to view mainstream life without being able to access it fully. As
Davidson (2007a: 669) writes;
These emotional states can form a long term background to the
pronounced terrors, frustrations, embarrassments and revul-
sions that characterise daily attempts to engage with that other
world.
Feeling alienated and not fitting in, of course, contributes to
difficulties in maintaining a working consensus in social encoun-
ters, and people with AS could be identified by others as ‘faulty
interactants’ in the sense Goffman wrote about. This concept,
however, does not allow an engagement with the ‘aspie’ experience
3
An alternative interpretation is to view civility as a set of practices of exclusion,
as in research that demonstrates how ‘others’ are kept at a distance (Bauman, 2000;
Davis et al., 2004; Phillips and Smith, 2003; Sibley, 1995).
4
The theory of mind is commonly characterised as the ability to understand
other people as intentional agents, to recognize or interpret their thoughts and
feelings (see, for example, Frith and Happe, 2005).
S. Ryan, U. Ra
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isa
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nen / Emotion, Space and Society 1 (2008) 135–143136

or perspective and, as this paper will demonstrate, there are places
in which people with AS do fit in, underlining the importance of an
engagement with the emotio-spatial hermeneutic (Davidson and
Bondi, 2004).
3. Emergence and improvisation
For the reasons outlined above, we have taken an interactionist
approach in this analysis, focusing on the meaning people with AS
ascribe to their actions and their interpretations of the actions of
others. An integral part of this approach is Mead’s (1934) analysis of
the development of the self. For Mead, one of the key stages to
becoming a fully participating member of society is the develop-
ment of the generalized other which involves being able to see
things from the viewpoint of other people through the develop-
ment of ‘symbolic capacity’.
5
Building upon Mead’s analysis, Blumer (1969) uses the term
‘emergent action’ to describe the course of action which emerges as
a situation is defined and redefined by people. This calls for
improvisation which, again, reinforces the idea of the complexity of
encounters and the nuanced exchanges – both verbal and non-
verbal – that occur when people interact. For interactionists, most
people do not simply learn social rules and norms but internalise
them, thereby allowing space for improvisation, adjustment and
adaptation. People with AS may lack the socially appropriate skills
to facilitate face to face interaction and so may not internalise the
social rules and norms allowing them to improvise, adjust and
adapt. Their experiences can, therefore, reveal different aspects of
social life that would not otherwise be apparent.
The focus of ethnomethodology on the methods people use to
negotiate social life is also relevant to our analysis. Schutz (1962)
suggests that people draw upon common sense understandings of
social actions in the natural attitude
6
because social life would be
too overwhelming to question or analyse every ‘trivial’ aspect of
everyday life. This common sense attitude is a set of taken for
granted ‘things’ among any given set of people who do not need
comment or explanation (Schutz, 1962). While much research into
the experiences of AS has been psychological, a sociological focus
suggests that people on the autism spectrum may not develop this
‘common sense attitude’; they do not have access to a stock of
knowledge which simplifies and smoothes individuals’ journeys
through the social world.
4. Methods
The data upon which this paper is based were part of a larger
study exploring the everyday lives of people on the autism spec-
trum and parents of children on the spectrum in the UK. In-depth
qualitative methods were used to understand how participants
made sense of their lives, what sort of issues or life events mattered
to them and how they negotiated the social world. This enabled us
to tap into the knowledge and experiences of people’s engagement
with places and spaces; their everyday geographical ‘lifeworlds’
(Dyck, 1995). While the overall study included over 70 parents and
people on the autism spectrum, the analysis here focuses upon the
experiences of the 16 people in the sample who were diagnosed
with AS and, in four cases, their neuro-typical partners.
The sample was recruited through a combination of support
groups, online communities, advertising on national charity web-
sites and ‘snowball’, or chain referral, sampling. A maximum vari-
ation approach (Sandelowski, 1995) was taken to incorporate
participants of different age, gender, ethnicity, social class,
geographical location, marital status, age at diagnosis and living
arrangements (such as independent, independent supported living,
with partner, and with parents). The sample comprised of people
with varied backgrounds including students, volunteer workers,
a retired scientist, a computer programmer, a kitchen worker,
a classroom assistant, and people who were long-term unem-
ployed. Five participants were married or in long-term relation-
ships, two were divorced and the remainder single. Five
participants had children and two had children also on the
spectrum.
The research, funded by the Wellcome Trust, was part of the
DIPEx Health Experiences Research project which aims to collect
personal experiences of different health experiences to form
sections on a website, www.healthtalkonline.org. These sections
provide a resource for people experiencing similar health condi-
tions and a teaching tool for health, medical, education and social
care students and professionals. Interviews are filmed or audio
recorded with participants’ permission and video, audio or text
extracts from the interviews are used on the website.
7
Interviews
generally are in two parts: first, people are asked an open-ended
question; ‘Can you tell me about your experiences?’ This question
commonly prompts chronological narratives which can last
between 20 minutes and up to several hours. The second part of the
interviews is based on a semi-structured interview guide, plus the
probing of various aspects raised in the first part of the interview.
The interviews with people with AS involved adjusting this
approach. When the information was sent out advertising the
project in different places electronically, some people got in touch
by email and said that they wanted to take part but had difficulty
interacting socially face to face. They described finding it difficult to
find words and explained that people often filled this gap for them,
effectively preventing them from talking about their experiences.
SR, who conducted the interviews, reassured participants that they
would be able to take as much time as they needed without
interruption and the interviews would be arranged at times and
places that suited them to help them feel as comfortable as
possible. The interviews largely took place at participants’ houses
with a few held in meeting rooms in hotels and support centres.
One participant (Trisha) originally emailed to take part in the study
but in further email contact said she felt she had nothing of value to
contribute because she found it hard to find words in a conversa-
tion; she felt she was never listened to. She was offered the
opportunity to tell her experiences electronically via an email
interview and agreed to this format. The remainder agreed to a face
to face interview.
Participants were largely resistant to the general question of ‘tell
me about your experiences’ and requested a question–answer
format during the interview. This was not surprising given the
desire for people with AS to have clear, concise instructions. A semi-
structured interview schedule was used flexibly allowing partici-
pants to take direction of the interview as much as they wanted to.
The total length of the interviews was between 20 minutes and
3 hours, the average lasting around 1.5 hours. Four participants
were interviewed with their partners.
5
Symbolic capacity is the ability people have to transcend their immediate
surroundings and recall or envisage past and future situations (Mead, 1934).
6
The ‘natural attitude’ has two forms, the common sense attitude and the
scientific attitude. Both take the existence of an external world for granted (Schutz,
1962).
7
Participants can choose the format in which they would like their interview to
be included on the website. Some participants who prefer anonymity chose text
only versions and should they so wish, all the identifying details and information
would also be changed.
S. Ryan, U. Ra
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nen / Emotion, Space and Society 1 (2008) 135–143 137

The interviews were recorded and transcribed in full (including
the length of pauses) and data management software was used as
an organizational aid for thematic analysis. Data were open coded
and categories and sub-categories were developed, repeatedly
reviewed, compared and integrated using a constant comparative
method (Morgan, 1993; Seale, 1999). Several themes emerged from
the dialogue between the data, the existing literature and our
knowledge of existing and relevant themes and topics within this
area. Three related themes are discussed here: not belonging,
trying to fit in and the need for safe spaces.
5. A different logic
All participants described a constant feeling of not belonging.
This was framed both temporally and spatially. Participants
recounted experiences from childhood and talked about how their
interests differed from those of their peers; they enjoyed more
individual, structured play and found team games, like football, or
imaginary games, like ‘cops and robbers’, problematic because the
rules were unclear or interpreted flexibly by other children. Imag-
inary play was difficult to comprehend;
It was when everyone was playing like cowboys and Indians and
cops and robbers and things and I didn’t get it because all these
people were pretending to be like a cowboy or a robber and I
didn’t understand why. For obvious reasons, because they
weren’t, they were just a bunch of school kids running around.
(Tom, aged 19)
This extract illustrates how participants question the underlying
logic and rationale used by most people to make sense of ordinary
events and behaviour. They apply a different logic to the social
world, seeing and interpreting the social very differently. Following
Mead’s (1934) analysis discussed earlier, there is some gap here in
developing a ‘generalized other’. Participants appeared to develop
a different symbolic capacity, one in which they found it difficult to
see how other people look upon the world (see, for example,
O’Neill, 1999). Within psychological theorizing about autism, this
has been termed the theory of mind (see, for example, Baron-Cohen
et al., 1985) and has been theorized as a deficit rather than differ-
ence. We argue that new understandings can emerge from socio-
logical engagement with this issue.
Study participants were very aware of this different symbolic
capacity. Participants described how earlier difficulties with
imaginary play and joining in with their peers were followed by
difficulties in understanding the rules (or point) of everyday
encounters and social greetings. One participant, for example,
described how he had never understood the ‘inane-ness’ of much
interaction, such as asking people how they were because the
accepted answer was always ‘fine’ rather than a realistic description
of how they were. Some people experienced a sense of not
belonging even within their immediate family;
I never sort of really felt as though I belonged and I think that
was highlighted particularly in my family, because, you know, I
was so sort of very different from my parents and my sister was
so very similar to my parents. It, it just sort of highlighted and
made me almost feel as though basically sort of like a freak. You
know you really had nothing in common with these people and
with people in general and it was a very lonely feeling [.]You
know, loneliness, I think, sort of becomes the default setting.
(Robert, aged 27)
Growing up feeling so distant socially and emotionally from
their peers and family members lead some people to feel
bad about themselves. Most of the participants described
experiencing depression and several had thought about or
attempted suicide.
Most participants felt that a barrier prevented them from being
part of social life and while they could see what was happening,
they could not join in. This finding is supported by the autobio-
graphical literature (for example, Miller, 2003; Williams, 1995) and
could, again, link back to the development of a different symbolic
capacity; one that is incommensurate with mainstream socialising.
I remember just always sort of feeling as though I am not really
the same as these people. You know, I don’t really get why they
do it. You know, it makes no sense to me. And it was always very
much. I mean I have heard the analogy before as sort of
viewing the world as through sort of a pane of glass. You can see
it. (Robert, aged 27)
It is as if I am walking around, and everybody has got it, but me,
because I have got Asperger’s. You can say it sounds a bit silly,
but it is absolutely true. And I have found this, with you know.
it is as if we don’t see something. We don’t grasp something
from an event. Something important. (Peter, aged 62)
Some linked this barrier to emotions; they described not
‘getting’ the emotional bond or connection that other people
seemed to develop. A common perception of people with autism is
that they appear emotionless but while participants talked about
feeling emotionally detached from other people, crucially, this did
not mean they did not experience emotions. One man, John,
described himself as ‘‘a terminator,
8
yes. a terminator but with
feelings’’ while another participant said;
I just feel like a really tiny person in a huge big world and that
sometimes it feels that it is just happening all over there
somewhere and I am living in a bubble or living on the other
side of a plate glass window to everybody else. It is like you are
just a spectator in this thing, you know, and it is kind of like
really hard being alive sometimes and I go through when I
wonder just how much long I have got left, you know, because I
really don’t want all this pain in my life, living with pain. Daily.
And it, it gets tiring and I don’t want to keep hurting and I don’t
want to hurt every day and I don’t want to struggle through
things every day. and life just hurts, just hurts being alive.
(Mary, aged 43)
This extract is an example of intense autistic emotion (Davidson,
2007a) offering an insight into what it feels like not to belong. Most
of the participants talked about experiencing depression and pre-
sented their depression and AS as connected and interlinked. Some
people talked about knowing that emotional intimacy was an
integral part of ‘normal’ life but said they found it too uncomfort-
able to cope with.
In many ways I sort of wanted to have a relationship because
that is what really you are supposed to do. That is what normal
people do but being in that situation was just something I felt so
uncomfortable I didn’t want to have that sort of level of inti-
macy, you know, I do not want to share every detailed aspect of
my life. I mean sharing sort of, you know, entirely every aspect
of your life with somebody. I am not sure I could ever be truly
comfortable with that. You know, like sharing a room with
somebody. My God that would drive me nuts, you know, it
would not be happening. (Robert, aged 27)
Again, this extract highlights the tension between being aware
of what people are ‘supposed to do’ but not being able to do that.
Participants demonstrated a high level of awareness of the
8
John is referring to the film character – the Terminator – an emotionless cyborg.
S. Ryan, U. Ra
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isa
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nen / Emotion, Space and Society 1 (2008) 135–143138

appropriate social code and the weight of its expectation. Robert
talked about having casual sexual encounters and he had a few
relationships in the past but had come to realise that he would not
be able to share his life with someone in the expected social form.
9
Those participants in long-term relationships (with neuro-typical
people) talked about the difficulties within their relationships
because of their emotional detachment from their partners. This is
discussed further in Section 6.
Part of feeling that people with AS did not belong was wrapped
up in the difficulties many described in interacting, communicating
and understanding social rules. Most people described being very
literal and this, again, caused misunderstandings, confusion,
distress, agitation and anxiety. As one participant, Tim, com-
mented; ‘‘People say a lot of things that they don’t mean, and they
don’t mean a lot of things that they do say’’. They indicated
particular struggles in phatic communication (Malinowski, 1923),
a form of communication which functions primarily for social,
interactional and emotive purposes and not to exchange informa-
tion or facts. For Malinowski, phatic communication functions as
a form of social bonding necessary to maintaining (neuro-typically)
fluid, fluent interactional dynamics.
Davidson (2003: 115) suggests most neuro-typical people have
a tacit ‘feel for the game’ rather than following explicit rules.
However, AS participants in this study were clearly relying on
formulaic codes that were not always appropriate. This lead to the
experience of what one participant, Paul, called ‘‘social suicide
situations’’ which he described as;
Sort of awkward moments, [3 second pause] like you say
something stupid, and then realise you have said something
stupid, and say something even more stupid, and or say some-
thing or do something awkward and then sort of combination of
doing something awkward and saying something awkward and
trying to make it funny and then making it even more awkward,
making yourself look like a complete and utter idiot and then
going all sort of red in the face and then hiding for days. (Paul,
aged 17)
Goffman’s (1967: 119) concept of interaction–consciousness is
relevant here as Paul is demonstrating being consciously concerned
‘‘to an improper degree with the way in which the interaction, qua
interaction, is proceeding’’. The example Goffman uses to illustrate
this concept is that of a party host worrying about the overall
proceedings rather than becoming spontaneously involved in the
official topic of the conversation. The irony here is that participants
were interaction–conscious as part of the process of trying to fit in
and join in the conversation and we return to this in the following
section. Goffman (1967) also talks about the importance of having
‘‘safe supplies’’ handy to provide enough content to keep the
conversation going and some participants used this strategy. Here
Paul talk s about his use of safe supplies;
I would, you know, find, even if it wasn’t particularly interesting;
‘‘Oh look, butter, do you like butter?’’ ‘‘Yes, butter.’’ And even it if
it was just like a two minute conversation I would just pick
something randomly in the room, just like, talk about the
microwave for five minutes and then realise I had talked about
microwaves for five minutes, you know, and then it would, I
would stop thinking about things in the room and then try and
pick up I guess personality traits, or what people were wearing,
or I guess if I noticed any differences, like if some one had had
a hair cut I would try, I guess, and make conversation about that.
(Paul, aged 17)
Of course, this is an experience that is probably familiar to many
neuro-typical people but the level of intensity and frequency is
substantial for people with AS who are unable, or find it difficult to,
internalise social norms and values.
One final point that emerged from this theme of feeling different
was that people with AS have a perceptive understanding of neuro-
typical people which is often not reciprocated. For example;
Yet people can’t understand that filling in a form for this that or
the other or not turning up to an exam because you just freak out.
Yet people can’t understand why didn’t you just go? Why didn’t
you just do this? Or do that? It is completely incomprehensible to
them that you can do lots of what they perceive to them is
something,you know, difficult, you can’t do these simpletiny little
things and it makes you feellike a complete and totalidiot because
you know you are not stupid, you know how trivial and how small
these things are, and you can’t do them. (Robert, aged 27)
This suggests that the symbolic capacity should not be inter-
preted in terms of a deficit, more as a difference. The extract also
highlights how what are commonly perceived to be small,
mundane social norms can present as massively significant and
difficult to overcome for people with AS. It is as though there are
two, incommensurable universes where something mundane,
small and taken for granted in mainstream life is an alien, chal-
lenging and uncomfortable act for people with AS. The problem is
that for people with AS this tension represents the overwhelming
majority of their interactions and experiences because they live in
a neuro-typical world.
Participants suggest that typical others found it hard to under-
stand how they felt or to make sense of their emotional detachment
and yet participants felt enormous pressure to try to reduce such
differences, make sense of the social world and try to fit in. This was
validated by the four neuro-typical partners who described their
frustrations and the ways in which they had tried to make sense of
and understand their partners’ behaviours, actions and emotions,
attempts which were not always successful.
6. A desire to ‘fit in’
One of the most striking themes emerging from the data was
participants’
a
w
areness of their difference and the efforts they
made to overcome it. This did not involve a desire not to be ‘aspie’
but a desire to learn to fit into mainstream society. While some
participants enjoyed spending time with other people with AS
there was little sense of collectively celebrating their difference.
Trying to fit in had emotional and spatial dimensions. Some
people learned by watching other people and developing ‘tricks
and ploys’ to facilitate their participation in social life. A few
participants talked about forcing themselves to endure social
situations they knew they would dislike, such as going to gigs or
staying in the halls of residence at university, because they wanted
to learn to overcome these difficulties and ease social interactions.
A couple of participants described reading books about body
language or self-help skills to learn how to interact ‘normally’. This
process again was about learning a surface level of fitting in; it was
not internalised or lived but learnt. A married participant, for
example, talked about trying to develop his emotional communi-
cation to improve his relationship with his wife;
The problem with emotional communication is in both direc-
tions or all directions. I can’t read my wife’s emotions, except on
a very broad brush; happy, angry. I would have difficulty putting
in the finesse of ways. And the same thing applies to my own. I
9
Within the body of autobiographical work by people with AS, Donna Williams
has written an account of her ‘autistic marriage’ (Williams, 1998) offering insights
into alternative ways of being and living.
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don’t communicate my own emotions usually because my
emotions don’t communicate themselves to my mind. I know I
have got emotions but I don’t explain them. (Richard, aged 58)
He returned to this theme later in the interview and the
following extract includes his wife’s comments;
Sue: Yes, I mean on a number of occasions we tried various
forms of counselling which hadn’t really had any effect at all
because the general aim of most sort of relationship counselling
is to try to get both sides to appreciate the other person’s point
of view and that is something that Richard just couldn’t do. He
couldn’t put himself into my shoes and see anything from my
point of view.
Richard: I remember, the counsellor was saying, ‘‘You should
take more account of your wife’s feelings.’’ But even then I think
I knew the problem was that I didn’t know what her feelings
were and that was why I wasn’t taking account of them, so it
wasn’t helping. They were telling me to do something that I
knew I wanted to do but I couldn’t. (Richard, aged 58 and Sue,
aged 56)
Again this extract highlights the way in which the participant
knew what the problem was but did not have the appropriate
symbolic capacity to resolve it. He was not able to put himself in the
shoes of his partner to have some idea of how she felt. The foun-
dation of most therapy/counseling logic is the question ‘‘tell me
how you feel’’ and this question is overwhelming and impossible to
tackle for people with AS.
Furthermore, the inability to reach the stage of taken for
grantedness meant that interactions remained conscious activity –
‘conscious work’ as Richard called it – a process that had limitations
and was tiring, draining and constant.
You do learn strategies from an early age I think and the problem
is with people probably on the spectrum is that you have got
a lot of information that you need to store away because you
have to remember the strategies for those situations [um]
because it doesn’t come naturally so you have to pull that out of
your little film cabinet that you have got in your head and play it
quite quickly so you know what to do. It is not inherent really.
(Tim, aged 44)
One of the factors working against knowledge becoming
common sense was the very aspects of social life that encourage the
development of order and routine on everyday lives; the unpre-
dictability of social interactions. A few participants, for example,
talked about how difficult it was to get back to something when
they had a break from it. In this extract, Caroline discusses her work
as a volunteer gardener;
And it is also keeping at it as well though, because if I sort of take
a break from where I volunteer, if I don’t do it for a bit, then
when I go back it feels like I am doing it all over again new. And I
feel like the first time I went back after I had been on holiday for
a week, I thought I hope no one talks to me, I really hope no one
talks to me. I can’t deal with it. (Caroline, aged 25)
This extract again underlines the learnt rather than lived way
participants’ experienced social life. Because social rules are not
internalised or felt, they have to be constantly re-learnt over and
over and this is a harder task if there is a gap between experiencing
particular situations.
The way in which people did not ‘get it’ was effectively sum-
marised by Michael using metaphor; he described how every
morning was like the first 20 minutes of the film Saving Private
Ryan – a film which begins with a chaotic, noisy, violent war scene –
an analogy he had heard a speaker use at a conference. For him
everything took twice as much concentration and twice as much
energy. Another participant described;
I suppose it is like how did you feel when you went for your first
interview ever? You know, if you can imagine that same inter-
view like fifty times a day. And then you have got an idea of what
it is like because . and then you get, you cover things up as well,
because you do want to fit in and you do want to be like every-
body else. So you, even if you don’t get things, you make it look
like you do get things and then you are thinking of what it was
that was said, because you want to find out ways so you carry that
around in your head all day as well, as well as everything else.
And yes, and then you get your overload. (Tim, aged 44)
The use of metaphors and analogies suggests shared meanings
and understandings and this is, perhaps, surprising given the social
barriers participants described earlier. However, this may further
demonstrate the perceptive understanding people with AS have
about their difference and detachment. They may be spectators in
social life but they appear to have a ringside seat. It could also be an
outcome of the level of writings and discussion about ASD both in
print and on the Internet as discussed earlier that people with AS
draw upon to make sense of their experiences.
For some participants, getting the diagnosis of AS helped them
learn more about fitting in. It seemed to give them more confidence
and an acceptance for who they were. In a way, it explained their
‘strangeness’. They could incorporate AS into their identity/ies and
make more sense of who they were, reframing their experiences
and behaviours;
When I found out I was sad and happy. Sad that I would never be
part of a world I spent a long time being on the outside of. I used
to think that if I tried just a little bit harder I could belong and be
accepted – it does look good sometimes, your world. To be able
to laugh with different people, find things to talk about. I do not
understand communication and find using voice hard.
Happy that I could stop trying so hard because I would never get
there, that I could now say please stop punishing me I am trying
as hard as I can – there is a reason I cannot be what you want .
but in saying that there is a great pain and loneliness and black
hole. (Trisha, aged 42, email interview)
This
e
xtra
ct underlines the complicated, difficult and emotional
way in which people with AS experience social life. Feeling
different, for these participants, is not something to celebrate; most
people wanted to feel that they belonged and were accepted for
who they were. While finding out why they are different helped, it
left them still separate from mainstream social life.
Participants talked about striking a balance between trying to fit
in but protecting themselves from stressful situations and this led
to discussions about safe spaces. Interestingly, there are some
similarities here in participants’ experiences and the experiences of
people with agoraphobia as both find social interactions problem-
atic. Maintaining a pretence, for example, is exhausting and, as
Davidson (2003) discussed in her study of the experiences of
people with agoraphobia, lead people to find solace in the home or
by creating temporary or mobile senses of safety.
7. Safe spaces
Given the difficulties outlined above, it is not surprising that
people found many social spaces difficult to negotiate and avoided
everyday situations, again paralleling research involving people
with phobias (Davidson, 2007b). Difficulties in communicating and
understanding social cues combined with sensory sensitivities
made some spaces tense and uncomfortable for participants. One
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man, Michael, described experiencing a ‘‘global synesthesia’’ in
places like supermarkets and a ‘‘frightening brain overload’’
because of the noise and lights. Others said that they could not cope
if there were more than a few people around because they could
not understand what was being said or who was saying it. While
some people forced themselves to go into social settings such as
pubs or gigs, others talked about the spaces they felt safe in.
The safety of these spaces related to the nature of interactions
they facilitated with others. Most participants found the computer
and Internet offer access to a safe space in which they could interact
with people with similar experiences, as the following extract
illustrates;
I think computers are a big part of people on the spectrum
because we know, I suppose it is the predictability thing, you
just switch it on and the same screen will be there and it is not
going to be a different person if you like. [um] We can relate a lot
more to computers because of our wiring I think isn’t it? I just
think its, I don’t know. Just. [5 second pause] there is a safety
aspect with it as well I think and predictability is that most of us
know what is going to happen. I mean nobody I know who is on
the spectrum worries if the computer does something wrong,
because we expect it to go wrong at some stage. And it is usually
during a process that we are actually pushing it to its limit,
whereas if it is with a person, I don’t know whether you are
going to [um] break down the conversation if you like, or not
understand the conversation, or be hostile. I have got no idea of
when that is going to come in and what is always a constant
worry is that what if they think I am weird, what if they think I
am strange, what if they don’t understand, when they don’t
understand what will they say? (Tim, 44)
Communicating electronically removed difficulties around
understanding body language and facial expressions and there was
less chance of misunderstandings (see also, Davidson, 2008;
Williams, 2005). Several participants discussed spending a lot of
time on online forums interacting with other ‘aspies’. One young
man, Tom, said how his family, several of whom were on the autism
spectrum, communicated via MSN within the home as it was easier.
Some people said that it was a less tiring form of communication
and Trisha and Tim were both doing online courses because it was
‘‘safe’’.
Another safe space people discussed was face to face support
groups, rather than online forums. Some participants experienced
understanding and acceptance among other people with AS as they
were released from normative social expectations and some also
found that their awareness of, and understanding about, autism
also increased by doing so. These support groups were social events
and they often met in pubs. One group, for example, met in an
‘aspie-friendly’ pub;
Oh we chose the pub purposely because it is an, it could have
been made for Aspergers this pub. There is no music. No juke
box. No football. No rowdy crowds. (Peter, aged 62)
The use of face to face support groups was not an indication that
participants were isolating themselves as part of a wider disability/
Asperger community. Some participants, for example, found
interacting with other people on the spectrum helpful in the period
immediately after diagnosis, but felt that the need for such inter-
action had tailed off. As Robert said, after the revelation that there
were people similar to him, he had realised that because they had
the same diagnosis did not mean they would get along together.
Domestic space offers protection from other people’s presence,
judgement and disorderliness and allows the self to re-establish its
boundaries and coherence (Segrott and Doel, 2004) and home was
also highlighted by some participants as a safe space. Homes were
not always a safe space however, as safety could be compromised
by living with someone. We saw above how Robert had made the
decision to live alone because he found the idea of sharing a home
uncomfortable and how some family members preferred to interact
via MSN rather than engage in face to face communication. One
woman discussed how she and her partner, who was bipolar,
adapted and adjusted their home to accommodate them both;
We have our own rooms quite understandably. I have my room,
he has his room which we totally need. You know, it is like
otherwise we would go insane. Yes, but I mean there is things
like light as well. I can’t bear bright lights. You know, I have a real
sensitivity to light, like electric light and I just cannot bear being
under bright lights, so all the lights are really dim, but he hates
being in dim light so, oh there is just this crazy situation of like
trying to work out who goes where, where the light is. We have
to have uplighters in the main room, so that bright light isn’t
shining right on me, and it has got like a dim switch so you can
sort of change the lighting system. Yes. It is a bit crazy in our
house really. (Caroline, aged 25)
This extract demonstrates how people create safe micro-spaces
within existing places, such as the larger environment of the home.
Another participant, Trisha, disliked anyone other than her children
being in her home. She described how one person visited her each
month and she could not wait for her to leave because she felt so
‘unsafe’ when she was there.
Participants enjoyed being outside, which again suggests simi-
larities with people with agoraphobia. Agoraphobia, as Davidson
(2000a, b) suggests, is a fear of social space rather than being
outside and several participants described how much they enjoyed
gardening, cycling and being out in the fresh air. Relationships with
animals were also identified as significant to many participants
who
talked
about
the importance of their relationships with dogs.
One woman, Jenny, for example, said she did not have a social life
‘‘like other people’’ and spent all her time looking after her dogs or
working at a dog rescue centre. Trisha described how;
My allotment is good – peaceful and beautiful with frogs, toads,
fox, – I have a grassy area which I mow and beds of veg that I
share with the wildlife as it is their home I am cultivating for me –
I have big trees that were there before I got there and it screens
me from the other allotments so it could be anywhere. The
children from school come and visit in the summer to see the
pond and guess the veg and even the most disruptive child is
calm and understands that they are a guest of the wildlife and so
am I. (Trisha, aged 42, email interview)
As work on obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and agora-
phobia has found (Davidson, 2000a, b; Segrott and Doel, 2004),
participants were unusually sensitive to the presence and spatial
practices of others in a way that most people are not. And, as the
above extract suggests, it is not a generic ‘others’ because the
participant found interactions with children unproblematic – they
accepted her for who she was – and allowed them to enter her safe
space.
8. An uncommon sense attitude
This analysis gives insights into both the ‘aspie’ experience and
the maintenance of social order in mainstream society. Inter-
actionism and ethnomethodology offer concepts to help explain
how ‘aspies’ move through social life with concern about the
contingencies, risks and hazards that exist at a micro- and macro-
level. This is in contrast to neuro-typical people who draw on
a common sense attitude which reduces these concerns to the level
of largely taken for granted and unremarkable.
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The experiences of people with AS therefore open a window
into aspects of social life that are generally taken for granted
(Davidson, 2000a). This analysis demonstrates the efficacy of these
sociological insights and illustrates how interactionism and
ethnomethodology provide tools to theorize about the position of
people with AS. Both approaches emphasize the significance of
socialisation and fitting in; of developing Schutz’s common sense
attitude or Mead’s generalized other. However the key point is the
significance of fitting into a very narrowly constructed version of
‘normality’. Goffman’s work is key to understanding the negative
consequences for those people who do not fit in and are alienated
from interaction. As Goffman (1967: 115) suggests; ‘‘those who
break the rules of interaction commit their crimes in jail’’ empha-
sizing the significance of following social norms and interactional
rules and maintaining a working consensus for many members of
society.
Using these sociological concepts we suggest that people with
AS develop a different symbolic capacity, a different way of making
sense of the social world which is, in some ways, in opposition to
mainstream social life. People with AS can be seen to have
a different logic (perhaps an ‘uncommon sense’) towards under-
standing the social that leads them to try to find ways of imposing
orderliness and systems for managing their social world. Their
systems are, however, of ten at odds with mainstream society. We
saw how participants could learn ways of fitting in, but these
remained superficial and were not, or were only partially, intern-
alised. Instead of living their lives paying little regard to the micro
aspects of everyday interactions by drawing on a stock of common
sense understandings, participants had to consciously draw upon
learnt behaviours and strategies to try to fit into mainstream life.
This was harder when they had a break from a particular context or
entered a new context.
Without the symbolic capacity to improvise within this
narrowly defined symbolic system of the ‘normal’ world – which
most people learn and internalise albeit to varying degrees –
participants constantly experienced interactional difficulties and
were perceived to be ‘faulty interactants’. They therefore lost the
right to the principle of ‘civil inattention’ (Goffman, 1963) and came
to expect negative and demoralizing responses from others
present. Their daily lives involved a conscious focus on negotiating
alien and bewildering encounters. Perhaps the barrier so many
participants described (and that is also articulated in autobio-
graphical and non-clinical literature) is related to an inability to
become spontaneously involved in encounters. For Goffman, an
inability to derive a firm sense of reality from spontaneous
involvement in everyday encounters can lead to experiences of
anomie and detachment, experiences clearly articulated by the
participants with comments such as ‘it all seems to be happening
over there’ or ‘everyone has got it, but me’.
The additional layer of complexity here is the level of awareness
participants had about mainstream life. They could see it very well
but could not access it fully, a position which was even more
isolating, painful and distressing. They were, effectively, at the
centre of an ontological crisis on a daily basis and their experiences
suggest an intense ‘autistic emotion’ arising from this awareness
and the accompanying fragile, precarious position they occupied in
many social settings. The findings support recent psychological
research into Asperger syndrome, empathy and theory of mind
(see, for example, Golan and Baron-Cohen, 2006; Rogers et al.,
20 07) in that participants experienced emotions but were less able
to understand the emotions of others without some guidance.
There is an emotional detachment from other people but this does
not mean that people with AS are emotionless, a point articulated
by John with his description of himself as a terminator with feel-
ings. This is an area that warrants further research, particularly
given the high levels of depression and mental health issues linked
to people with AS (Tantam, 2000 ).
There were spaces which participants considered safe, where
they could interact comfortably and not be perceived as ‘faulty
interactants’. The most important of these spaces was the Internet
where participants could interact without many of the nuanced
hazards of face to face interaction. The different symbolic capacity
was less relevant in the interactional world of the Internet and
there is some irony here that historically the Internet has developed
in parallel to the growing recognition of Asperger syndrome.
9. Conclusion
Using a sociological lens within this analysis has allowed an
engagement with the experiences and behaviours of participants in
terms of difference rather than deficit. People with AS develop
a different symbolic capacity but are very aware of ‘life over there’.
The perception and insight ‘aspies’ have of mainstream life,
however, is not reciprocated by neuro-typical people. While most
participants were relieved to receive the diagnosis of AS – because
it helped them to make sense of their experiences and they could
incorporate it into their identities – they did not demonstrate
a desire to isolate themselves as part of a wider Asperger
community. The overriding theme was a desire to fit into main-
stream society and ‘get’ its tacit rules. Given this desire and the
efforts participants described to try to achieve this, future research
might explore or question the moral obligation of the rest of society
to facilitate and support the inclusion of people with AS in main-
stream life. As we noted earlier,
Goffman (1967:
1
1
6) described the
mutual obligation members of society have to maintain a working
consensus and facilitate the involvement of each other as ‘‘the spark
that lights up the world’’. That the limitations to this ideal, in
practice, remain significant is, or should be, of consequence to all
members of society.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the participants for sharing their stories.
We also thank the Wellcome Trust who funded the study.
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