Lets tap the brakes a bit here. It seems that over the past couple of years, neurodiversity has become the new cool. Elon Musk ostensibly has Aspergers and so does Chris Rock and maybe Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have it too. Or do they really?... Lets not forget that the baseline probability for Aspergers is less than 0.5%. It's great that neurodiversity gets some awareness, but lets not turn real yet rare conditions into fashion statements or simplistic explanations for various socially problematic quirks.
Unfortunately, [the field of] psychology has a tendency to turn every trait into a pathology that needs medication or therapeutic services (solutions looking for problems... perhaps to pay off those student loans
) and culture has created the stereotype that everyone with Aspergers is a socially awkward nerd. However, Aspergers is its own condition and not just a trait of the socially awkward.
There is some overlap in the Venn diagrams of the traits of the stereotypical nerd and aspies, but the underlying brain functionality between the two is rather different. In order to be diagnosed as an aspie (by trait), one needs "all"(*) of the following
- Lack of social skills
- Inability to read emotions/subtexts in others
- Inflexibility of mind (fixed behavior)
- Easily overloaded senses
(*) Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The symptom is not the disease.
Whereas your standard nerd can be diagnosed as
- Lack of social skills
- More interested in science and technology than people
- Solid intellectual skills
- Obsessively curious to learn more
Ahh, so there's some overlap in the trait indicators. Yet also some rather strong counter-indicators.
Looking under the hood (or cranium), what really defines the Aspergers is a sensory overload issue. Aspies tend to pay attention to so many details that it gets overwhelming. Metaphorically speaking, there are too many sensors connected to the CPU. The coping mechanism is to narrow their focus to reduce what they pay attention to which in turn fixes their behavior into simple set habits, rituals, or obsessions where the scope can be comfortably limited. This problem may be fixed "wrongly" leading to socially weird behavior because the aspie paid attention to the wrong thing about the situation and constructed the wrong framework around it. E.g. eating in a certain way to prevent vegetables from getting stuck between the teeth as opposed to eating in the way that society feels socially acceptable---"normal" people would probably not even notice the teeth issue.
Whereas for the standard nerd or INT* person, the lack of social skills is not due to kludging an underlying hardware sensor issue but a relative lack of interest. Why spend one's time and energy talking about Lady Gaga or what people have been doing lately when there is science and technology to be explored and new discoveries to be made. The problem here is not a lack of social skills but a lack of socially compatible people with the same esoteric interests as the nerd. Indeed, if the "Star Trek club" was 90% female and 10% male rather than the other way around, this [relationship] problem would fade away very quickly (for the guys).
This means that the relationship problem for the nerd is either a search problem or an interface problem. The nerd either has to find another nerd or they have to dedicate some time keeping up with what non-nerds like to do or talk about, boring as that may be to them. Both take away time from exploring the world they're actually interested in, so it's a trade-off in terms of how much they want a relationship.
Whereas the relationship problem for the aspie is to realize---that is both people in the couple need to realize this---that aspies bring something different to the table and in particular that there are some things they're not bringing such as appreciating spontaneity or expressing empathy in the socially conventional manner.
The response to a surprise involving tickets to see a football game makes the distinction clear. The aspie doesn't like it because it's a surprise. The nerd doesn't like it because it's football. The normie doesn't know how to make this distinction given how they like both surprises and football themselves and thus conflate the causes.