First of all, when did Asperger Syndrome become so cool? This is the second romantic comedy I've seen involving a main character with the disorder (see also Mozart and the Whale), and I've seen it used as a plot device a couple times on TV as well (and I almost never watch TV). The internet of course is filled with emo-kids self-diagnosing as Aspergers-afflicted to excuse their pathetic social skills.
I guess this is the newest fad psychopathology, just like "hysteria" and "ADHD" before it, something that might be useful in describing some rare, extreme cases but is probably grossly overdiagnosed to conveniently benefit both the psychiatric-industrial complex and the patients who get to tell themselves and others that their shitty personality isn't their fault, it's a medical disorder. In fact, we know that personality traits and intelligence (and basically everything important about humans) lies along a spectrum with a bell-curve distribution, and I'm inclined to believe that people with Asperger's have nothing categorically special about them, but rather just lie at the tail-ends of the distribution for introversion, neuroticism, intelligence, etc.
When we look at it that way, treating the Aperger's personality type as a disorder is probably counterproductive and likely to trap people in their pigeonhole. Last year I read my lord and personal savior Warren Buffet's biography and though it's never mentioned in the book, Buffet reads like a textbook case of Asperger's. Probably luckily for Buffet though, Asperger's wasn't a diagnosis when he was young, so he just had to help himself using his own hyper-analytical approach. Describing his first encounter with the works of Dale Carnegie:
Warren's heart lifted. He thought he had found the truth. This was a system. He felt so disadvantaged socially that he needed a system to sell himsefl to people, a system he could learn once and use without having to respond in a new way to each changing situation.This is pretty similar to my own experience, actually. Though I'm not as awkwardly autistic as Buffet or Adam in the movie, I do share many of the same personality traits. I am not naturally tuned in to other peoples' thoughts very well, and am more comfortable discussing abstract analytical ideas than making small talk, and I've suffered socially at times as a result. The solution for me and I think for probably most of these "extreme male brain" types was to use my asocial problem-solving capabilities and learn psychology, especially the game-theoretic underpinnings of human interaction. Anybody with Asperger's smart enough to learn about theoretical physics or financial analysis is smart enough to learn about the human brain and figure out how to fit into social settings, if not intuitively like most people then intellectually in their own way.
But it took numbers to prove that it actually worked. He decided to do a statistical analysis of what happened if he did follow Dale Carnegie's rules, and what happened if he didn't. He tried giving attention and appreciation, and he tried doing nothing or being disagreeable. People around him did not know he was performing experiments on them in the silence of his own head, but he watched how they responded. He kept track of his results. Filled with a rising joy, he saw what the numbers proved: The rules worked.
Finally, one thing that bothered me a lot about the movie is that it's basically the sickeningly extreme version of the "good boy wins over the pretty girl despite himself" cliche that so many movies fall for. Some of the romantic scenes were painful to watch they were so awkward, though they did make me feel a little better about some of my more embarrassing attempts at seduction. But the idea that a girl as pretty as Rose Byrne would put up it and sleep with such a social retard is a dangerous myth that Hollywood really needs to put to bed. I know most script writers themselves are probably awkward beta-males and this is just wish-fulfillment on their part, but they're really just doing a disservice to themselves and their kind. The real world doesn't work like movies like There's Something About Mary, or 40 Year Old Virgin, or every movie ever made with Michael Cera. The hot girl doesn't go for the cute and nice but awkward, unemployed loser, no matter how many flowers he gives her or poems he writes for her. She goes for the popular, high-status, aggressive investment banker/rock star/ professional athlete on a motorcycle. Movies never depict attractive men falling in love with fat, ugly chicks. Why? Cuz it never happens. Moral of the story for fat and ugly chicks then: if you want the man of your dreams, get in shape. And so it should be with guys. Guys: don't let the movies fool you, if you want the girl of your dreams, trying to get her to accept you as you are is a lost cause. Study your subject, man up, and supply the demand. Asperger's is no excuse.
No comments:
Post a Comment