Okay, this is a vent. Read at your own risk.

Some of you may remember that two years ago I had one of my nephews here for five weeks. He obviously has (undiagnosed) Asperger Syndrome and doesn't have a clue on how to interact normally with other people. He turned 17 two summers ago, and is leaving on his 19th birthday to go back to Germany this time.

So, here he is again for five weeks (he arrived last Monday, so we have four weeks left). Even though some things are vastly improved, like his personal hygiene (he showers now without me having to almost force him). But his social skills are just as bad as before.

My husband took him on a four day canoe trip into the Algonquin Park. It was a group of missionaries and Christian workers from our church with a bunch of their boys, thirteen people altogether. Adrian is a Christian, too, so I thought he'd fit in.

Since there were boys as young as ten, it was a fairly easy trip with short portages. They camped on an island with a beach. The weather was great, except for showers one day, and a terrible thunderstorm the last night (but it didn't start until after they had gone to bed, so they were fine).

I thought Adrian would enjoy this trip. German groups regularly come to Canada for canoe trips into the Algonqin Park, because it isn't possible to do anything like it in Germany. There you can only camp in organized campgrounds, no wilderness-trekking anywhere. Not by canoe or on foot.

Well, he hated it. Too much work (paddling, walking, carrying stuff over portages etc.) and too many bugs (he did have my husband's bugshirt, so really, he was fine).

He wouldn't come out of the tent except for meals. They stayed in the same spot from Thursday afternoon until Sunday morning. The others went swimming several times, practiced canoe rescues, sang around the campfire etc., all the fun stuff you normally do on trips like that.

Adrian didn't participate in anything at all. They had a mild headwind and some minor waves on the way home according to my husband. But Adrian told me it was terrible!

So, there was the 'amazing adventure trip' that I thought he would love. Everybody else always does.

All he likes to do is be on the computer. Fortunately he now owns a laptop (which he didn't have last time), so he doesn't hog my computer any more. He has his own room (I just got my new guest room painted and furnished the day before he arrived). Privacy is very important to me and to him also, so that is good.

I am in terrible health right now, and don't know where I am going to find the energy to do stuff with him! Susie, my youngest daughter, doesn't really like him, and neither do her friends. They think he is the most boring person they have ever met. Unfortunately, they have a point. He really doesn't want to do anything.

Tomorrow he will recover from that 'exhausting' canoe trip. Tuesday is Canada Day, and my second-youngest daughter and her husband will take him along to a barbecue with friends and to see the fireworks in the nearest city, which will be fun (I hope, but we ARE trying).

Wednesday he will go to Toronto with my husband. My husband will go to work (he works a couple of days a week from home, but commutes to Toronto the other days), and Adrian will wander around Toronto. He is going to buy himself a router and some gifts.

I have no idea what we will do the rest of the time. We saw the Niagara Falls last time he was here, and I have no intentions of going there again. It is a three hour drive each way, and a lot of walking around, and I don't have the energy for it.

I might take the kids mini-golfing, I haven't gone in a long time. Maybe go-carting, too, I can watch. Even though I love doing it myself, too, but it takes too much energy. Living takes too much energy right now!

I really like Adrian. He is an awful lot like I was at his age. I was completely clueless socially, and was probably just as boring. That is why I don't mind him visiting. I just find it so painful to see the way he is, because I remember myself at that age. Life was so hard then, and nobody understood why I couldn't be like 'normal' people!

If I make an effort I can pass for normal now. At least for a while, until I get tired of pretending and stop making the effort. Or until I say or do 'the wrong thing' and get glared at by my husband or kids. For the most part I don't have the energy for being social right now and stay home.

My kids get mad at me for not trying harder to socialize. They claim it would be good for me to get out more, because, according to them, 'everybody' needs other people to be healthy. Well, maybe they do, but I don't. Being with other people takes energy I don't have right now.

I wished there would be an easy solution. If I could I'd live in a little cottage by myself (with high-speed Internet access, of course ), and only see people when I would choose to (no more than once a week).

I am fine communicating by computer. It is easier for me to express myself in writing than speaking to people in person.

If only I'd be allowed to be myself without everybody always trying to change me into somebody I can never be. Is it so hard to accept people for who they are? Why do they all want me to conform? Why do they all think that Adrian needs to conform?

I am doing my best to explain to him the rules of Canadian society (as well as I understand them, which is an awful lot more than he understands). But I won't be able to change his personality, and I have no intentions of trying. We are a couple of geeks, and that is okay. Or at least it should be okay.

It sounds like you and Adrian could be great friends, and you're just the person he needs (someone who understands him rather than judges him). It sound like he's just the person you need too. Hopefully you will have a great time with someone who you can relate to on that level, and maybe you can learn some things from each other too. Hope you have fun, whether the fun involves going out and doing things, or just sitting around the house, enjoying the company of someone you have so much in common with.

Have you ever checked out the web site for Aspies called "Wrong Planet"?? I have 2 Aspies and it has helped get a clue to their mental wiring. I don't think either of my 2 would have been happy on a camping trip. Come to think of it, all 3 of mine would be in the hotel room with mommy if daddy ever tried to get them to camp out.

Have you ever sat down with him and told him that? It might open doors of communication and make things easier for everyone.

I assume he is on a gluten-free diet at your house?

Maybe, if Adrian is like you, you don't need to think of things for him to do so hard. He might be really happy to spend most of his time with the computer, and maybe doing an outing once a week or so. More often than that might just be too much for him?

You could try to send the rest of the family somewhere, and the two of you could have nice restful quiet days at home? What would he think of that plan?

The big question is how to "sell" that idea to the rest of the family...

Pauliina

Adrian knows I like him, I don't have to tell him. I fixed his situation at home in Germany last year when I was there for six weeks. I reconnected him with the rest of the family, and he was happy about that.

His parents were divorced when he was six, and his dad never lets him know of family events (Adrian lives with his mother and stepfather, and his dad's new wife hates him). Adrian thought the rest of the family didn't want him, which wasn't true at all! They just didn't realize that his dad won't ask him to come along. Now they send the invitations directly to Adrian, and he goes even if his dad doesn't.

I took him out for lunch on his eighteenth birthday last year, too. And he came to the big family zoo visit, just to be with me. And he is back here because he likes being with me, of course.

Actually, strangely I have always liked canoeing and camping. I just wished I could do it without my husband, because he drives me nuts on those trips (which is why I haven't gone on any in years now). He thinks you always have to DO stuff, rather than just BEING. And he thinks I should do all the cooking, while he does the fun stuff.

Maybe he pushed Adrian too much, trying to get him to do things he didn't want to do. He is very controlling, and Adrian resists being controlled. My husband thinks that Adrian has severe emotional issues. If he could, he would try to 'fix' him, the way he has been trying to fix me for the past thirty years. Accepting people for who they are is not something he can do, if they aren't the way he thinks they ought to be.

Not doing much brought the wrath of my family on my head two years ago. I was dubbed the dreadful aunt, who wouldn't show her nephew a good time. Anyway, I think he will enjoy wandering around Toronto for a whole day on his own, doing whatever he wants without anybody telling him what to do. That is what I would like to do myself. I hate it when people have an agenda and force me to adhere to their plans.

I was hoping to send him to go swimming a few times with somebody. Now I hear he doesn't like water. Which isn't too surprising, because I hate the feel of water on my skin, too. I used to go swimming, but haven't gone in years. Being too fat and not looking good in a bathing suit is a suitable excuse. But I am not sure I would go swimming even if I was thin enough to look fabulous in a bathing suit!

Yes, he is pretty much gluten-free at my house. He had some bread, which is probably gone by now (he took it camping). I can't really force him to be totally gluten-free here, especially because he is only here for a limited time.

If you are thinking that he might be helped by a gluten-free diet, I don't know. It hasn't helped much to make my AS less severe, it is just who I am. The only thing it has really helped with is tics, they have decreased a lot.

Why don't you IM each other? You can hang out together in separate rooms, on separate computers.

Well, that is what we do when he is home in Germany. Here we both sit in the same room, me on my computer and he on his laptop, and once in a while we talk to each other. It works fine for us. Mind you, it looks weird to other people, they don't understand.

Somehow he can't connect to our wireless Internet connection upstairs, somewhere it encounters a barrier. That is why he connects his cable to our router and has to be in the same room as me if he wants the connection to be fast.

Tonight we went after supper to spend time with my second-youngest daughter and her husband and watched the movie 'The Bucket List'. Adrian is a movie buff, and loves watching movies. It is a really neat movie, and we all enjoyed that.

I feel like you in many ways. Why do people think you have to "do" something to have a good time. I love being by myself. Others hate it. I have a friend that called me on her day off when she had no one to talk to. She wanted to make cookies. She talked to me on her cell phone all the way to the store, thru the aisles while she found the ingredients, the drive back home (3 miles) and while she was making the dough. I didn't want to be rude so I stayed on the phone but I was sure glad to get off. Was she thinking she might be keeping me from my stuff? I like to be alone and turn on the Christian music, bake a goody and just worship the Lord , alone. As for camping, my husband has to go to the last camp site which is not even one. Like 5 hours when we could go 2 hours to get there. That takes up alot of time when you could already be camping.
Some people have to have people around and others don't. I never know what to say to them. Talking about the weather or gas prices or whatever is such a waste of time.
You and Adrian sound like you have a bond between you both. Could you do something in the house to be together and not be on the computer so much? Ideas: board game, make cookies or dinner, play cards, do a jig saw puzzle, talk about life or gluten or whatever interests you both, do the laundry, make some gluten-free play dough and get out the cookie cutters. Go visit the library, then the park with your books or ice cream, something simple and relaxing. Then you can rest when you get tired. Put some ideas in a hat a take turns drawing them out. Do something different each day. That way you both can see what the other one really wants to do or really likes. I know he is older but a divorce can steal ones childhhod. Could be he wants to be a "kid". People don't have to talk to communicate just being in the same room is good for you. A child always wants to be in the room where his mommy is even when both are doing something else. Enjoy each other.

The only thing I can offer you is what works with my 20 year on Aspie when we go on vacation. I make the basic plans on when and where we are going. I then ask him if there are activities he wants to do and try to incorporate them into the schedule. Each day he can choose to participate in the scheduled activity, stay in the hotel room with his laptop while everyone else goes off, or he can choose to do a different activity than everyone else.

In my son's case choice is the key. He would not have liked the canoeing trip either and given a choice in advance would choose not to go. Outdoor activity has never interested my son. He would think it was too much work for what he believes is very little reward from his point of view.

Hope everything improves.

Well, the funny thing is, that Adrian wanted to go on the canoe trip, he was excited about it! But he had never gone canoeing, or wilderness camping in his whole life. He had no clue what he was getting himself into. Plus, the bugs were bad, and I think he is just as paranoid as me when it comes to bugs. There were lots of mosquitoes and blackflies.

I absolutely refuse to go and do anything up north in the woods until the end of August, when there are hardly any mosquitoes left (and blackflies are obviously gone long before that).

Adrian has a girlfriend, who he has met on the Internet. He has met her in person three times, she lives an eight hour train ride from him. He calls her with Skype several times a day, sometimes talking to her an hour at a time. It doesn't seem to bother him when I am around, even though I am the only one here who can understand every word he is saying to her.

We will undoubtedly play some board games in the coming days. This far the schedule has been pretty full. Today he went on a two hour walk by himself. He wanted to go to the bank and exchange travellers cheques. Too bad he didn't tell anybody where he was going, because he would have been told that on Canada Day most stores would be open, but banks and anything government related would not be.

One thing we are going to do, is to build a new website for our church, to completely replace the old one. I took a web design course a year and a half ago, but just that one course wasn't enough for me to be able to do it. My son, who is the youth pastor for our church, called me a couple of weeks ago and begged me to try, because the current site is horrible.

So, I asked Adrian if he wanted to help with that. He has designed several websites and was the designer and webmaster of his school website in Germany. He is going to university in the fall, and will study information science and robotics. He was also responsible for the 80 computers in his school when going to highschool. He knows more about computers than most people will ever know, and he is only 18.

Doing the website will be an exciting venture, and he will feel useful doing that. We will set it up in such a way that I will be able to maintain it as the webmaster when he is gone. And he will keep having access, in case I run into trouble, in which case he can fix whatever the problem is from Germany. Good thing that it doesn't matter where you are in the world when it comes to the Internet.

Purple, that friend would have driven me nuts. I would have felt like she is wasting my quiet time with useless chatter! I prefer being by myself, too.