Amy Harmon has a great feature in the New York Times about two college students with Asperger syndrome negotiating romance.

Asperger’s is a condition on the autism spectrum that confers distinctive abilities (passionate interests, intense focus) and deficits (difficulty reading emotions and interpreting social cues).

People on the autism spectrum are often unfairly stereotyped as indifferent to intimacy. As Harmon explains, Asperger’s doesn’t extinguish the need for interpersonal connection, but it does make the search for love more difficult:

Jack, Kirsten noticed, bit his lips, a habit he told her came from not knowing how he was supposed to arrange his face to show his emotions. Kirsten, Jack noticed, cracked her knuckles, which she later told him was her public version of the hand-flapping she reserved for when she was alone, a common autistic behavior thought to ease stress.

Their difficulty discerning unspoken cues might have made it harder to know if the attraction was mutual. Kirsten stalked Jack on Facebook, she later told him, but he rarely posted. In one phone conversation, Jack wondered, “Is she flirting with me?” But he could not be sure.

[Photo credit: rosipaw, Creative Commons.]