Social anxiety pretty much blows, but I'm afraid though that if I pursue treatment for it I will lose my gift of intelligence - my most valuable trait.
It's interesting, I think i can understand just how your cousin feels. I'm not an extreme case like that - certainly wasn't a freshman in college at age 15, yet I'm not the complete social absence. Still, after heavily reviewing the details of Asperger's on WikiPedia, I'm almost positive I have it. Most of my friends agree it fits me like a glove.
It pretty much describes my bizzare fascination with trashy 80's music. When I was a wee lad, I had a very intense interest in lawnmowers, sprinklers, and vacuum cleaners. Those were the earliest ones I can remember. Since then it's changed from all sorts of things - dinosaurs, star trek, ancient egypt ... you know, now that I think, the intensity really went away when my mother remarried and all of a sudden I had a stepbrother.
When I was an only child, I was pretty lonely. Part of that is because i'm shy, part of that was because of my overprotective mother. I just didn't interact at all. I suppose you could blame my social anxiety on that, but it has always seemed like more than that.
Asperger's seems to be the key because of the fact that my brilliance couples with my peculiar social traits. In addition, there are several notes regarding use of pedantic language, literal interpretation and the development of a curious sense of humor. I'm considered to be very verbose and idiosyncratic in my speech :O
Also, i'm no athlete, but I completely lack fine motor skills. I can barely write my own name. The best practice for me has been playing counter-strike, which has really made me a little bit better at sports - something I blow at.
A big hit is the mention of sensory overload. As a kid I was (and still am
) a really, really picky eater. I despise the way most things taste. My favorite foods are always "plain". I dislike condiments for the most part. My absolute favorite food is plain french baugette. I'm also very sensitive to light, to the point where I sometimes wear sunglasses indoors and turn off overhead lights.
I'll stop ranting now - it probably seems like I'm just making symptoms up by this point.
Either way, i'm very interested. If I do infact have Asperger's, it answers a lot of my questions about myself, but poses many more. Intriguing :O