Life for him without me to sort of translate...not sure it'd go so well. We are best friends, but I am sort of his window to the rest of the world. Does anyone else feel they have this role with their spouse?
Yes, but it's (ironically) because my DH is further out on the
social spectrum than I am. He finds the behavior (and motivations) of others to be a complete cipher much of the time.
My daughter and I both have natural ability as social chameleons, and he does not. She and I are about 1/2 and ~1+ SD (est.) further out than my DH is. We're just better empaths and therefore better at interpreting the incomprehensible/irrational behavior of NT (and not-so-NT, actually) people than he is.
I often feel like a translator for him.
I would also argue (and this
may sound arrogant, but it isn't how I mean it)... that many of the people in MD/PhD programs are not necessarily at the same LOG as those in the corresponding PhD fields. My personal experience suggests that IQ increases as one moves from D.V.M./M.D. (unspecialized-- some specialties skew quite high) to MD/PhD and/or PharmD, to PhD programs.
My own experience, anyway, supports that analysis quite amply. I'm probably unusual in that I have a LOT of experience with all of those groups of people.
Anyway. That's neither here nor there, ultimately, as I think my earlier statement about my DH demonstrates. I didn't interview for a life partner by having them submit an application which included various sorts of data inputs such as IQ.
So, if he's walking the campus and wondering why he can't find that group that he fits perfectly with, he's not going to find it, because the people just like him don't fit with anyone, either. A group of nonconformists will naturally not conform with each other any better than they conform with any of the conformist groups. After all, if they conformed with each other, they wouldn't be nonconformists, would they? That would be a tautology.
The answer to this dilemma is, "Don't try to find people like you. Just try to find people you like." One benefit of nonconformity is that you can find common ground with just about anyone. Share those common interests, and respect each other's differences. If he does this well, he doesn't end up with one group of friends who are his "peeps." Rather, he ends up with multiple groups of friends, some incompatible with each other, with whom he shares different kinds of experiences.
The only person I've ever found who seems very much like me is my own daughter, so tell him that if you can't find anyone like you, you can always try to make one.
Yes!!
Though to be fair, aside from Mini-Me, there, my dad was also very much like us both. What a shame that he didn't have a chance to know his granddaughter. He'd have found her fascinating and hilarious.
