Autism, as it turns out, is not a black and white thing. There are people who have Asperger’s, and there are people who don’t have it, but.

That but is important.

There is a group of people I like to call hybrids. They are exceptionally warm, emotionally intelligent neurotypicals. Highly empathetic. Highly open-minded. And for whatever reason, they’ve spent a lot of time around one or more Aspies. Usually this is because they married an Aspie, or they have an Aspie in their immediate family (father, mother, sibling, whatever). Sometimes it happens with close friends. It can even happen with people who work professionally with a number of Aspies over a long period of time.

This is because Asperger’s is mildly contagious. If you spend enough time with us, you start to gain symptoms. I suspect that because hybrids are so empathetic, they’re especially susceptible. And so what happens is…