Tuesday Blog: Week Seven

This week I began reading the book The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion. This book is about a man named Don Tillson who has an autism spectrum disorder but is yet to be diagnosed. The book follows Don Tillson, as he looks for a wife using a series of surveys and questionnaires to determine who is the best-fit woman for him. He is a professor of genetics and accordingly lives an orderly and predictable life in a sheltered academic setting. His approach to his love life is quite out of the ordinary and shows how different life can be when one is living with an Autism Spectrum Disorder.

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Quote

"I have found a solution to the Wife Problem. As with many scientific breakthroughs, the answer was obvious in retrospect. But if it had not been for a series of unscheduled events, it is unlikely I would have discovered it." (Simsion 1)

Don, a genetics professor lives an orderly life and everything is done a certain way. In addition to his orderly life, Don also has a rather mechanical approach to life. From his job to his personal life everything contains aspects of science. Don even applies his passion for science to his love life which in the past has proven to be rather uneventful. The way Don talks about his love life as a Wife Problem and calls the solution a scientific breakthrough proves that love in his eyes is much different from the way others view love. This quote which happens to be the opening of the book perfectly introduces the fact that Don's approach to love is different and introduces some of the struggles he faces as he tries to solve the "Wife Problem". Don is a perfect representation of someone who has autism on the high functioning side of the spectrum and is looking for love because relationships, when someone has autism, can be very different from someone who is neurotypical in a relationship.

This book reminds me a lot of the show Atypical on Netflix. Atypical follows a teenager named Sam, who is on the autism spectrum. Much like Don in The Rosie Project, Sam has decided he wants a relationship. Sam because he is only a teenager is faced with different problems when looking for love, like being more independent and self-sufficient. Sam who still lives with his family, influences his mom in particular to take a second look at how they are living. His mother and the rest of his family, including his father and sister, are now trying to understand their son and all the changes he is trying to make in his life. As Sam continues on his journey his family and friends around his question what it means to be normal. Much like how Don's approach to love and happiness is different, so is Sam's, this shows how both the book and the show portray life with an ASD.

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