It annoys me to no end that people use both these words incorrectly. Most notably by my own kind. To my fellow Aspies, you are NOT Anti Social. A person with that classification is our antithesis. The person who haunts us in our nightmares. The individual who causes us the most harm in life.
The correct word to use is Asocial.
Asocial is defined as having poor social skills and electing to in most situations do whatever it takes to avoid social interaction. This is the word that is misused the most by people on the spectrum, or rather, not used at all in many cases. I ask to all individuals, please use the correct word, for as you will see when I define the second word, you do not want to be associated with it.
Now it becomes very frustrating when trying to explain the meaning of the second word. Countless dictionaries around the world define it incorrectly which I have never understood. Trust a dictionary to take a street term and turn it into a true definition I suppose.
But anyway, Antisocial is defined as having dangerous social skills and doing what one can to control and harm every person around them. To be Antisocial means to have no empathy for anyone at all. It means to not care about anyone but yourself. And I don't mean in the cautious type of way. I mean in the, a person would kill their mother for the right price kind of way. I'm talking about the person who would drown their best friend in blood just for fun if they could get away with it.
Antisocial is a shorthand word referring to Anti Social Personality Disorder, which is a fancy way of saying Sociopath.
To drive the point home further, I'm going to explain in he context of my Novel, The End of Utopia, the difference between these two words.
Let us first look at the Hermit Rattam. He talks so little and has so few meaningful interactions in the first book that its hard for the reader to even know much about him. Rattam is Asocial, he does not like interacting with people and tends to stay out of their way. He is closed off and keeps to himself.
Now, let us look at the Cultist Alleria. She enjoys such past times as breaking peoples limbs off one at a time. She gets excited when causing pain to others. She's also in credibly deranged. Alleria is a Psychopath. (The more extreme version of a Sociopath where they no longer even fear for the consequences of their actions) She is Anti Social.
I am getting pretty tired of having to correct people on these words. Especially when the meanings are so different and paint a picture so black and white from each other that its scary that the two can be misused at all.
After reading this, be part of the minority that uses the words right. don't be the other people.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/asocial
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder/basics/definition/con-20027920
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