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Old thread this, sorry to bump it and all that but its something I was wondering about myself during the series.
I have a 12 year old son with this condition, and many of the personality aspects that he has that are a symptom of his diagnosis WOULD fit Eugenes personality in some regards.
He also suffers from dyspraxia, and as Pikeylass said, theres not much more soul destroying than knowing that your child cant do the same other things that another child takes for granted and is unlikely to be able to in the future.
I've been home educating my son for the last three years because he had what was loosely termed as an emotional breakdown due to serious distress caused to him through the normal school system. It has taken us all this time just to get him into a position where he is now feeling able and capable to return to a school environment.
He goes back next week for the first time, to a secondary school and its the bravest thing he has ever done and Im hugely proud of him.
Now lets look at Eugene with this in mind. If you look at what his mother wrote about his childhood on his own website, there are lots of things that she said that could be used in a diagnosis of AS to confirm the condition.
Without referring to that, and looking solely at his performance in the house, I can see several characteristics that *may* indicate the presence of this condition.
Eugenes need to comply and "do the right thing". Being compliant to those in authority is a trait often found by people with A.S. even if they know the person in authority is wrong. Rules are rules and you dont bend them.
Eugenes persistent tolerance of Kinga at her worst and most attention seeking, despite not really knowing what to do with her and her overwhelming personality. It took him a long time to crack and react to her. People with AS will put up with a frightening amount of bad behaviour before the desire to maintain a friendship disappears. This is because their understanding of what makes a friend follows a particular ideal in their head and anything that veers away from that ideal is ignored because of the old need to be compliant. Derek very much came across as an authority figure, and Im guessing thats why Eugene gravitated towards him, because Derek had very specific social rules and that made Eugene feel comfortable. Where we are subconciously aware of social boundaries, the person with AS is never quite sure they are getting it right, so to find a suitable guide to lead by example is a good thing to do.
Eugenes dilemma over the tea and cakes. This seemed a fairly straightforward issue to most people, and no-one could understand why he decided to release Makosi rather than take the tea and cakes.
I'm purely hypothesising, but my guess would be that the logic that Eugene followed was that everyone had just eaten takeaway and had wine, and Kinga had her cigarettes. He had no immediate need for tea and cakes and therefore it was not as important as Makosi who was by that stage quite cold, finding the space blanket impossible to control due to the high winds, and at times quite distressed by her plight.
The others were put out because they knew that they could have kept it going for ages and got a lot of treats from Big Brother. Eugene, I doubt, gave any consideration to that. Everyone had had a turn, and he was last and did not have any needs that particularly needed meeting by tea and scones. I think it was that simplistic.
Another pointer, would be Eugenes sense of humour. He finds amusement in things that many of the other housemates simply didnt get. This is also very typical behaviour from a person with Aspergers. My son will regularly fall about laughing at a joke that simply has no humour in it at all. He makes up jokes but cannot see why a joke is funny on most occasions.
The prolonged storytelling is another factor. Eugene tells long and protracted stories, often with far too much detail and will go miles around the world to get to the point. This is another typical symptom. Partly this can be fuelled by social anxiety, a need to fill in spaces in conversation, and a need to be liked by the listener. The person with AS finds it hard to recognise that other people may not have the same interest as they do in a particular topic.
Also, his reticence towards the opposite sex and current virgin standing.
People with Aspergers often find it difficult to comprehend and understand the unseen and the unproven. It was clear that Eugene found several women in the house attractive, but his social reticence would have made him somewhat of a joke in their eyes, they had their eyes on a bigger prize. If you have Aspergers, you can know that people fall in love, and that they get married because of that, and they have sex and they make babies, but the actual emotional side of that, the unseen aspect, is often either missing or too confusing to handle up close.
Physical affection, simple hand holding, a caring hug, can be not only confusing but extremely overwhelming for people with AS. My son has very specific self bound rules about levels of physical contact. I can touch him, kiss him and hug him, as can his dad and his sister. Anyone outside of that circle who is family, can kiss him on the cheek or have a hug. Kissing a stranger, or touching a stranger is absolutely out of the question.
His friends are pleased if they make eye contact. Can you imagine actually trying to have sex with someone if you have these limits self imposed on you just because they make you feel safe? It would be terrifying.
I think the point I am trying to make here, is that these are only a few facets to Eugenes personality which I think may indicate a presence of Aspergers, there were others I could pull up but I think you get the jist. But those facets are a lot to do with what endeared us to him, and his matter of fact logical fair style appealed to us because fundamentally he came across as a decent human being.
The reason we were so pleased that he took the £50k is a) because he deserved it, he was one of the most natural and entertaining housemates we have had in that house in a long time, and b) because having got to know him through his time in the house, we knew that taking the £50k was an extremely unlikely thing for him to do, due to his innate sense of fairness, and the fact that he could step outside the fair box and just do something for himself for once gave us all confidence that he was stronger than he appeared and would cope with what came next.
I feel quite strongly that calculating is not a word that you could associate with Eugene. Logical thinker, yes, focussed, yes, but I never felt his focus was on winning, only on surviving and getting the most out of his experience, which I believe he did.
It reassures me greatly for my sons future, whether or not Eugene is diagnosed with Aspergers, that you can succeed at what you want to do, and cope with the stranger parts of life that get thrown at you.
I think Eugene is one of a very very small select bunch of housemates who stand up to society as worthy role models. If he has got this diagnosis, it would be an amazing thing to share with other kids who also have it, and who spend their lives trying hard not to feel different from anyone else when they never got a choice.
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Man, I've seriously gorn orf De Pete
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