The Rosie Project – Graeme Simsion

To begin with I thought this was simply a rip-off of the Richard Ayoade character in The IT Crowd, the semi-autistic genius who takes everything literally. It didn’t take long before I was neglecting household duties to continue reading. I will make my excuses here. The nerdy protagonist, Professor Don Tillman is me, written in bold, though how he got to be a professor is a mystery. It is part of the genius of all good books that we identify with the characters, but this had me hurrying off to assess my position on the autism/Asperger’s scale.*

Interestingly a friend of mine with an exasperating boyfriend insists he has Asperger’s. When the men in the company listen to her stories they nod and say ‘Yes, that’s a man.’

Professor Tillman decides he needs a wife, so he proceeds logically and devises a questionnaire to weed out the unsuitable. Enter Rosie, smoker, drinker, waitress and possessor of a number of other unacceptable attributes. Despite the absurdities, the book is very romantic, and I have no hesitation in recommending it. Like DVD’s it comes with extra features. You can fill in Professor Tillman’s questionnaire for yourself. Warning: a perfect score means the only compatible person in the world is Don Tillman and he is fictional. Now please excuse me. I have to go and cross-index my music collection by harmonic structure.

*26 since you ask. Above 32 a degree of autism is likely though some individuals still lead functional lives.

                      https://psychcentral.com/quizzes/autism-test/

Obviously, I still need to work on my social skills, as both of my friends are always ready to remind me.