Does Mr. Darcy suffer from Asperger's?

Here are some of the signs of Asperger's/High-Functioning Autism and how they relate to Mr. Darcy, the greatest romantic hero of all time:

1. Impaired non-verbal communication not caused by development delay or lowered IQ

Darcy seems completely unable to tell that Elizabeth hates him. She gives him tons of nonverbal clues about her feelings, but he is so oblivious that when she rebuffs his proposal, he has to ask for an explanation of what she dislikes about him. She ends up shouting at him that he is the last man he would ever marry in order to convince him.

2. Inadequate friendships

Mr. Darcy's friendship with Mr. Bingley is surely one of the strangest male friendships in literature. I suppose most female readers simply think that we don't get it because they are men and what makes men friends confuses us. But what do they have in common? The main thing that seems to make them friends is that Bingley needs a friend and so does Darcy. Darcy's way of "managing" Bingley's romance. Bingley is, if happier, as socially clueless as Darcy seems to be, since he has no idea that Jane likes him. Is he also aspie or simply modest like Jane is? Hard to tell.

3. Deficits in emotional reciprocity--failure to have back and forth conversations

Think about the dance where Mr. Darcy gets up the courage to ask Elizabeth, but then has no idea how to have a conversation with her on the dance floor. She tries to give him a few clues about what topics are allowed and how the conversation moves back and forth lightly. Mr. Darcy seems to think silence would be preferable. Those who know aspie people, how many times have you had conversations like this, trying to explain what seem to you the most basic rules of social interaction?

4. Routines/rituals

Not sure if this fits Mr. Darcy or not. Perhaps his letter writing to Georgiana might fit under this category. The book doesn't get into Darcy's life much, but I must say I would not be surprised to learn that Darcy has to have his clothing just so, to be comfortable, that he insists on certain music, lighting, and so on. He hates the country living of Elizabeth's family and says that he finds them beneath him. But maybe he just doesn't like unfamiliar things?

5. Strong resistance to change

When Darcy proposes to Elizabeth, he admits that he is going against his own judgment in falling in love with her. She is not part of his set and this will ruin all his imagined plans for the future. It makes him very uncomfortable and makes him appear really unpleasant and prickly. But that isn't his character at all, as Elizabeth later learns. He does not seem like a man who is happy in London and tends to stay on his own estate as much as he possibly can.

6. Often picky eating

We don't see Darcy eating much, but he seems to like his aunt's style of dining and perhaps this is because she is as picky as he is. His cousin is sicky and seems to not eat much. My experience has been that aspies are often thinner than neurotypical people and just don't seem to enjoy eating as much.

7. All-consuming interests

Darcy doesn't seem to bore anyone about his latest video games or whatever the contemporary interests might have been for gentlemen of his age. The movies fill in a little more for us. Colin Firth's Darcy seems obsessed with fencing and swimming? Also, he seems to spend a lot of time reading and thinking about his sister's music. Also, what a properly educated woman is like.

8. Sensitivity to certain stimuli

Darcy clearly hates loud music, dancing, and crowds of people who are unfamiliar to him. As someone who leans towards aspie herself, I can say this is definitely true of me. I can spend a few minutes in these situations, but I quickly become rather unpleasant to be around unless I can get away at frequent intervals and spend time alone.

9. Odd speech (sometimes very precise)

You can imagine Darcy practicing his proposal speech to Elizabeth over and over again, can't you? He is so precise in everything he does and has little sympathy for those whose speech is not as precise as his. The letter he writes to Elizabeth to put her straight about Mr. Wickham seems exactly the sort of thing an aspie would do, needing the truth above all things. And his refusal to lie and flatter Elizabeth in his proposal seems equally aspie. I hate lying and this seems to be one of those things that makes me lean toward diagnosing myself officially.

10. Poor physical coordination

Remember when Darcy says that he hates dancing? Maybe this is because he is actually not physically coordinated enough to do it well. The movies rarely show him as clumsy because they want him to be sexy, but Matthew McFadyen's Darcy is a bit more that way on the dance floor than others. Poor Mr. Collins was probably a great dancer, really. He is so careful about those sorts of things.

At the happy ending, it seems clear that Mr. Darcy has not really changed at all. It's just that Elizabeth has come to interpret his actions differently. He has always had a good heart, but has been unable to show it. With Elizabeth's tutoring and with his own desire to prove to her that he's not a snob, only that he doesn't express himself well in many social situations, she changes her mind and agrees to marry him. But no one else thinks that Mr. Darcy has changed. The Bennet parents think he is as disagreeable as ever, and even Jane thinks so. An aspie hero doesn't need to convince the whole world that he is sociall adept, however. He only needs to find a handful of people to interact with happily and successfully to lead a good life.