Yeah, I've seen development like this before. In which a more severely autistic individual only has what he was taught as a child in early life as the building blocks for his understanding of reality, and it looks almost like somewhere along the timeline his ability to adapt and change to having an understanding of life outside of what he retained from that brief introductory period just halted entirely.
I think stunted development cases such as this are mostly the result of how difficult it is for the parent or guardian figures to help a heavily autistic person learn to adapt and change with the different stages of his life, and the older, and bigger, a person gets, the more difficult it is to muscle past that stubbornness. So they enable him to live stunted and say it can't be any other way.
I think it's correct to figure that Erik is just blissfully unaware of how creepy he looks, having been brought up to have the self reflective abilities and social awareness of a boulder. I hardly think he's dangerous but, that line can be crossed so easily, and clearly this man is not able to conduct himself socially or care for himself independently. Get him an aid and I think everything will be fine.
On some level, he does seem to be aware that his behavior is not normal. In one of his LiveJournal entries, he mentions that he's working on handling his "Autism Fits" better.
All the information I've collected regarding him points to him living with his mother, and possibly sister with her three children. His sister, Cassandra, seems to be a normal person all things considered; she recently became an EMT for their county in New Jersey. His father passed away in 2002.
Something I noticed is, he's mentioned Freedom as a concept a few times, and the way he describes it I think just further shows his decided rejection of even attempting to fit into a regular adult life with responsibilities and jobs and the like. He wants to be Free! To play on the playground and eat junk food and watch TV all day long!
I get the feeling it's still the 90's in his head. [Insert Y2K joke Here]
Also, out of curiousity, I googled "Waretown, NJ" and it appears to be a small town right by the shoreline in Jersey.
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He lives fairly close to the coastline, and I recall seeing a lot of Mokraceks in the area when doing research.
Not a fan of Gabby Rivera's latest work, to be honest.
