diff --git a/README.rdoc b/README.rdoc
index 8972b37..9407536 100644
--- a/README.rdoc
+++ b/README.rdoc
@@ -46,35 +46,6 @@ The application will pause at socket.connect and handle events from Pusher as th
 
   socket.connect
 
-== Asynchronous Usage
-The socket will remain open in the background as long as your main application thread is running,
-and you can continue to subscribe/unsubscribe to channels and bind new events.
-
-  require 'pusher-client'
-  socket = PusherClient::Socket.new(YOUR_APPLICATION_KEY)
-  socket.connect(true) # Connect asynchronously
-
-  # Subscribe to two channels
-  socket.subscribe('channel1')
-  socket.subscribe('channel2')
-
-  # Bind to a global event (can occur on either channel1 or channel2)
-  socket.bind('globalevent') do |data|
-    puts data
-  end
-
-  # Bind to a channel event (can only occur on channel1)
-  socket['channel1'].bind('channelevent') do |data|
-    puts data
-  end
-
-  loop do
-    sleep(1) # Keep your main thread running
-  end
-
-For further documentation, read the source & test suite. Some features of the JavaScript client
-are not yet implemented.
-
 == Native extension
 Pusher depends on the websocket[https://github.com/imanel/websocket-ruby] gem
 which is a pure Ruby implementation of websockets.
diff --git a/examples/hello_pusher_async.rb b/examples/hello_pusher_async.rb
deleted file mode 100644
index f022202..0000000
--- a/examples/hello_pusher_async.rb
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,22 +0,0 @@
-# Usage: $ PUSHER_KEY=YOURKEY ruby examples/hello_pusher.rb
-
-$:.unshift(File.expand_path("../../lib", __FILE__))
-require 'pusher-client'
-require 'pp'
-
-APP_KEY = ENV['PUSHER_KEY'] # || "YOUR_APPLICATION_KEY"
-
-socket = PusherClient::Socket.new(APP_KEY)
-socket.connect(true)
-
-# Subscribe to a channel
-socket.subscribe('hellopusher')
-
-# Bind to a channel event
-socket['hellopusher'].bind('hello') do |data|
-  pp data
-end
-
-loop do
-  sleep 1
-end
diff --git a/lib/pusher-client/socket.rb b/lib/pusher-client/socket.rb
index 0c3906f..d1b4abb 100644
--- a/lib/pusher-client/socket.rb
+++ b/lib/pusher-client/socket.rb
@@ -62,21 +62,11 @@ def initialize(app_key, options={})
     end
 
     def connect(async = false)
+      raise "Async is not supported anymore" if async
       return if @connection
       logger.debug("Pusher : connecting : #{@url}")
 
-      if async
-        @connection_thread = Thread.new do
-          begin
-            connect_internal
-          rescue => ex
-            send_local_event "pusher:error", ex
-          end
-          @connection_thread = nil
-        end
-      else
-        connect_internal
-      end
+      connect_internal
       self
     end
 
@@ -84,7 +74,7 @@ def disconnect(ex = nil)
       return unless @connection
       logger.debug("Pusher : disconnecting")
 
-      @connection.close
+      @connection.close rescue nil
 
       send_local_event("pusher:connection_disconnected", ex)
     end
@@ -215,8 +205,9 @@ def connect_internal
           send_local_event(params['event'], params['data'], params['channel'])
         end
       end
-    rescue IOError, Errno::EBADF => ex
+    rescue IOError, Errno::EBADF, SocketError => ex
       disconnect(ex)
+      return ex
     end
 
     def send_local_event(event_name, event_data, channel_name=nil)