"Most people with autism don't crave social interaction"

Post Reply New Topic

I'm liking the cactus comparison. In the sense that a small dose of people can go a long way. I crave interaction, but efforts to interact can leave me on the floor for days afterwards. "You need to get out more" is not always good advice.

I'm not liking the sound of that counselor, though. My A.S.D. was first professionally spotted by a psychotherapist who DIDN'T specialize in it; her comments were less inept than those of the local "specialist" A.S.D. team. When their report came through, I said to a psychiatric nurse: "They've actually managed to miss more A.S.D. things than they've noticed!"

Nurse's dry reply: "That would be a typical experience for someone with A.S.D. in this locality."

With the usual caveat "still on the eval wait list": I do not crave it, no. I crave quiet and solitude, esp after working or being around ppl generally (unavoidable in a big city). I crave being alone.

I can't think of a single social event I've actually wanted to attend, other than Christmas Day with my family.

Everything else, I've had to grin and bear it: from a casual coffee to dates to weddings and family gatherings.

I would be alone 99.99% of my life if it were possible.

While I value my time alone perhaps more than most NTs, I do wish I had more friends to hang out with on weekends. Work tires me out too much to want to do anything on weeknights (not to mention I don’t drink alcohol and have no interest in bars due to the noise level).

I like a bit of minimal interaction now and then, like saying hi to acquaintances at work, but more than that can wear me out pretty quickly. Mostly I just interact with my wife and my mom.

What's coming through all this is, maybe, the fact that some of us can sometimes enjoy some social interaction, with some people. I find the people have to be the RIGHT people: they needn't necessarily know much about A.S.D. but they do need to have the kind of intuition or sensitivity that will automatically prevent them from being too importunate or too wearing, e.g. the kind of laid-back host who isn't hurt if you absent yourself from a meal or disappear for a day.

Also the fact that many mental health professionals still buy into the idea that we're all innately anti-social or aloof, and cold-hearted with it! Evidently this is untrue: we CAN feel affection and we CAN crave human interaction; it's just we may have trouble expressing the affection, and social interaction can become so exhausting or stressful that we may sometimes need to withdraw from it. All my life, people have been telling me I was lonely and unhappy because I was too reclusive and didn't mix enough; I think I'm lonely and unhappy because I'd really like to mix a bit more, but experience demonstrates I just can't (not without ending up distressed and disillusioned, that is). However, there's no point wallowing in self-pity about that (which is not to say I never do...): that's just the way it is.

So maybe the trick is to be selective about social interaction, for one's own self-preservation, and also selective about which mental health professionals (if any) to believe, because some of them can sometimes be talking complete rubbish (though of course some of them can be wonderful). It's a question of deciding what works for you; easier said than done, especially if people around you are telling you to persevere with things that never have worked for you and perhaps never will.

Apparently, I'm one of those who can afford sociality, both shallow and deep, yet is actually asocial -- someone who do not have any social 'cravings'.


I crave to share, spread and connect, yes... In spite of other things that might've hinder me from it.
Just not like most people's idea of what being social is like -- but something beyond the usual idea of being social is.

Whatever it was, it's more of a mission than a job. The pro-social behaviors are just the consequences of whatever it was.
And whatever it was, the motive isn't to 'be' social nor attain it but to move something.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

I'm not sure about the stats, honestly. I know some autistics have said they like social interaction, certainly. In my own experience, most autistics I've talked to have expressed a mild to strong preference for less interaction, but I have no idea if that's true in general.

As a personal anecdote, I'm extremely asocial. I don't go to anything social unless there's a secondary reason to - club events to build networks (another thing I'm crap at), family weddings and such because it builds a reputation among the extended family of not being a complete hermit, and the occasional local by-and-for-autistics social group meeting because they're some of the very few people I find actually interesting to talk to (or be talked at by, when someone goes off on a personal interest tear - they can actually be pretty informative!).

But certainly, it's one thing I noticed about myself compared to the general population - there is no *craving* for social interaction. No *drive* to pursue it for its own sake. It's as if the part of my brain which is supposed to push me towards that in order to be a part of the human social network at the personal level simply never developed.

I've actually sat down and thought it over, and I don't mind being a part of greater society as a whole. I'll even occasionally do things and make contributions to it that aren't thought of as mandatory. But that's big-picture stuff. When it comes to being nudged into one-on-one interactions, I just don't seem to have a nudger.