Handling emotional situations with other people?

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You make some really good points here. My wife and I sort of recently agreed that I am AS and out communication has improved 100%. She sort of understands that emotional displays simply do not provide enough information for me, and now she suppliments with direct descriptions of what she needs. I think I have often previously, and in a puzzled way, informed her that I would do what she needed, but that I needed her to tell me because I simply don't understand (this must have been instinctive). Now that she understands where I am coming from, things seem to be much better (fingers crossed).

On a side note, isn't this the premise of men from mars... women from venus book is about; though that, I think, is supposedly an NT book; or at least it wasn't targeted to AS males and NT females.

Whenever I'm confronted with a volitile or emotional person I completely shut down.

This has been a recurring theme in my marriage, now made much better by my husband's understanding of AS. I usually do better if I have seen a similar emotional display before and remember what worked then. I kind of flail if it is a person I don't know well or a situation I don't understand (eg, a kid freaking out, since I spend little time around children). A hiking partner often gets too involved in her daughter's affairs and I am very uncomfortable when she bursts into tears over some really trivial non-problems. Suddenly saying "Look! A deer!" can derail her whole drama. That's all I can come up with for her...

I believe the trick is to avoid emotional situations or, if possible, other people.

That may not always be possible, but I can relate. Last summer, my neighbor's dog died. I knew that she was upset, because they'd had the dog for a long time. Shortly after the dog died, I was about to come out my front door, and I could hear her and her husband, working in their yard. She was bawling her eyes out, hiccuping, and everything. I decided to use my back door. I did not want to be in a position where I had to pass her, because I didn't know if I should politely pretend I didn't see her grieving her heart out, or say hello, or not say hello and be seen as cold and uncaring, etc. Emotional displays, even if understood, still confound me terribly.