Kaybee wrote:
This is very interesting. I wasn't aware that it's an aspie thing.
I have always had trouble calling people by name. I'm terrible at remembering names, as many have mentioned before me, but even when I know the person's name, I hate to say it. It feels intimate and somehow threatening to do so. Every time I address a person by name, I feel as though I'm "putting myself on the line," and that they must surely recognize this (but, of course, they don't).
It is also a shock to hear my own name, because it is just a sound, and, though I am able to intellectually make the connection between that sound and myself, it feels unnatural and strange. I find it particularly difficult to think that people associate this sound with me, as though the two are synonymous. Which is especially strange, since I find the sound of other people's names to be synonymous with who they are. It's also a shock to hear my own name because of the intimacy factor--if me saying a person's name is intimate, then another person saying my name must be intimate as well (or so it seems to me).
This is exactly, and I mean EXACTLY how I feel... Couldn't have written a better description myself. I never knew what it was, other than shyness, I guess. It feels very weird and uncomfortable. I'd rather just break into whatever I want to say, and not use any names.
Charles