Is emotional age difference always a problem?

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Reading some other threads, many people on here consider themselves to be ahead of thier years mentally, but behind thier years emotionally & in maturity level. I'm the same way, & put my own figure at a 10 year difference in each direction.

For example, at a social gathering, I get along best with older people talking about stuff like science & politics. People my age prefer less information intensive subjects.

However, I live a low-responsability, fun lifestyle. Love to travel, enjoy gaming, go to a lot of concerts, & prefer playing the field as opposed to getting into a relationship. Most people my age have that lifestyle behind them, have kids, are settling down.

My question is, do the differences ever fade? I mean, if you're 40, & act like a 30 year old, nobody would care or notice. I'm just hoping everything sorts itself out at some point.

Interesting question. Most of the friendships that have developed for me have been with people 20 years my senior. I feel like I have caught up emotionally now ten years late like you said but I'm not entirely sure I 'm very interested to here others experiences about this.

I think I'm the opposite. I have the maturity of an 18 year old, but often the mental age of someone far younger. I can become very childish at times and people view me as very weird or immature, when I'm not. Immature, anyway. Usually. I also used to have friends a couple of years below me in school, in UK year 6 (9-10) my friendship group were in year 4 (7-8). Now I have managed to find friends the same age.

Well, when we are children, we are "little professors" that get along with adults better than other children. So, in some ways we may look more mature than we actually are.

The estimate I have read is that we are 1/3-2/3 our chronological age. I believe that is from Attwood. Supposedly, the range is based on whether you are mild, moderate or severe. This puts me between 13 and 26, and I am 40. For me, this fits. I feel very much like a young 20 year old. In my thirties, I felt like I was becoming a teenager for the first time. I was interested in clothing and style and being "popular" at the workplace for the first time. It was strange.

I don't feel like I've changed significantly since I was a teenager.

That's kinda interesting WhiteTiger...

So because I'm 31, that means I'm between 10 and 20.

I always hope that maybe I will mature when I get older so that I can maybe have a relationship.

Some people say that it does happen, although I doubt that we ever catch up with NTs.

Sam x

I am not sure where I'm at but people have told me I sound 17 and one of my friends on here told me I'm like a 16 year old. Do us aspies stop emotionally maturing at a certain age level, my friend told me lot of people on the spectrum are like 15-17 year olds so it made me wonder if it stops right there for us and we are at that level for the rest of our adult lives?

But in high school I seemed behind and ahead of my peers. I was ahead in maturity but behind in emotions and social skills. I estimated I am at least ten years behind and I made my shrink laugh when I said at 17 when I'm in my twenties I be like a teenager and when I'm in my forties I act like in my thirties. I think I went through a huge growth spurt in emotions because I am not like a preteen and my ex said when I was 21 I am like a 17 year old and then he went onto saying I am like a five year old based on my interests Trying to be like an adult and handle things the adult way probably made me grow up that quick.

Well intelectually I'd say I'm quite mature. But my maturity level is that of a 12/13 year old, I've always been much younger than my cronoglical age and my friends are nearly always younger. I can't believe I'm classed as a young adult now, I can draw money out of the bank and everything but I'm basically still a kid.

You probably could if you wanted to, anyway - just has to be what's right for you!

I've never given much thought to this emotional age lark. I've had people tell me I act old before... and others tell me I act young. (Which when you work around a lot of people in their early 20s, is quite unusual - I'm never sure how to take it!)
I think depending on the subject and context I can oscillate rather a lot between different age behaviours... never infantile, but there's still a part of me that loves Doctor Who like it was when I was a kid, and thinks prank calls are hilarious. There's also the part that worries about my pension and takes things far too seirously...

I just turned 50 and I don't feel any different in terms of ability to cope with the world than I did at, say, 15 -perhaps 22 on a good day. Executive function abilities to plan for the long-term plateaued somewhere in there, though the intellectual understanding of the need for those things has always been clear, the ability to actually organize anything of that scope just never solidified. That's one of the most frightening qualities of AS for me.

A GF once accused me of being "emotionally ret*d". Of course she was quite angry at me when she said it, but I suppose it's true, in a very literal sense.

Who knew?

I sometimes think I'm still 15 emotionally.

That's very interesting. When in my forties, I went through this adolescent stage, where I was listening to loud music and speeding in my car. When I was chronologically in my teens, I was very serious and sober, often being mistaken for being a lot older than I was. I had also started a new job, and went partying with my co-workers every weekend, as well as taking a lot of interest in my appearance, diets, etc. There may be something to this!

Interesting how some call me 'immature' (when in /b/tard mode and whatnot) while others say im 1337, mature or a 'professional troll'

Pehaps it's just me, but if you find the right partner who has a taste for a similar lifestyle (ie. poly, childfree, youthful, nonconformist) or instead you choose to live independently I don't see why your lifestyle has to change much if it works for you and makes you happy.

For some, settling down can be overrated and age can be just an arbitrary number.

Yes IMO it does indeed reach a level where it doesn't matter. At 20 years old, 10 years is 50% of your life, at 40 years old it's only 25% - and that makes a lot of difference in my experience.

I'm coming up to 40 now - when I was nearer 20, older people would ask me about when I was going to meet someone and get married, when I was going to have children, in fact that was all the older people at work would ever talk to me about. The main thing about getting older (I have found) is that other people are MUCH less concerned with what you should be doing or ought to be doing with your life - by 40 they assume that you have already made informed decisions, and more of the people you come into contact with are younger than you anyway - if they ask questions it is due to genuine innocence, and they will just accept whatever answer you give, because their only reason for asking in the first place is idle curiosity and naivete rather than trying to share their perceived wisdom with you, and they have no reason or experience to tell you that you're living your life the wrong way.

Might be something to do with the "pool's closed" Habbo avatar

You know, I never thought about this before, but when we were breaking up, an ex actually called me an emotional cripple. I think I'm starting to understand what she meant. Someone else used to refer to me as "Mr Spock"... cold and logical, I guess... but the irony is, I do have emotions. I'm just not good at expressing them.