Feelings

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I seem to have trouble identifying with stronger emotions such as hate and love. I know I feel the simpler ones, such as like and dislike, but I don't think I can honestly say I have felt hate or love.

Hate doesn't make much sense to me. I understand it is greater than dislike, there are many things that I greatly dislike, but to hate something is to commit too much emotion and energy into something that obviously isn't worth it.

Love is more difficult for me. I know I should love my family, and I assume I do, though I don't seem compelled to act on it in any way. I enjoy small amounts of time with them, I don't mind hearing about their day (in brief statements), I am protective of them (in a "they are mine, don't bother them in any way kind of emotion") and I want them to be happy. However, in my mind, love requires a more involved connection than I seem to have with them.

What's your take?

I used to think that I can identify with both anger and love, but I recenly realized that perhaps I don't identify with these emotions in the same way NT do.

My ex was telling me for the past two or three months that by insisting that she tries to resist the angry feelings she has towards me, I am disrespecting her. I can't ever understand why. I mean, anger is not a pleasant feeling to have, so how come an angry person WANTS to continue to feel anger, to the point that they find it disrespectful to be told that they shouldn't?

As far as love goes, again I have learned from my ex that I don't experience it the way others do. My ex is telling me that I didn't love her because I didn't do these actions or that. But to me this sounds like turning love into an exercise. I really don't feel much meaning behind all these actions I supposedly didn't do. To me, love is a feeling of closeness that might be accompanied by words, but not necesserely actions.

People feel loved in different ways. The thing that makes a person feel loved is called a "love language." The five love languages are touch, words of affection, deeds, gifts and quality time. Your goal is to find out what the other person's love language is. You have to try each love language and evaluate which one she likes best. The one she likes best is her love language. If you have trouble evaluating which one she likes best, then tell her that since you have Asperger's you need her to tell you what makes her feel loved. The love language she shows you the most is probably her love language.

I think a lot of people learn about "love" by watching TV shows about shallow, materialistic relationships, and hearing songs with catchy lines like, "Love is a Battlefield." If it's a battlefield, then it isn't love.

Women seem to be conditioned to think that if a man love them, then the man will buy flowers and jewelry for them, or compliment their appearance. Are those the kinds of things you neglected to do? I don't understand why so many women seem to need those things in order to feel loved. I know my husband loves me, and I don't need him to buy things for me, or to say, "I love you" every five minutes. In fact, I'd get annoyed if he did.

I agree with you as far as what love is and is not. It shouldn't be an exercise.

Yes, buying flowers is one of the things I neglected to do. It wasn't her main complaint though. Her main complaint was that if I love her I would know how to stand up to my parents. And that is the other thing I don't get. To me, love is a sensitive feeling, so since I want to protect my sensitive feelings, I would avoid expressing them, which means that if I love someone it means I would NOT stand up for them. On the other hand, if something doesn't involve any sensitive feelings, then I might as well fight for it just out of pride.

But going back to flowers, yes she brought that up too. When I asked her to tell me how often she expects them, she said with frequency between once a week and once a month. And I was like WOW thats way too often, I mean wouldn't it destroy any kind of special meaning to them if I do it that often? More recently, she was repeatedly accusing me of not sending her E-cards after I moved to India to do a post doc (she is in USA which is where I used to live). She also accuses me for not doing practical things that would help our communication, like setting up a landline so she can call me or setting instant messenging system. To me, it has nothing to do with love, I am just not a very practical person; I never done these things before and they seem like magic to me. Instead, I use a pay phone to call her; since Indian currency is much cheaper than USA currency I can afford talking to her twice a week, one or two hours each time.

It is funny you mentioned that it is a shallow conditioning that leads ppl to think that love involves flowers. My ex, being overweight, is very much aware of the "shallow" people, since these are the ones who would judge her for her weight. Her dislike of "fake" or "shallow" people goes a lot further than her immediate concern with weight. For instance, when I told her that I like girls whose voice goes up when they speak, she told me that these girls are "fake", which I never believed since to me it seems very natural when I hear them do that. I don't like girls with a lot of makeup (and my ex agrees with me that makeup IS fake so she doesn't wear it) but I totally love the ones whose voice goes up.

Anyway, going back to what you said, isn't it funny that my ex doesn't like fake people and YET she evaluates love based on the number of flowers that she gets, which you just said IS fake?

Last edited by Roman on 23 Sep 2009, 12:11 am, edited 3 times in total.

I think my love language is "words of affection" while hers is "quality time". And that was one of our main problems. The "quality time" was interfering with my studies so it often lead to my complaining about it which started fights. On the other hand, I was more than willing to express "words of affection" which she kept ignoring because I didn't do the "quality time" that would back them up.

I don't see where there's a logical cause and effect connection between the "if" and "then".

It rates right up there with if you love her then you would know how to make cold fusion create free energy.

I feel emotions like love and hate so very strongly that it's hard to function how I normally do. When I'm angry mind is a mess and can't form sentences properly. This is why I'm bad at debating. I feel love so strongly that I chase that emotion and don't think of the consequences of my actions, despite me knowing what that may be.

HA, good one!

sounds like there wasn't much love in that relationship at all, if you don't mind me saying.

if i remember correctly, it took me a little while to get the concept of love, but i don't know the rate relative to that of a "regular" person. It's really hard for me to explain "love." Emotions like that are pretty primal. You don't always know they're there. This is especially in the case of family, when blood literally runs thick. You literally don't choose your family members, yet you sense this connection to them (or not, maybe). You may not like them, but you find yourself running to them when they're in trouble. It's beyond simple economic/social obligation, and there you find in yourself a sense of familial love. Luckily, I like my family.

Romantic love... is vastly different, usually. There's generally a physically connection beyond your emotional need for a particular person. Hopefully, it's both, or else you get into trouble. Hopefully you can tolerate living together, too. My old English teacher said once that if your face lights up immediately when you think of that person, you're in love. That very simple test works for my current darling, but not my ex's, so I think it's pretty accurate. And, our relationship is fantabulous. We are Parma'kai, or Smismars, which ever is your preferred term. I am blessed to have him in my life.

As for the love of a child, I can only imagine it's similar to the love of a gerbil, because that's the only experience I've had raising something. It's terribly rewarding. However, I can't begin to explain it at all. I only know that they are awesome and getting to know one is an enlightening experience. Maybe, if you divide the child/parent relationship by one... j/k. I can't tell you, but if anyone can explain.... I guess the bond of someone being dependent on you is powerful.

I am only beginning to understand friendship.

I am a potentially aspie female that has had a lot of time to think...

Am I wrong? Any comments?

that's just awful and ignorant... *shakes head*

My guess is that this has something to do with Roman not defending her when his parents overstepped their bounds on their relationship. I don't know any more of the details, but I can certainly relate if that is the case. Fortunately, my wife tells me when my parents are doing this and when it is not acceptable. That way I can defend appropriately.

Roman, perhaps there were things that your parents did that she felt were an intrusion on your relationship, and she expected you to simply know that they were intrusive? Sometimes us guys need things spelled out for us.

Grand gestures (the giving of constant flowers or jewelry). Is pointless to me. I wear very little jewelry (and prefer to pick it out myself anyways) and flowers are expensive and die in a week.

I have never been romantically involved with anyone (I have yet to meet anyone I thought worth the effort of maintaining a relationship), but if I were, I would probably be annoyed with gestures of this sort. Love shouldn't be so hard.

That being said, I know my NT family believes quite the opposite. My mother specifically seems to want constant gestures, and I follow through because it is important to her.

Since I started visiting these forums, I have been most surprised by the intense hatred and anger that some here experience. I don't believe that I have ever really hated anyone in my life, and I don't get angry easily, and would never get angry over any insult hurled at me (if it were vile enough I would likely to find it hilarious ). Quite the opposite of some here. I am sensitive to injustice to others, and could probably say that this makes me angry at times.

As for love, there are different kinds. I have definitely felt the lighter-than-air sensation when first falling in love with a woman. Probably just the same as an NT feels. Love that does not involve sexual attraction is a different matter, and I probably don't experience it the same way that NT's do. I do deeply care for a few people and I think that is good enough. Of course, I have a very difficult time expressing affection.

It's good to hear someone else say this. I feel almost exactly the same way.


It really depends on whether people fall within our outside of my boundary. Outside of my boundary I can come off as overly cold or unfeeling. Within my boundary I'm extremely affectionate. I used to be generally "overly" affectionate as a kid. Growing up, I simply learned to apply that within my boundary.

The only emotion that doesn't register with me is jealousy/envy, I've still probably felt it to some degree but it's so far and few inbetween it doesn't really register.

Anger/Rage/Hatred: I've felt this, it feels like a cold emotion to me, like ice is running through my heart.

Romantic Love: I've felt it, not many times but it's a powerful warm euphoric emotion, it feels very good.

Love: I love, but I wonder if my natural love isn't strong enough.

Happiness/Contentment: I've felt it, but very rarely nowadays, it's a pleasant feeling, I wish I felt it more often.

Fear/Terror: I've felt it, not a very pleasant emotion, I feel alot more of it's sibling anxiety.

Clinical Depression: Yes I've felt it, the desire to just lay in bed and do nothing while feeling like absolute crap.

Melancholic Depression: I usual get this when I'm extremely lonely.

Sub-Depression: I describe this as a slight-depressive feeling, you can still move around and get stuff done, but it's still not pleasant, I feel this alot.

Grief/Sadness: I feel it from time to time, it comes up more nowadays, I think I've emotionally grown abit in some aspects.

Remorse/Regret: I feel this alot, it's a feeling that won't go away, I feel alot of things I've done weren't right or were mistakes especially from my past.

Guilt: I hate guilt, I usually counter it immediately by telling the truth, or trying to make things right.

fiddlerpianist wrote:

That's very interesting, fiddlerpianist. I had begun to think that my different presentation was mostly due to a more classic type of autism. (I wasn't anything like the little professor type - I stimmed and day-dreamed through primary school instead of learning to read at 4 yrs. old and being an expert on some topics) Now you make me wonder about the role of environment in this, too. There was no hate or anger ever expressed in our household, by either my mother or father. How about yours, and to what do you attribute your lack of hate and anger?

Btw, I still have a very difficult time verbally expressing affection to anyone. I wouldn't say that my mildly AS son was overly affectionate, but he really liked human closeness, too. He liked to hold my hand when we were walking in the street, and being AS and a bit slow to pick up on social norms kept this up long after it was age appropriate in Western society. It was really sweet.