Are your abilities a quality or a quantity?

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I've noticed something particular about my own abilities to deal with the social aspect of people.
I'm still young enough that all of my friends are always wanting me to go sleep over at their house, or they want to sleep over at mine. These sleep over's start in the early afternoon, and end in the early afternoon of the next day, so I'm locked in this constant socialization for about 24 hours. Usually, I can last with a small group of people about five hours before I just can't do it anymore, but If I distance myself from socializing with them and everyone in the days leading up to the sleep over, I can almost last the full 24 hours without getting crabby. If I'm lucky and there wasn't a lot of super loud noise during the night, I can get home without a full meltdown setting in.
So, I'm just wondering, are your abilities to deal with people in these kinds of situations something you can manipulate to an extent, so that you can avoid melting down in public or any number of embarrassing situations?(Are they a quantity?)
Or, are your abilities in these situations something that you can't manipulate, and they're constant regardless of what you do?(Are they a quality?)

I'm just wondering, because I haven't really heard of anyone else being able to extend the period of time they can do something by 'saving up' their abilities to do it over time like it's money. That being said, I can't do it indefinitely and no matter what I do I am going to have meltdown from socialization, but I'm just talking about delaying the inevitable. Does anyone else do this?

I tend to be more on the Quantitative side. The only thing with me is that im apparantly one of those on the spectrum that can socialize all day if necessary without any real problems. In fact to most NTs I seems just like another NT, maybe a little more introverted/quirky than most though.

I can't manipulate my energy like that around people. I have to have very small doses. 24 hours of people would make me lose my mind. It makes me feel anxious just thinking of it.

Wow, its been a looong time since I was that age...so I have no idea if 'saving up' would have worked for me. I didn't know about my AS then, but I do remember that those situations were extremely stressful and always left me exhausted and emotionally unstable for a minimum of 24 hours after. I guess its not a whole lot different than being married and that goes on way longer than just overnight. I'm no good at tolerating that, either.

Funny you mention marriage, because I've always wondered why my husband's presence doesn't wear me out or give me that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. We do give each other a lot of space and we have slightly different schedules so that I have the mornings to myself and he has the late night to himself. I do have to say though that when I come home from work and he's excited to see me and starts talking (without breathing it seems) I can go into overload. But in that case I just retreat into my own space for a bit. He understands.