Numbers and balancing things

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Anyone else have a compulsion to count things like tiles on the wall and see how many sets of 2's or 3's you can divide into them in an attempt to balance it all out? I have a periodic table poster on my wall and it kinda aggitates me that I cant fully divide the columns into sets of 3's. I solve this dilemma by putting 3's on the outsides and 1 2 in the middle. My god it sounds weird when I put it into words. I've been like this my whole life, I have to be able to balance everything or I get this sense of there being something undone in my head. Its about symmetry. I need to make everything symmetrical. As a kid if I got punched in the leg, I had to punch myself in the other leg to balance out the sensation but I could never get the sensations balanced so it would start an endless loop of my punching myself in each leg trying to get the sensations balanced. The only solution was to forget about it which was easier said than done.

I do. I always notice when a room is almost a square, but is actually a rectangle. I count floor or ceiling tiles, and it bugs me if the length to width ratio is very close to, but not quite 1:1. It doesn't bother me if the room is a strong rectangle though; say 1.5:1 or greater. What's worse, is if the room is untrue (opposite walls not perfectly parallel). Then I can't even find the ratio in the first place. Uneven, or indivisible-by-whole-number tiles, lines, panels, or whatever, bug me!

I think this is related to how when I enter a building, the first thing I always notice is any burned-out light bulbs. I'll stand in front of a business with an elaborate lighted or animated sign, and find all the burned-out bulbs. Somehow I just have to know that before going in. And in a restaurant, I scan the entire room for burned-out bulbs, and I can't eat until I have them counted & verified. Somehow, if there's an average of one dead bulb per 3 fixtures, that's not as bothersome as if there is one fixture with 2 or 3 dead bulbs, and others with all bulbs working. They need to all be working, or a balanced number of dead ones across the room.

Charles

I count things, sips of tea, bites of a sandwich, number of times I tap something, and it has to be a prime number or what I call a "nearly prime number" (which only has one or two prime factors besides 1 and itself). It annoys me sometimes

I tend to count my steps whan I walk. Usually to 30, then I start all over again. Might automatically start counting in every activity that is monotonous or has a degree of repetition to it, as lab work or housework. Or even teeth brushing, for God's sake.

I am most aware of this compulsion when eating. Anything that is cut or bitten into is first mentally divided into rows, and then an even number of pieces are cut/bitten from each row. A pizza slice is disconcerting because the initial little triangular bite is so obviously a one, and even if you make another one bite in the second row it's a very different size and shape. Then there's a row where it's obviously most practical to make three bites and that can only be made up for by making a second row of three bites followed by at least one row of four bites, and preferably two rows. I should let you know that the only reason the world works more or less properly is that I have always managed to finish a pizza slice with four bites.

When I get a bag of M&Ms, I spend some time playing with them before I eat them. It's for fun, and I don't always do it, but almost always. I put them all into gorups of 3, but like a 'sandwich' (two yellows with a red in-between them, or two greens and a blue, etc. So it takes a while to sort them alll on the table, but it's a good puzzle, and after they're all sorted, I'm ready to eat them. (I count the whole bag at the start, so if it's not a multiple of three (i,e., 31 in a bag), I eat the extra one (or two) right at the start, but before I try to figure out the colours.)

This works with any multi-coloured candies. But in the cinema, when it's dark, I just get a medium popcorn and dump the M&Ms over them and eat them all mixed in together.

_________________
Patti


Your Aspie score: 180 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 31 of 200

You are very likely an Aspie (Ya think?!?!? )

Sometimes, counting and other apparently useless rituals are an indicator of tension and anxiety - for instance feeling the need to touch a wooden object precisely seven times. Personally, I feel that order and balance (especially when created during calm and relaxed times) is essential to counter stress and anxiety. I like to know where everything is and I like things to look neat, usually with symmetry and balance.

We would not have religion or architecture without this instinct - http://people.gnome.org/~federico/news-2010-06.html#28