General info about surroundings...

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Just wondering if anyone else seems to pay very little attention to everyday information about others and your surroundings. Things like the number plate of your car, telephone numbers of other close family and friends, and other things like where people and their businesses are situated.
I remember a while back that someone asked me for a location of a store. I had no idea where this store was, because I never payed attention to the name of that store. So I said "I don't know". Later I realised that I indeed did know where this store was situated, but I did not notice the name., and had no idea that it was this store which was being referred to. Plus other things like addresses and the names of roads and freeways. I just don't pay attention to any of the info on the signs.
I don't really know if this is just due to being distracted by my own thoughts and anxiety or if I generally have a tendency to block out this info, or just simply don't regard it as important.

I notice nearly everything. My only problem is figuring out who someone is when I see them if I have only met once or twice.

I tend to have an out of synch scakeof what is important - complicated by the fact that I can remember incidents and words quite well but do not easily retain names or numbers.

I will know exac tly turn by turn how to get somewhere - and not know the names of the streets ansd maybe not the name of the goal.

i_wanna_blue: I am exactly how you describe! I always thought (at least always since I knew I am autistic, so ten years) that it wasn't part of my autism because everyone talks about people with autism being so spatially oriented and so connected to their physical surroundings, including the names of streets and buildings.

I don't know if any of the following also pertains to you, but I bring it up because not knowing the names of streets reminds me of all my other navigation issues.

I also am completely hopeless if someone says "turn east" or "go west on hofsteder street" because not only do I have no idea where hofsteder (or whatever) street is, but I can only tell east and west at sunrise and sunset. The rest of the day, if you tell me to turn north, there's no telling which direction I really will turn! Again, I had always heard that autistic people always knew where the cardinal directions were, even if you blindfolded them and spun them around, so I figured the fact that "there's no such thing as a homing sparrow" was just something about me that had nothing to do with my being on the autism spectrum.

But after looking at this thread, I'm wondering if stuff like my having no idea where pine street or elm street are (though after I look at a map I see that I drive on those streets every week) might have something to do with my autism, too.

When I first moved to this area, I could only find my way back home (I had no map) by driving to the edge of town and up the side of a mountain until I could look back and see the hill with grecian columns on top of it that's two blocks from my house and then driving back down, trying to navigate in that direction as best I could.

When I lived in Chicago and got lost, I had to look at the two streets where I was, drive a block and look at the two streets there, and then I could orient where I was to what was on the map. Nearly every time I went to the street where things I liked were, I'd turn the wrong direction and after driving a mile I'd realize I was going the wrong way and go back. People who knew me used to ask me where the lake was, just for fun. They thought it was hilarious that every time, no matter where we were, I'd point in the exact opposite direction from where the lake actually was.

I can drive just fine most of the time, but some stuff just trips me up and I'm never very connected to what's around me. I get lost in the science building on campus because if I take a couple of turns in the hallways, I have no idea which exit to leave from to end up on the street I want to end up on. When I was in the math club, the other members thought it was hilarious because they ALWAYS knew what part of the neighborhood was outside each wall -- they kept a perfect model of the outside of the building in relation to the inside of the building in their mind at all time and my mind just doesn't seem to be capable of doing that, not even in a building I've gone in and out of so often for so many years.