Reacting appropriately in sudden social situations

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I also have ADHD and OCD (I control my OCD pretty well), so it might not be the ASD.

Before telling you this story, I want to say that the consequences of it were insignificant. Nothing very bad happened, So, here's what happened:

Three days ago, I was walking alone at night. There was a guy who was drinking and sitting and he said he wanted to talk with me with a rude voice. I waited for like 3 seconds (I was already past him), but I was in hurry, so I just went walking again and ignored him (also, I kinda felt where he was going).

10 meters or so later, I noticed that in front of me, there were three of his friends. He claimed that I attacked him, and they started walking towards me (obviously intending to attack me). They were about 16 years old (I'm 20-21), like 10 centimeters (3.8 inches) shorter than me, and no one of them looked bulky. I know martial arts, I'm very fit physically, I have high endurance against blows, though I have never fought (the last time I did, my technique was reeeally bad, I've never tested what I actually know), and I have never sparred. Anyway, they attacked me, and I didn't do anything, except to make attempts to persuade them that I didn't actually attack the guy, I was just passing by, and I don't want any trouble. I continued with this (while they were hitting me), I blocked some of the blows, I was like begging for mercy (not crying), and after some time (I took many hits, though I felt like I was completely okay), apparently two of them felt pity, and they protected me from the other two (by pushing them away). Then I got home. I had bruises and stuff (they still hurt), but that's all the consequences. I was far from being beaten up, I felt completely okay.

I don't remember feeling scared at any point of this. I've noticed that I tend to be often scared, but this time, my adrenaline was high. My reaction wasn't because I planned it like that, it was my natural reaction (and it felt like my aspie nature was the cause of this). Judging by how much time I endured without fighting back, I would've probably able to win the fight (or at least get out with less harm).

This isn't the first time this happens to me. It'd be natural for me to react strongly every time someone does something offensive to me, because I have really high ability to defend myself. However, that's not the case, in fact it's the opposite - even if I get hit in the head, I'd find it hard to react, I know from experience. There were cases where I hit back, and it was when I planned the whole thing (it was self-defense, in all of the cases).

Also, when I had to kiss a girl, it was too very hard for me to do. It's like when I'm about to "start doing something that's impulsive" (or something like that), I block out.

Once, I had to slap a girl (it was completely appropriate, and no, I never hit girls), and I had some kind of strong desire of avoiding the whole situation and running away, even though there wasn't any risk of anything negative for me happening after that. The fear was so strong that I didn't slap her, even though I knew that this fear was just a wrong emotion that I should ignore.

Do you have that kind of thing? I'm trying to determine whether it comes from my ASD, because I want to "remove" it. It feels like it comes from my ASD (fear of getting in a different situation, fear of change, where the change leads to a situation that feels like important).

First off, you can use conversational wildcards, like a neutral "Hi," whatever the guy says.

The only "mistake" you may have made was to momentarily stop rather than keep walking. I don't know if it would have made any difference. Obviously, with the blatant lie that you had attacked the first guy, these guys were looking for a fight. And I guess they used the fact that you were older and slightly tall as an excuse making it "fair," when four vs. one, obviously it is not.

I wrote an post "Tight, defensive boxing to a draw. One week." http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt134616.html I mainly had in mind kind of low-grade schoolyard fights. This is quite a bit more serious. But still, you may have held back on the marital arts because they are for situations uber serious. There might be a middle course like the heel of your hand to the rib cage or solar plexus? Or in a fight around '07, boxer Ricky Hatton won by an upward blow to liver area. The guy couldn't breath for like 30 seconds, and presumably couldn't talk either. Then loudly yelling "It's Over!" And the other guys may back off and you walk away.

Maybe. But I kind of think you were caught in no man's land, where the very serious skills of marital arts maybe felt too serious for this situation.

Okay, I think all of us have an internal censor, both those of us on the spectrum and so-called "normal" people (and no such thing as normal anyway!).

I've had some success with making a conscious effort to merely turn down the internal censor where my default setting is, 'it's probably okay to go ahead and say it,' unless it just really jumps out at me that it's not.

And then, I've had the experience, not often but occasionally, of Oh, Wow, I'm asking out a girl, and I'm more observing myself doing it than planning and pre-planning, and that's really kind of a neat feeling. (yes, in a sense, a woman in her 40s or even early 50s, if I'm interested in going out with her, she is a 'girl,' and I mean that as high compliment!)

And also, a little bit out of left field, but I feel I have learned additional social skills from playing poker, bar poker for points these days, raise, call, fold, baseline of odds, and I might get a read, I might not, none of it is a hundred percent. I think with poker that I make a lot of individual moves and a lot of sessions with similar experiences. (I do not recommend poker as an attempt to make money precisely because of the inevitable upswings and downswings.)

I also struggle with OCD, both as a child and esp as a teenager starting at age 16, and some still today. About germs, yes, but also about "chemical contamination".

Maybe sometime you could share some of the methods you use for handling OCD.

So I guess that problem wasn't because of my ASD? I need more people to say whether they have it, or not.

Well, I have that standard response of nothingness in relation to people. It can be both positive and negative, but for me both aspects of it are part of my autism. I have ADHD too, so the lack of impulsive reaction sometimes freaks people out.

It happens to me usually when a situation involving people changes and then requires a reaction from me. Think of your conversational partner telling something supposedly amusing, but you don't see it that way. Because of the way you grew because of your autism or because of some other reason, you don't have any emotional standard response to that matter. In that case, I draw a blank for a moment.

One aspect is that missing emotional response that could trigger an impulsive reaction from me such as laughing, disagreeing or whatever. The other and possibly bigger reason is the change in the situation.

Imagine that as not having expected the other to say that at all.

Because my autism (it's for different for everybody) means delayed processing of countless unexpected details that occur in a change, I also have difficulty to just spontaneously be an actor and pretend I have an emotional reaction as I know is expected of me. So despite knowing perfectly what is socially expected, I can't remember it right away, because my brain is busy processing the thousands/million/more new stimuli, then searching my memory for what to pretend since I really just don't care.

I have the initial non-reaction to not hit back when not punched badly actually. It's less than a second probably, but I notice it. No emotional freak-out, so when I'm hit unexpectedly, I first need to wrack my memory for the appropriate reaction.

The big positive thing of this is staying calm. I think logically in a couple of those situations in which others are led by their impulsive emotional response. So, if it's any like this for, you too might be able to work this to your advantage. If not, well this is just how it is for me.

Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot one thing. I could get anxious or angry about my brain taking its time to process the change, I did as a kid.

I know by now that my autistic brain needs that time and afterwards it caught up. so I don't fear change. The feeling of being sort of confused (don't know how to call that sensation) from being overwhelmed is gross and horrible and I hate it, but it passes unless I'd freak out about it. So I try not to. That's really important.