not showing emotional warmth

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I tried doing a Google search for information on people with autism and showing emotional warmth or not. All I got was stuff about parents of those with autism. (All refuting the long discarded idea that lack of emotional warm from parents causes autism.)

There's this person I know, a local musician I like, who definitely has some autistic traits. I first noticed that several years ago now. The thing is, the spectrum is pretty varied. Knowing that means I know I can apply information about autism to him, but it doesn't tell me which information applies.

Recently I interacted with another musician, one who lives in another city and would be someone I barely know and who barely knows me. I noticed there was something there that's missing with this other person. And I realized, it's warmth. Emotional warmth.

The local musician friend, he's made clear he likes me. But I don't get emotional warmth from him.

Realizing that, and knowing he's somewhere on the autistic spectrum, it's a "well duh". It makes sense that someone on the spectrum would be that way.

Me, I'm quite sure that I used to be that way as well. To what extent I am now I don't know. I have plenty of friends who like me as I am, I do know. Apparently I show sufficient emotional warmth for the friendships.

Maybe this guy does too with most people he knows.

Of course, it's not a black and white thing. Not like he can ever show emotional warmth. Just, not as much as I would expect.

It's like, with him, it's hard, a challenge, to understand what's him, and what's our friendship.

I guess the reason I'm posting about it is I'm interested in other people's thoughts on those with autism (or somewhere on the spectrum) showing emotional warmth or not.

Personally, i would push the emotional warmth further down the list of interactions. First of all i need common interests to get in contact with someone, probably in this case it was the music.

Whether there is emotional warmth or not is depending on so many factors like if a person has time enough and can relax, or are they under pressure.



I've been told so many times that i don't show affection or emotional warmth, and for me it is that i'm just unable to do this in a physical way like, say, with smiling, or hugging a person. In a personal interaction i am so focused on the process of communication itself, on interpreting the verbal messages and thinking about my responses, that i cannot do anything else.

There are, however, many people on the spectrum who are impressively capable to display emotions.

Since your local musician friend made clear he likes you, just take his words literally.

Before I learned about AS and then noticed a lot of the traits in my father, I wondered why he seemed so emotionally distant and disinclined towards reciprocation. Now I feel a lot more forgiving and perhaps even a little guilty.

i think i do show emotional warmth myself, something i also hear from a few of my (mostly female) friends, i just do it differently from NTs.
actually, what feels natural for me is so alien that almost noone aside from my closest friends + parents realise that it indeed is emotional warmht; me reaching out...

There's lots of reasons why autistic people wouldn't show emotional warmth.

They may not know how. They may have been over-emotionally warm to the point of discomfort from others (possibly to the point of violent verbal and/or physical backlash) and this caused them to withdraw and curb their outward emotional warmth to avoid this problem.

They may simply not be able to translate how they feel into how they act. Or perhaps they don't feel very strong emotions in the first place. Or they are unsure what their feelings mean.

Some may learn that it's ok to show some emotional warmth, but won't commit to showing any to casual acquaintances any of it because they don't feel they know them well enough to go that far.

Some may have been violently abused by parents who forbade any emotional extremes, of ANY kind. (of course we're talking like 60 years ago in some instances for some people, but still...). That would tend to put a damper on that too.

No words to take literally. Just enough showing interest in me in different ways. Such that I know it's not a me-like-him, he-tolerate-me thing.

I long ago decided to trust that that was real even if I couldn't understand that pattern, even his actions didn't fit any normal pattern (ie NT pattern). And, I guess this is a realization that his actions do fit a pattern, a non-NT pattern.

A lot of us just know from experience that our facial expressions don't work right, that we don't get normal reactions from people, hence we cut out the expressive set that seems to get us rent asunder.

This issue is very confusing for me. I have no idea if I show emotional warmth or not. I know I didn't as a child, but now, it's not clear. Some people seem to think that I am a warm friendly approachable individual, while others seem to think that I am an ice queen cyborg freakazoid. And I don't behave very differently around different people. It all feels the same to me. I think it depends on who is doing the assessment. I think NT females generally dislike me or feel uncomfortable around me, maybe because they get the cyborg vibes from me.

I will tell you a story. With my NT X-boyfriends I always had especially one problem: After some time the guys wanted to have an automatic kiss in passing me or leaving the house etc. I always had to kind of trap their attention by catching their eyes and eluding the kiss until they were aware of me, so that it wouldnt become a meaningless automatically habit to KISS. Where is the emotional warmth here... when it comes to situations where it belongs? What Im saying is that I show emotionally warmth but I dont usually shed it away in puplic etc. Emotionally warmth in public seems fake or stupid (...sorry) to me. I dont say its definitive, I say its OFTEN fake or stupid... manipulation. And if it leads to something good... yeah without me! (But I play your game if necessary) Over and out.