Confused when people take my seat.

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I always sit at the same spot/seat in the lecture halls/classrooms. Always. Always, always, always. Today (a few minutes ago) I walked into the room (the lecture starts in 15 minutes) and found that someone had taken my seat. It's the first time that has happened since the academic year started in the end August. I walked into the room with a classmate of mine who knows I always sit there. When I noticed my seat was taken I didn't know what to do. I laughed a little (even though I didn't find it funny at all) backed out of the room and started pacing anxiously in the corridor.

Apparently my classmate told the person who was sitting at "my" spot that I usually sit there and she actually moved. Took me pretty long to go back in because I felt so stupid. I seriously don't know what I would've done if I wouldn't have gotten to sit where I usually sit. It feels like such a silly thing and I don't know what they'll say about me now but yeah, that happened.

Now it sort of bothers me that I'm so "weird".

Anyone else this "weird"?

Absolutely.
I think you took it well because I would feel very irritated if the same thing would happen to me.

Most of my highschool classes had seat assignments. I really didn't mind, but I loved being in the back for a million reasons, chiefly because I was the one kid in ~1300 trying to get work done with the help of smartphones & my laptop. I'm less scared of driving 200kph than I am of taking the front desk.

Me too. On buses as well as in class. I know it's not 'my' seat, it's not as though I own it or it's been assigned to me, but I don't know what to do if it's been taken by someone else.

When I was at school and had no own classroom for a class but different courses in different rooms I had "my" spot in every room. One time someone sat at this spot in one room. I also was really confused. I guess I looked rather confused or irritated or whatever when I looked at the person sitting there, so he moved, looking irritated himself, maybe because he didn´t know that it could be important for a person to have "her" spot. I didn´t know what I would have done when he hasn´t moved. After ths I also felt stupid and weird because I know such a thing is usually not important for many people, but over the time I learned that it could happen. But knowing it doesn´t mean that I feel comfortable with such things now.

Absolutely. Same spot on the couch at home, same desk/work station at work, and same breakroom chair. The longer I'm entrenched in a spot, the worse it is to move.

totally completely 100%. at least you didn't have a meltdown like i might have. great example of how a simple change in routine and familiarity can really mess up ppl with autism. glad you have a friend at school to help you out with stuff, thats the kind of stuff my friend does for me at school.

I do understand how you feel on this BUT... as you get older, you'll find life is full of people taking your seat (yes, I meant this metaphorically)! You just have to learn to deal with it. CBT may benefit you.

I get uneasy when someone takes my seat. We went to Fuddrucker's for a burger last month and someone else was sitting at my table. I was agitated and wanted to ask him to sit somewhere else. But I managed and we sat at the table next to him and so at least I was close to my seat. I won't have a meltdown or anything like that but I do get unsettled. But once I sit down on the other seat I manage to do fine.

I'd have to agree with I'mAnAspie.

In order to be able to live and work in the "real world," one has to be able to adjust to changes in routine.

I understand your feeling; I get irritated in these kinds of situations myself.

People will not adjust to your desire for a certain seat for various reasons, the most prominent of which is illustrated by this thought pattern: "I got there before you--and it's a public seat--why must I get up? Moreover, who put your name on that seat, anyway?"

Up until very recently, for years and years I had "my spot" on my couch, and when friends came over I had to make sure they didn't sit there but on the other part of the couch. I couldn't bring myself to admit to them that I just wanted my spot, as I didn't understand my strange behavior and spent most of my life shaming myself for it.

But I would use tricks like throwing a large, opened magazine or newspaper over my spot, so that when they walked in and I said "Take a seat" they would most likely simply sit down in the empty spot, rather than go to the trouble of moving the magazine when there was already a free area on the couch. One time time someone took my spot anyway and I made a jokey excuse about needing to be near my "flight control area" --- the end table with the remote controls for my TV and other things. Which probably only made me seem like even more of a control freak, lol.

For some reason -- and I still can't figure out what changed -- I very recently started to find I was able to give up my spot when a friend comes to visit. He's the only visitor I ever have these days, is a platonic friend and we rarely meet up, just to catch up on news, and so I guess it doesn't bother me that much once in while. I managed to lose a lot of my possessiveness about my spot.

However....if I had more visitors or frequent ones, I'm not so sure I wouldn't start to get pissed off again and begin again to do things to prevent someone choosing it to sit in. I might add that I'm still in a place where nobody knows about my issues and I don't yet have a diagnosis to justify explaining that I have issues. It's not a good place to be, as I'm still shame-based about my challenges.

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Yeah, me too. We have lectures in several different rooms but I always sit at the same seat in each one of them: front row, forth seat from the left.



I see what you mean. Both you and kraftiekortie are right. I need to learn how to deal with it. The thing is I wouldn't have said anything to the person sitting in "my" seat even if my classmate/friend hadn't told her. I went outside to pace anxiously and try to figure out what to do. I was confused and agitated and I didn't have enough time to figure out what to do before my classmate/friend texted me and told me the person sitting in "my" seat had moved.

I know it's silly. I just want certain things to be the way they always are.

Same here.

I do remember one notable class where my spot changed bit by bit over the course of a semester.

I started out in the front row, as usual. The problem was that one guy in the second row right behind me never bathed. As the semester progressed, I moved further and further away from him. By the end of the semester, there was quite a bit of competition in the back row for the furtherest seat in the classroom from the guy.

There's no need to feel that you're being silly about it. It's really difficult to deal with any change in the environment. I always sit in the same spot whenever possible. If I have to sit in a different spot than usual, I get dizzy and nauseated, and it gets very difficult for me to focus on anything.

In high school there was one time someone purposefully did this to me. I mentioned during a discussion about animal behavior in biology class that I got sick if I had to change seats. Two class periods later, a girl who was also in my bio class, went and sat down in my seat. (I should mention that there were only 3 students in the class where this happened and we always sat in the same spots.) I was surprised and I remember that I said something about it, but I was told just to go sit in the seat where that girl usually sat. It was a pretty miserable class. The next day when she did it again, I followed the teacher to the back of the room where she was getting something at the start of class and I briefly explained in a whisper about feeling sick from sitting in a different seat. She made the student move back to her original seat, and it never happened again.

I find it strange that NT's seem to sit in the same spots as well, but then suddenly they don't, and sit in a place where they never sit. I'm not exactly sure how that works.

An interesting thing I've noticed is that if there is a place where I always am forced to sit in a different spot, like on the campus shuttle which is always crowded, then I don't get attached to a spot. But of course the down side is that I have to adjust to slightly new surroundings every time I get on the bus, whereas if I could always sit in the same spot, I wouldn't need to adjust very time, so riding the bus would be a little less stressful.

When someone else sits in my seat and it is not a situation where I can explain my sensory issue to them, I find that the best thing is to sit in the seat that is closest to the one I usually sit in.

i hate when people take my seat, i just stopped caring after a while and just kicked them out,

this one time this girl took my seat, and i was like "um, thats my spot' and she was like "yeah, you can use my spot" and i got annoyed and was just like " you sit in your spot, this is my f*****g spot, so get the f**k out," and then she got out.

When somebody takes a seat that I usually use, it upsets me, but not a huge amount. Good news for me is that such a thing rarely happens. I've eaten my food at the same spot in my home since I was like, three or four years old.