trouble saying affectionate things?

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I can't get myself to say anything affectionate even if it is through text message. When I want to, like right now, I fear that I will be rejected even though I probably won't be rejected. I get this feeling in the pit of my stomach and panic. Any other aspies go through this?

Fear of rejection is a human universal, I suspect.

What sort of affectionate things? I'm good with compliments I consider factual, or telling someone I like them, but pet names and suchlike are something I generally don't do -- but neither do I feel an inclination to do them.

I can't really do it. It's one of the impairments of my autism.

I do have a certain "coldness of affect," which bothers me, though looking around me I'm not sure most other people are particularly affectionate either. Still, I never was content to be just average, and I don't see much wrong with aiming a little higher. There's probably a variety of reasons why I fall short of my own aspirations here.

I keep my mind almost perpetually busy with anything fascinating I can find, because it's the only thing that distracts me from my sensory issues, which drive me up the wall otherwise. If anybody says affectionate things to me, they're usually too sudden for me to tear my sticky brain away from what I'm thinking about in time for me to make an appropriate response. I tend to feel guilty because I feel I must be coming over as cold-hearted. I often manage some kind of compromise but my response can still be rather stiff and stilted because it annoys me to be interrupted. Of course none of this is their fault, everybody's entitled to a few affectionate words from those who profess to be their friends.

I'm also pathologically honest, especially with loved ones, who (to my mind) are particularly entitled to the truth from me, and I tend to feel that NTs fake a lot of the affectionate things they say - I hate doing that. I think it was Kingsley Amis who said in a poem that he found it hard to think of anything to say that was both kind and true.

I do say a lot of true and reassuring things, but they're often of a somewhat practical nature, and I tend to phrase them and intonate them in a not-too-sloppy way, which may suggest an expectation that the recipient should ultimately get a grip and stand on their own feet. I do get rather fed up of reassuring people on (what I see as) the blindingly obvious, such as "you've done very well," or "I care about you."

Anyway, for the time being people are just going to have to deal with me as I am, and just have a bit of faith in the affection with which I hold them. It's all there in my behaviour somewhere, I'm there for my loved ones when they need me, if they just have the guts to signal their needs reasonably clearly. At the end of the day I don't let them down. Occasionally I'll sense that I've not quite responded as well as they'd have liked, and I have this knack of putting my hand on their shoulder for a second or two. Somebody did that for me once when the boot was on the other foot, and it really helped, so with a little luck it's a strong and valid gesture that speaks louder than a bucketful of cliche-ridden, vacuous half-truths.

Interestingly, when I was living among a group of very warm hippies and anarchists, I was a lot more free with my affectionate remarks, I guess it was because I felt I was in the right environment to do that, and I don't think I came over as lacking in affection at all. "Straight" society is often a colder and more competitive place, where it's easy to overshoot the mark and risk a painful rebuff, so I think the mainstreamers bear some responsibility for any perceived shortcomings in my ways of demonstrating affection.

I generally don’t say or text affectionate things because I can’t come up with them right away, and when I do, it’s too late.

Also, I often get angry when someone says affectionate things to me, though I don’t let it show.

I give compliments easily but I can't say things like "I love you". Even when I was a child, I didn't say it to my family and now that I'm older my partner and I don't say it to each other. I've been told that's weird but it doesn't bother me.
Like someone above said, I also can't do pet names or cutesy affectionate things. I honestly just don't know how to do any of it.

Yeah, it's never really felt natural to me to tell people "I love you." And as much as I do love my boyfriend, I can't bring myself to call him pet names and stuff because it feels weird.

I have this problem too - I get so nervous that I can't bring myself to do it. If it involves speaking, I'm so nervous I'm physically incapable of it, but I'm super uncomfortable doing it in other ways, too. And then with people I know will respond well, like my family, I don't feel any need to say things like "I love you," because they already know that, right? No need to say it again unless it's changed and then changed back.

I only say it to family if prompted (someone else says it first), and then it still feels uncomfortable , but I do it so they feel happy.

I can't do it either.
Possibly because I have a virtual inability to lie and am alexithymic. It goes with not being able to offer emotional comfort to others, I think. I can provide practical assistance and am willing to be helpful and solve problems, or in terms of remarks I can offer a positive opinion (eg "you look nice in that," because I do in fact think the person looks aesthetically pleasing in whatever they're wearing) but expressing affection is completely alien to me. I don't even know if I can feel affection, much less express it.

I can give sincere, fact-based compliments, but I am not good at saying mushy stuff.

I've watched some people who are over-affectionate and touchy-feely and they can come across as a bit creepy and clingy. I prefer being the way I am. I agree with some of the other comments... if I give a compliment I really mean it, otherwise I say nothing.

I find that saying affectionate things to other humans is unbearable and for me, impossible. I really find it yucky.

It gives me the creeps.

However, I say affectionate things to animals & inanimate objects all the time.