Talking in third person

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I am in love with a guy that I strongly suspects has AS even though I think he is unaware. He’s in his mid-forties, good-looking, never been married and yet had tons of girlfriends.

He doesn’t seem to have problems socialising, although I’ve only been around him in a work environment.
He has OCD (he is in denial but it’s obvious to outsiders), sensitive to light, colours and walks extremely fast. He doesn’t always realise that I’m teasing when having conversations, but now do tell him that in case he stresses, which he does often.

I am fortunately the type that of person who is very direct so there are usually no ambiguities in our conversations, so about two years ago I told him how I felt about him but he denied having feelings for me even though we had been on dates previously and his best friends told me that he really liked me. He would keep the fact that we had gone out our little secret, like hugging me would be our secret too. I was told that he doesn’t like physical contact yet he always initiated the hugs.
On one of the occasions that we went out, I think he wanted to know how I felt about him and ended up asking me the question in third person! That was so very odd.

Is talking in third person a common trait among Aspies ?
Also, why would he have denied having feelings for me even though it was so obvious to all?

It certainly seems like he is an Aspergian, but only a professional would know for sure.

Answer to questions:

1. Sometimes. We often mix up pronouns. I went through a phase when I used to say "Steve doesn't feel good today" or 'Steve just got a compliment," but my friends broke me of it when it began annoying the hell out of them.

2. He may have feelings, but doesn't not recognize those feelings as being romantic. Sometimes we know we're feeling something, but we have trouble defining what the feeling is.

I would say he is just feeling some kind of weird rejection or fear to get closer to you.
I have experienced that, too, when I was young.
There must be also some kind of inner contradiction if he talks about himself as being somebody else.
I dont have that, but I have some kind of weird opposing myself uncertainty kind of feelings.
Like being uncertain about my own personality, or some kind of inner feelings I have to change myself, but that would go so deep into my personality that it isnt possible sort of.

Then some kind of self humor, which is not quite serious that you would let it affect yourself, or something in between being uncertain and certain and accepting these certain strange traits.

Talking in the third person is maybe related to that. He's just not happy with himself.

That he has had tons of girlfriends is good for starting a relationship but it does not say anything about how this will be in a longer relationship.
Maybe he was always searching for someone and got always rejected after a while? That would be really frustrating as well.
Or that he didn't really feel himself comfortably in all his relationships.

Though, that he had many girlfriends is a sign that he has very little trouble to start a relationship,
usually I would say, gaining the comfort to be able to be with someone and trusting not to get rejected again or to be without real feelings
is a big big problem.
Not knowing what to say, not knowing how to convince someone combined with really bad self-esteem
not knowing what is important, being too close to reality, not lying.
No understanding why we should be of certain type to suffice for someone.

We come off as we cannot do, we fail on certain basic aspects
We stress very much to do something wrong.
We can freeze to hell if we feel it goes wrong again.

I think male aspies have much more serious aspects in that direction.
Female aspies have it in that direction a lot easier because there are not these certain expectations

You'll have to take more of the normally man role in the approach on him and just take some of the "burden" for him to be a man that cannot do it.
I guess he would be very thankful if you can do that

If that is an option for you, I don't know.

And still he might reject you although he likes you.

Just try to avoid to make him feel that he is not able to do that what you want from him,
he'll be very sad if he likes you and probably hate himself for that.

It is no fun at all to feel like you do it wrong and wrong and wrong again at least not when you are older
because that is really silly and then this anxiety that might come is sometimes really unbearable...

This is just some of the aspects that we are usually judged upon

It might very well be also that he can talk to anybody that he is not interested in
but just talking to somebody that you like is somewhat impossibly difficult, because of the stress and uncertainty triggered by that.

EDIT: And look around here what kind of feelings are usually with us. That will most certainly help you to understand more.
Good luck!

<--- Drives people crazy when he refers to himself in the third person.

Is this a way to include the people around him, to say we, us, and ours. A kludgey attempt at familiarity, not well received?

When I was little I always talked to myself in third person. I don't anymore.

Actually, I've been able to fool a lot of professionals that I wasn't autistics. Maybe that's not a good way to say it, since it wasn't always deliberate--in fact, it never was. But pretty much every diagnostician I've been to determined I wasn't autistic except for the last one and one other, but I knew I was autistic for a while. Sometimes we know best about ourselves.

And that's the thing. Since this person isn't you, you'll probably never truly know if this person is NT or not, and if this person isn't NT, whether or not they have autism.

ETA: Sometimes I just omit pronouns all together. I only do it when the pronouns are obvious enough to be implied, though.

Last edited by emimeni on 01 Oct 2012, 12:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

Let me give you my story and maybe it will help. When I was younger (high school) I thought I was off because I didn't seem to get through Electronics labs as fast as everyone so I assumed I was a little slower mentally. I always felt like something was off but never paid attention to it because I wanted to be "normal" and fit in. Well fast forward a few years to when I was 23 and I started dating the person who became my wife. She suspected from the beginning I had Asperger's but I was in denial because I didn't want the label to make me some kind of outcast or some kind of "ret*d". Well our first year of marriage was hell because I tried to act NT and pretended I was but was in strong denial. I mean it was brutal. My wife almost left me a couple times. Well she brought it up one day thinking if I admitted it, it would help our relationship (we both really loved each other but had issues). I was pissed! I didn't really do anything being pissed because I'm not one to get in fights or take my anger out on people. I hated it because the stigma that goes with it is embarassing really or so I thought. One day I just decided that I may just have it. Yup...I do. I never got officially diagnosed but I can tell that since I admitted it to myself our marriage has improved because my wife educated herself on what it means to be married to an aspie and then she realized that she had to tell me her needs and that I did love her and want the best for her but I was just oblivious to all the NT nuances that I should have had. Once she realized that it was because my wiring was off, she adapted how she treated me and just told me what she wanted and it helped me a lot because then I was able to become a better husband and love her all the more.

The takeaway is it will be an uphill battle. If you suspect he has Asperger's, then he probably does. He will be in denial but just remember he can't read your emotions as well so you wil have to tell him what you need or how you feel so he can know to get you flowers, etc. Yes that sounds asinine but you got to realize that we aspies can love just the same, but we suck at showing it. I love my wife and adore her, but I just fail in the execution of showing it. But she has come to realize that I do love her and would do anything to help her, and that I just show it differently. That is a huge relief for both of us. Our love is there, but it is shown in different ways that a NT + NT couple. Just realize he will love you but it will take time and a lot of patience. If you feel like walking out, think about it hard because he may not realize what he is doing. And whatever you do, don't push him into a diagnosis. He has to come to grips at his own time.

My brain doesn't really seem to register pronouns. (I tend to think in the third person and when I do happen to think of pronouns, it's almost always they/their.) When I first started talking, it was in the third person and went through various "phases" when I was younger where I only talked in the third person but as I got older it became necessary/expected of me to talk like a "normal" person so I trained myself to do just that. Even so, I still slip up occasionally. I'm not aware if it's a common trait among the non-neurotypicals though.

I saw a Korean movie yesterday about a boy with autism. It's called Marathon and, so far, it's the best film on autism I've even seen. It surpasses Adam, Snow Cake, My Name is Khan, The Story of Luke, etc. Built around an actual marathoner with autism, the protagonist in the movie spoke in the third person a lot; throughout the whole film, as a matter of fact. The few autistic children I've met in real life were all under 12 and none of them spoke at all so it was hard to ascertain.

Fnord doesn't think so.


Fnord thinks that you should ask him.

I knew someone who often spoke of himself in the third person.

He worked as subordinate employee to a friend of mine at her company.

He was a very strange individual,and a problem employee. When they finnally confronted him about certain work issues and untruths he had been telling he finnally shook his head in shame and said "I dont know why Ed gets into so much trouble."

"Ed", being him, of course.

But he did not seem the slghtest bit autistic though. Im almost certain that was a just very strange and troubled NT.

So individuals can independently develop the same idiosyncratic behaviors whether they are NT, aspie, or whatever.

I don't know if it's common among people with Asperger's.

But I often do.

Really doesn't sound autistic to me.

Sometimes do.

(Though I'll most often just neglect the pronoun, as above. Don't know why. Other than that it just seems easier.)

I've been known to go into third person in conversations that carry some sort of emotional risk for me, also I do it sometimes when I'm tired.