Unexpected social calls

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How does an aspie react to unexpected social calls? Like, just to say hello or how are you?
Do they welcome the call? I haven't heard from my aspie friend for sometime like 2 months
and being an NT, I would like to find out if he is ok. Should I?

I get rather anxious when I am called unexpectedly, or even if I am waiting upon the call. Then again, I get very anxious during any kind of social interaction, when in person or over a phone. I very rarely call anyone, it's usually other people calling me and most often they don't get much of a conversation out of me over the phone, not that they ever really do. I find it a lot less stressful if I know them well, if not then I do freak out.
If you're worried about him then I think you should call him, even if it does cause him discomfort. It might be helpful to explain why you're calling him from the beginning, I think I'd appreciate that.
However I have no idea how your aspie friend is with social interaction so he may react completely differently to me.
If he has a mobile phone you could try texting him first/instead.

Last edited by Hala on 12 Apr 2009, 8:42 am, edited 2 times in total.

For me it depends who it is. If it's a family member or very close friend I could talk for england. But if it's someone I'm not used to calling I feel very anxious. And I hardly ever call anyone unless my mum makes me it's always them calling me. I don't like to be called when I don't feel like talking, just my luck that's when people tend to ring.

I always appreciate receiving a phone call from a friend. I rarely make phone calls (I have a lot of anxiety tied up in actually placing the call), so if friends didn't call me, it's unlikely we would talk at all.

An unexpected personal visit, on the other hand, might tend to make me freak.

To be on the safe side, is it possible to send your friend an e-mail, to give them a heads-up that you plan to call them (and when to expect the call)?

do you mean unexpected telephone calls or unexpected knocks on your door?
i am fine with telephone calls, but i am very displaced by suddenly having my door knocked on.
if it is just a sales person it is OK, because i tell then i am not interested in even listening to what they have to offer, so they go.
but if it is a "friend" who will be "insulted" by refusal to let them in, then it is a major annoyance.

if someone wishes to visit me, they must advise me a few hours before they do. also, they must ring me when they are 15 mins from arriving at my place.
then i can quash all my autistic "reverie" thoughts that leave them perplexed, and try to rehearse how to be with them.
if they give me fair warning, i can accommodate them happily for a few hours (eventually they must go though, but they usually are tired by then, and do not mind being told to go).

all my friends (all 2 of them and my quasi girlfriend) know that i must not be surprised by their spontaneous visitations, or i will react in a manner that they find unsavory. it is extremely seldom that any person i know comes here unannounced.

but a "friend" suddenly knocked on my door 2 nights ago while i was working on some piano tracks, and he knocked loudly, and i asked who was there before i answered the door (it was 10:00 pm).
i let him in.

i asked him why he was in the area, and why he did not call me first. he said he was coming home from somewhere else, and i was close to his travel route.

i rudely established that where he had come from was far away from me, and my location was not near his trajectory of his claimed "travels".

i wondered why he disobeyed my rule that if anyone wants to visit me they must ring me first.

i can even "scramble to (NT style) attention" within 1/2 hour if they only ring me 30 mins before they turn up.
but a knock on my door out of the blue when i am busy is like an electric shock, and i either have to be rude or try to accommodate them.
i can not accommodate sudden surprises, so i usually tell them to go and come back another day after they warn me sufficiently that they are coming.
then they have appalling looks akin to "insultedness" on their faces, and they grit their teeth at my unfriendliness, but my big fat front door closes hard after they are outside.
i just get back to what i am doing inside, but i am dimly aware they take sometimes 10 minutes to go from my yard.

sudden telephone calls are easier to deal with. i have said as a joke to people "i did not expect your call! you should have rang earlier to warn me that you would be ringing me".

anyway, i think i resent the sudden intrusion of a person who has their own agenda and dreams, into my private world.
they seem to try to suck my attention toward their own egocentric dilemmas, and i am totally not interested.

if they bust in to my private world (by "turning up unexpectedly") i become resistant and cold to them.
if they persist to try to suck my mind into their affairs, then i become defiant.
if they persist beyond that i become confrontational and eject them unceremoniously from my property.

i live in a very private world that i own and can be happy in, and when "boof heads" suddenly interrupt me i get cranky.

so that is a bit of a description of how i see things.

People know better than to just "drop in" on me, I am very definite on the rules - you call first. My aunt thought I was quite rude a couple of years ago - she and my grandmother just dropped by because they were "in the neighborhood". First, my grandmother lives out of town, so there were days before she came to let me know if they might drop by. Secondly, they went out to dinner, at a restaurant 2 blocks from where I work and past which I walk, so I probably went right by them going home (the proximity of the restaurant was the reason why they decided to visit me, because I might be upset that they came so close and didn't visit. I was a convenient stop, nothing else. Just because I am more than happy to be alone doesn't mean I don't occasionally have plans, but of course it was their plans that mattered, I suppose ). Third, a work day - I need my downtime after being at work all day. Fourth, my house was messy and I want my house to be in order if someone walks in (and my relatives are ones to gossip if they find anything they perceive as being wrong and you will hear about it for years).

I got home, made my dinner, changed into bedtime clothes ready to sit and enjoy the rest of my peaceful evening when the door bell rings. Again, no phone call preceded the visit (and I know the aunt has a cell phone). Sadly I didn't have a peep hole in my door so I had to look out a window and I was spotted so I couldn't pretend to not be at home. So, I told them they weren't coming in until *I* was ready for them to come in. I whipped around my house, cleaned up and put on something suitable for a visit. They waited 15 minutes. I thought that was reasonable. I could have just not answered the door at all.

Apparently making them wait when they didn't have the decency to give me lead time to be ready for them is rude. So rude, in fact, that they made it a point to tell my mother and insist she talk to me about my manners. My mother just laughed at them, said I was an adult, and next time CALL. Yay mom! They have been calling ahead since, so some good came out of it.

The upshot is, if I haven't gotten enough time to get used to the idea of someone coming by, you might not be let in. I won't think to invite a person, either, and I won't generally call a friend either for months. I do like to hear from people, but to see them, again, I need that lead time. So no, definitely, I do not like unexpected calls.

I'm very similar in that I find initiating a phone call to a stranger or acquaintance is an ordeal. If I can I'll text/e-mail/check a schedule first and even then only place the call after a bit of rehearsing. It all comes down to being able to have as great a handle on what the other party will likely be feeling - an ability that drastically decreases when contact is not face-to-face.

With friends it's better since there is some sort of relational structure already defined, but I still prefer to have some time to prepare before making or receiving a call.

Having said all that, I find myself wishing people would make calls. Even if it causes me to get anxious, the idea that someone went out of their way even to say "hi" means a lot to me.

If you have tried email or text message first and waited for an appropriate amount of time with no response from me, then a phone call is marginally acceptable and I might answer.
The "drop-in", however, is completely unacceptable under any and all circumstances forever and ever until the end of time. When I lived alone, I just wouldn't answer the door.
An unexpected visit for us is like a 300 question pop quiz for NT's. We need advance warning to prepare.

It depends. My friends know they have to contact me before just ringing at my door (which, by the way, NTs usually expect as well! So they have that bit of extra time for getting dressed, cleaning the bathroom or putting away whatever they don't want visitors to see, like their porn collection or other particularly embarassing stuff. It's just a basic rule of politeness to give that time.), and that I prefer text messages to phone calls. (I still have that problem with following phone conversations, it's very difficult for me.)
If you want to contact your aspie friend, maybe try text messaging him. If you don't get an answer you still can try calling him. He'll probably be glad to know you're thinking of him. Just don't show up unexpected on his doorstep.

I would automatically feel anxious, no matter who it was from. I don't own a cellphone so I'm hard to contact anyways. Anytime I'm asked for on my house phone, I always feel anxious. I'm just not good on the phone.

My mum just told me to ring my friend and ask summat now I'm bricking myself I just don't want to phone him!
I feel like crying I'm so nervous, what's worse is that im at my nanas house and I can only ring someone comfortably if my mum is in the room for some reason now I feel completely lost.

Why is she making you?

well I wouldnt call it making. It's because I've rang them before but even though I've rang them before I still feel as anxious, and if I ask my mum to ring them instead she'll tell to stop being silly or something like that.

Last edited by MONKEY on 17 Apr 2009, 2:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I avoid using the phone as much as possible. Texting is a far superior form of communication. The only thing that helps me on the phone (a little) is having something to do while I'm on the phone, like draw or using the computer or something. I'm less nervous, but then I get distracted and can't keep up with the conversation.

I've just rang my mum and ask her to ring my friend but she won't, she keeps telling me I've got to do things my self blah blah, and she's like "you're 16 you can do it yourself anyway he's your friend!" but just because I'm 16 doesn't make it any easier. I bet there are 50 year olds who are anxious so phone people.
I know I'll have to phone them because it's quite important, I'm just not looking forward to it, at all

I wonder if he's signed on MSN?

Always try every other form of communication first.