Published on 12, July, 2020
Hey!
I’m a 20 year old on the spectrum and have such difficulty with understanding people.
My best friend is also on the spectrum and we spend a lot of time together. Sometimes he calls me when I don’t want to be disturbed which makes me anxious.
He prefers calling and I prefer texting. I prefer texting because it gives me more time to think and also gives me time to process as processing skills are quite a huge difficulty for me. He prefers calling because he is a very chatty lad and I wonder if it’s motivating for him to keep the conversation going.
I don’t know how I can express this to him without him thinking I’m ignoring him or him thinking I’m angry with him. I appreciate that he’s checking on me which is so sweet of him when really I want space and time by myself.
I find it hard to explain my processing and communication difficulties because I find I’m always masking and people don’t believe that’s the way I function.
Some helpful tips on how to communicate my situation to him would be nice. ;)
I have the same problems in social situations - it's almost like they are speaking another language and I need a couple of seconds to translate - which makes conversation a bit stilted. It's even worse if they have a strong accent - double translation time. It makes me look insincere to them because I don't respond like they would expect me to.
In a technical environment, I am highly interactive because it's all just data - no emotions, no hidden meanings, no lies, just pure, clean data.
I prefer dealing with NTs in writing - it removes ambiguity and it gives me the time to straighten out my thoughts before hitting 'send'.