How do neurologically typical people feel & experience life?

This... I'm done with Christmas Cards - I think your premise that NTs are 'opposite' to us NAs is flawed and as NAS64857 says, some NTs don't enjoy the stuff you list any more than we do.

FWIW, my musings...

• How does the world *sound*? Is it muted, filtered by attention etc? It just sounds the way it sounds, they are just better able to 'tune in' to sources of interest and/or 'tune out' background noise...
• How does eye contact *feel* when experienced as something that you *want* to do? Even with strangers? It doesn't feel like anything, but it's absence is noted - like if there was a reassuring background sound (I like the tick of my watch) and it was absent, you'd notice the absence...
• What's it like to be drawn to want to be with a group of other people? The same as being drawn to a 'special interest' for us I's guess...
• What's it like to enjoy a day out with friends, and not be exhausted (except in a tired & content kind of way)? The same as for us to enjoy a day of undertaking something we were interested in...
• What's it like to be thrilled at the prospect of going out every single evening for days in a row? I suspect very few NTs are and the ones that are have some kind of neurological disorder of their own!
• What's it like to want to ask other people where they went on holiday, and be interested in what they tell you about where they went and what they saw? Most of them them don't - do you 'want' to breathe? No, you do it by reflex... it's just 'social noise' like monkey's grooming each other's fur...
• What's it like to say the opposite of what you mean, because for e.g. you're being polite, and yet know that everyone knows what you actually mean? They ARE saying what they mean, just they don't say it with the words themselves so as far as their concerned they aren't saying the opposite of what they mean
• What's it like to wish that you had more time for travel, seeing family members, more face to face meetings etc? Same as wishing you had more time to do anything you couldn't do as much as you wanted due to time constraints...

I think you're ascribing too much difference to NTs... they're more like us than you think - just 'diluted' and more their interests tend to be 'odd' from our perspective...

Hiya. Yes LOL 'just feels right' is the answer. 'No eye contact' is uncomfortable for them if they aren't aware of any spectum disorders. 

I love to head out, but not for too long. Next Saturday, I plan to spend an entire day in Belfast; leading up to a Christmas Dinner at Windsor Park's Hospitality Suite. There's a disco afterwards, but I'll only be staying for the food. Then I'll get the 11 pm bus back to Tomme park-and-ride; and a taxi home. (I'm doing the same for this evening, as I'll be heading to a Musical Gig - but I'll probably shy away from the more intimate crowd)

I think normies manage because they have less sense of time than us. They can get lost in a bottle of wine, spliff, etc. I, for one, feel that the last few hours before an event is excruciating.

Be prepared for the same response as when you ask native speakers of a foreign language about the rules for the finer points of their grammar "Dunno, we just *do*, it feels right" :-)

Unknown said:

“since dinosaurs when extinct,” and then later on in the same documentary say, “birds are dinosaurs” don’t say “since dinosaurs went extinct” earlier on then!

I get this too. It's like our brains are tuned to spot this stuff. I get a similar annoyance about speed limit signs not adhering to the design regulations. Some councils seem to put them up randomly (big ones where they should be little ones etc & even some with the wrong numbers on!). One that I find really annoying is where a speed limit change is *moved* and they leave the old signs in place - from their design you know that they are not *reminder signs* and it causes confusion because say you're in a 40 and see 30 signs, then further along see the old set of 30 signs, you then get confused about what limit you were just in (if it's changing to 30, was I in a 40?) - obviously, the answer can be "if you're paying attention you will know" but this adds an extra cognitive burden to the driver which can only mitigate *against* safety.

You know what. Today, I'm going to ask these questions. I'm seeing my family today. I will grill them

So, to amplify one of my own questions a bit, it was a revelation for me when I discovered that many people get an oxytocin rush from eye contact (& not just with their love interest!). This is what trains babies to do it as I understand & it persists into adulthood.

So my second bullet above was enquiring about how this *feels*, and I wanted to attach the same type of enquiry to the other bullets - do some people thoroughly enjoy these things? And how does it *feel*?

Thanks :-). Yes this is an interesting subtopic - how much pain do NT's (I'm using this as shorthand for "more neurologically typical") feel from social expectations? Which is what NAS64857 was saying.

Hiya, I'm not sure if I saw this question some time ago or whether I've been thinking it since dx'ed earlier in the year. I am looking at NTs now and thinking what is going on in their minds; how are they coping with daily life. Very timely though, thanks for bringing it up.

TBH, I'm feeling more alien than ever now I'm watching the NTs :) A little knowledge, huh! Just the healing process I'm going through I guess.

I wonder if all the NTs would NOT like to do all these things, but are bound by social expectations?

whaat? that's what headphones are for yes? how do you just not hear things? There is a noise in my car at the moment that no one else is bothered by and the mechanic can't find or fix - my response? time to get a different car/ walk more so as not to be driven demented by a sound I cannot unhear. 

I can tell you even neurologically typical people struggle with most of those . As a NT person I don't really have any interest in what other people did on their holidays,I'm certainty not thrilled at the prospect of going out several evenings in a row and an constantly exhausted after social events with friends .There are no absolutes for NT people because as the old saying goes we are all on the spectrum.

yup, and that's my best mate of 30+ years ..... I suppose you don't really discuss thing along the lines of "what do you hear/see when ......" very often!!

Wow. Amazing that we all grow up thinking everyone is like us except for personality & likes, dislikes etc, and in reality, people can be so different.

I think one of the things that made me realise just how different I was was when I was describing total sensory overload from the effort of trying (involuntarily) to process the 1000s of simultaneous noises on the train to my best friend. He said "ugh, that's when I just have to turn the audio input off". I asked wow can you actually do that and he was equally baffled that I can't.

So yes, apparently NT people can control the sound filter, and even decide to block it out if they want to!

Diagnosed this year (Autism)

Been a longgggggggg time coming"!  And retrospectively explains why ive always felt exhausted by social activities..and shy away!

Of course, the first experience is sheer overload of noise and patterns, objects...

The people ive been with can seem to flow through a conversation..when im still fixating on something said 5 mins away, that to them has no real need to be thought about..

Still trying to get me head round all this,,as its taken 51yrs and theres no way i can undo the zero-intervention beforehand...And I guess I've cemented certain bad habits... 

I like these curious questions. It feels like you’ve articulated the kind of background thoughts I have from time to time - the ones that are there at the same time as my inner voice is asking why I feel so separated from people. They also underline how being the way we are is like walking through life with a veil between you and the rest of the world. You can never take it off; you can never really feel life in the way that people without a veil can.