Like being around people but find it hard/tiring

Familiar. Animals and children are much easier to understand!

I feel like this too. I wouldn't say I "love" being around people, but I like spending time with selected people, but it's really draining. Just back from a family thing and it was good, but I barely spoke to anyone except the children (my equivalent of the autistics who only talk to animals) and I want to crawl into bed now.

It makes sense to get control in areas we can!

I think there's something be said for following things through from the absolute absolute  beginning to the very end. If a job is worth doing its worth doing well and in an authentic way. This idea sometimes permeates into my hobbies and interests. You must get great satisfaction from this type of work.

.....Certainly a control freak in many respects....ironic when my world is generally completely out of control.

Disambiguation (hopefully).....I follow multiple specialisms along a linear theme - I am both the cleaner of the theatre and the brain surgeon.  I am the fire starter and the fireman.  Give me whatever "thing" needs doing in my field (field of expertise) and I then do absolutely everything required in relation to that thing.  I am the ultimate "project based" entity.

Thank you! It's certainly food for thought and there maybe some truth in that. if you could post any reliable sources for reading I would grateful. 

Other humans contain a great deal of sensory elements. The small particles of others we connect with or "exchange packets of information" with (to use a physics analogy), the emitting frequencies, there's ALOT happening between humans in microscopic levels, some we're just beginning to understand. If these elements are transmitting and receiving and most people dull out the incoming unwanted noise, while autistics don't have that same mechanism at work, then technically, we're receiving a great deal of information at a biological level to process. 

Just sharing my own thoughts on this! But definitely feel the same.

Mines usually "fine and you?" then I get chapter and verse about their weekend/holidays/illnesses/kids/extended family/any other problems. I think I've got one of those faces.

I can't tell sometimes when people are having me on and winding me up! Is all that for real?

1. Edit Oh you said an analogy! So maybe not.
2. Now I don't know. You might mean an analogy like we spoke about before
3. I am going away from the forum to do some baking as I'm thinking far too much for a Sunday afternoon!

PS - I have two standard stock answers to "how are you."  Both make people laugh.  Can't explain what they are for reasons of obfuscation.  Like you, I delight in vocabulary.

To give you an analogy.....I do genetic engineering to get the perfect seed, I fertilise the land with my own bio output, I plough the land myself, I design and build a tractor and seed planting machine, I dig an oil well and refine the oil for my tractor, I plant the seed and sit in the field while it grows, watering it with my own wee, I market and sell my produce.  Am I a scientist, farmer, engineer, gardener, retailer, eco warrior etc ?  That is the essence of the conundrum posed by that most innocent of questions. 

Do you not just tell them your job title? Or are you Del Boy?! Mines pretty straightfowrad. It's hard when someone asks "so how's work going?" And I'm just like (in my head) do you REALLY want to know or are you just being polite?  It only occurred to me a few years ago this question is asked to get a bit of chat going..so we don't sit there in silence. In the past, I'd answer quite literally. "It's going fine, what about you?" But now, again, it's like, well where do I start?!

I'm glad there's someone with similarities because everyone is so different, I often find it hard to relate to other autistic people.

Whenever we cross, it seems that our similarities manifest or deepen.  I do like this fact - and as you might imagine, a blanket yes to all of your above from me!

It can all get pretty hysterical when someone asks me the ultimate "normie" question....."So what do you do for a living."  Are they flocking joking....where to start....how to start.....how does one define to someone such a complex thing." etc.....and to be fair to me, it really is very hard to nail it down - even to people who know my field - the latter just look at me in bemusement, then question me for 20 minutes to check that I'm for real and ultimately always end up asking......"But why ?"     LOL.

I totally get that re sorting stuff. It was even in my AS report...re executuve function and something about needing only 2 choices for decisions and breaking things down into chunks when having a clear out. There's also difficulty about knowing where to start.  And, in my mind, there are multiple possibilities of anything so I understand your thought processes you mentioned. Sorting out stuff also triggers invasive thoughts about the environment and how we have evolved etc but I am getting better at just diving in as ive learned things don't get done at all if you spend too much time thinking.

But it's the same with conversations. Someone asked me if I was vegetarian last night. I kind of am but not. But there were so many different ways to express this and what it means to me that my brain didn't know where to start. (Not forgetting all the external noise input of a family gathering and trying to eat at the same time). So I just came out with it. But to me it was all jumbled up. They probably didn't notice. So then I didn't convey what I wanted to in the way I wanted to. Not that's a problem but....oh god so much analysis even now haha!

I too am getting used to how I process things and for me, a lot of it is in the understanding which then makes me a bit easier on myself.

It's the mode of thinking that I am beginning to understand about myself.  Its HOW I think about things that I define as my mode.  No matter what the subject or issue, I approach the collection and metrics associated with it differently to others AND THEN I seem to often process that unusual jumble differently to others too.

For example, clearing space in a garage - I know every conceivable technique for doing it and don't believe I have excessive sentimentality to throwing things - but getting the OPTIMUM balance of keeping tut "because it will be useful one day" -v- "you need the space" -v- etc.  I am not "obsessed" (dare I say) about any particular thing - but I am obsessively running over the multiplicity of options available to me.

Pretty sure this sort of thing is the perfect storm for a profile like mine - AD AU -DA - Attention disorder, Austistic, Demand avoidant.

That's really positive to hear that you've found benefit and it seems to be a bit less taxing, or that you are being less harsh on yourself. Being calmer is certainly positive!

The conversation sometimes still stops abruptly with me but now I'm just more like "oh well it's happened (again)"/"I've run out of spoons to maintain it anyway" rather than "what did I do wrong".  This analysis however, still takes effort. You're right when you say it's a continuous assessment. It still is for me but through a lens of "aha!".I wonder if there's something in a higher fight or flight state which is where some of the analysis of environment comes from. I don't know why I need to always have a total reason for everything, I should probably just get on with my life. It's not just analysis of what's happened, it's often the underlying reason WHY. 

Good morning.  I'm still in that twilight zone of 50+  years not knowing -v- 6-8 months of knowing my autistic reality.  Every notable encounter is therefore still an experiment to be observed and analysed in terms of my own feelings and behaviours.....on top of the continuous assessment of how the others I am with are receiving/perceiving me.....how it's going, and I being too loud, too bombastic, too quiet, too moody, too borimg etc.

In essence, t'was ever thus as described above for me - but now there is one BIG difference = I'm not doing all of the above whilst trying to determine if I might actually be one or more of;

a narcissist, bi polar, have multiple personality disorder, bpd, am just an old-fashioned a-hole, have a brain tumour, need to change who I associate with, need to change where I spend my life, need to change EVERYTHING about my life etc etc.

Now that I don't need to try and gather micro data to aid the overall assessment of "what" I am, I find social interaction a much calmer experience for me these recent months.  I notice and understand why I feel tired, why I need to move around a lot, why people start to look bored when I speak of a specialist subject, why I am bored and frustrated by most people, why most people can't fathom my jokes/self amusement, why I'm working so hard, on what and why etc etc etc

I hope my current honeymoon period can last as long as possible.  Calm Number is a happy Number....it allows me to see deeper into me...I am so relieved by what I now understand

Great question above Retired, sorry if I veered off topic somewhat.

And in difficulty stating my needs......I ended up drinking caffinated drinks which I don't usually do after midday, because when offered a drink everything happened so fast and I didnt know how to say otherwise. I asked what drinks were available and was offered several different ones and it was too much to think about and they offered me a caffeine one and I just said yes. Then I had some cake which I didn't particularly want. So now I can't sleep cos I've had too much sugar and caffeine. I'm an adult for gods sake.  And then I see the ones there half my age  who are just able to state what they need or want. Why can't I do it!!

Yes I read your post actually I remember it now. I like social eating with my partner or close friends but often we talk before and after the eating, not during. With others I find it more difficult. I didn't realise until I did some questionnaire online about autism or alexithymia  (not that they tell us much but it got me thinking), how much of a social thing eating is. For me, I love food and do like eating with others for occasion like a friends catch up but am happy to eat on my own more generally (this has sometimes been a bone of contention for me at work but that's another story). It was nice at a retreat I went to...I sat on the silent tables mostly so I didn't have to talk. I've digressed! The gargle thing you get sounds strange and uncomfortable. (I don't know who Yung Star is). I don't know if it's something you can make light oh with your friends to take the pressure off yourself a bit? (Oh god I'm having a Yung Star moment again..,bear with!) I get quite uncomfortable in the stomach and it only usually happens if there's lots of talking going on as well as eating. It's still hard to say what I need tjough. Tonight I could've done with taking myself outside for a bit but didn't know how to do it.