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Awareness of others

Lotus

I've heard that people on the Autistic spectrum tend to live in a world of their own and have little ability to empathise. 

But from my observations it appears that me and my partner (both Aspies) are much more aware of the people around us than most other people, who will sometimes exhibit ignorant behaviour like trying to walk straight through you instead of moving to one side on the pavement to allow you to pass. We also feel emotional empathy strongly when someone is in distress, whereas I've seen people in so called "caring professions" who didn't seem to care at all.

Maybe we on the Autistic spectrum all have this hyper-sensitivity to other people and emotional empathy, but it overloads some to the extent that they block it out, either by "shutting down", which restricts their communication abilities, or by making their own noise, repetitive movements, etc

What do you think? 

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  • Former Member
    Former Member

    "Pavement etiquette" or lack thereof is one of my pet hates.  In fact I find it really very hard to interact with other people in any sort of environment where I find they're rude, inconsiderate, selfish, unpredictable and generally "don't follow the rules": by which I don't mean something pedantic or arbitary (well okay, maybe there's a bit of that) but stuff that should be an obvious matter of basic decency, like not trying to walk me off the pavement, not pushing in the queue or following the Highway Code.

    Some people are worse than others and it seems some places have larger concentrations of the worse sort of people, but the upshot is that I prefer not interacting with them: I don't want to walk anywhere, I don't want to shop anywhere, I don't want to drive anywhere.  So I'll just stay indoors.

    As for the "caring professions": well I've met a few really lovely people.  And I've met a few who are less lovely.  Sadly, I tend to notice the latter a lot more and could rant about them for pages, so I won't go there.

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  • Former Member
    Former Member

    "Pavement etiquette" or lack thereof is one of my pet hates.  In fact I find it really very hard to interact with other people in any sort of environment where I find they're rude, inconsiderate, selfish, unpredictable and generally "don't follow the rules": by which I don't mean something pedantic or arbitary (well okay, maybe there's a bit of that) but stuff that should be an obvious matter of basic decency, like not trying to walk me off the pavement, not pushing in the queue or following the Highway Code.

    Some people are worse than others and it seems some places have larger concentrations of the worse sort of people, but the upshot is that I prefer not interacting with them: I don't want to walk anywhere, I don't want to shop anywhere, I don't want to drive anywhere.  So I'll just stay indoors.

    As for the "caring professions": well I've met a few really lovely people.  And I've met a few who are less lovely.  Sadly, I tend to notice the latter a lot more and could rant about them for pages, so I won't go there.

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