Displaying empathy in weird ways.

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Do you sometimes display empathy in very random ways that may not be suitable for the situation? When I do it, I KNOW that it isn't necessarily "appropriate" but I feel like if I don't do it then I may not find another time to.

Sometimes I may show someone an over-abundance of emotion, like a really tight hug or tell them how much I care about them because
A). I feel like there is nothing holding me back from doing it at that moment and
B).I feel like they may not know how I feel because I seem so removed the rest of the time, and I want them to know that I care before I return to my normal state.

Anyone else?

I hate is when people say that those with AS cannot exhibit empathy.

We most certainly can (especially if we've experienced a similar issue in our own lives).

The problem is that with AS we don't really know what is going to be appropriate in how we show empathy for another person's situation. What we might want someone to do for us is not what society would always see as acceptable.

I have to do a lot of pondering "offline" to keep my compassion flowing in the right directions. I seem to get by these days......particularly with one-on-one, as groups can soon get complicated, e.g. I like to zoom in to one character which tends to snub the others, so I still zoom in but I worry about what I'm not seeing from the others, and then I can't focus so well.

I used to "overempathise" sometimes - I'd still be fussing over somebody's minor irritation when they themselves were well over it, but mostly I probably just came over as aloof or uncaring.

What probably helped more than anything was that I slowly cottoned on to a different way of picking up on what was happening in dialogues, where you're looking for the emotional sources behind the logic of what's actually said. I got such ideas from a couple of counsellors, from the way they responded to my telling them of certain conversations I'd had with partners. It dawned on me that there was a lot more than the literal meaning of conversations.......I'm still not adept at that kind of "alternative listening" and it always feels like a black art rather than a logical science, but sometimes I've had intuitions that have been helpful.