What was my friend doing?

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I was with my friend today and she and I went out to eat with some of our other friends. She kept staring out into space, was quiet, and seemed very reserved. (She is usually very outgoing and this never happened when hanging out before). I kept asking her if everything was okay and she assured that yes everything was fine. She has Asperger's Syndrome. What was she doing? Was it a "Shutdown"?

I don't know about shutdowns or meltdowns as I have never experienced one.. I think.

But as people with Asperger's find it hard to make an eye contact or follow the conversation (in groups) its hard to find a spot where to look or where you "should" be looking at.
I often just stare into nothingness myself too.

Could be just daydreaming or could be a shutdown.

I just realized today that I do have shutdowns. Was in the grocery store and and many points just stood there with the cart staring blankly at the shelves cause of the overload. Grocery stores always stress me out extremely, even this tiny Trader Joe's.

Double post. A third possibility: her usual outgoingness could be an NT act that it takes energy to maintain and she may have been running low on social energy at that point.

It sounds a lot like what I do when overwhelmed in a social situation. I just want to park my eyes somewhere and retreat for a little while, but inevitably someone will say, "Are you alright?" The concept of needing some down time from socializing is hard to grasp, by extroverted NTs.

That sounds like me from time to time. I meet with a group of mums in the playground every day. Usually, I try to stay focused and speak a bit (or lots if only one or two are there). If they're talking about things that don't interest me, I completely drift off and appear like I'm looking at stuff in the distance. I'm just bored and daydreaming. Maybe she felt like this and had nothing to add to the conversation. If I'm interested but can't form a sentence that's relevant to the discussion, I think I keep looking attentive.

She was probably feeling introverted, and content with just listening. Sometimes I don't want to be a chatterbox, either. If that'd been me, I would've been honest when I said "I'm okay," because you generally are when that happens--you just don't feel like talking.

If an Aspie says, "I'm okay," please don't keep asking.