Sharing major interests with significant others/close friend

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Hi everybody!

I am rather curious about everybody's personal experiences and beliefs about this thing that I've been thinking a lot about recently. It's common knowledge among people with AS that we have one or more major interests (obsessions) that we really focus on, and it's frequently possible to collect a group of acquaintances that we can hang out with, surrounding this interest. However, I was wondering about your experiences with a significant other, or a very good friend (not just an acquaintance) participating in the activity of interest with you. Do you frequently feel the need to assert yourself over the other person whenever you're doing the activity, like teaching them how to do it? Feel jealous whenever the person does it better than you, or does something involving the activity without you? Are you more sensitive about what the other person says about your doing the activity, for example you are less accepting of even constructive criticism when both of you do the activity? How do you manage these feelings with the other person, to prevent destruction of your relationship?

I'm wondering about all of these things because of my AS-diagnosed friend, about whom I've made a large number of posts. I keep remembering how he got jealous of me when I did something in the online game (that we both played at the time) without him, and yet whenever some of his other acquaintances did the same thing, he would congratulate them about it. It didn't make sense to me why he treated me differently from the other people, and I wonder if the actual closeness and intensity of the friendship (we were best friends at the time) had something to do with it, like we had some significant personal space issues. Admittedly I (self-diagnosed) did act similarly to him and I regret it completely... if only I had known that I was doing it in the first place, I would have tried to make a compromise before the friendship got wrecked.

Thanks everybody in advance for your comments and discussion!

Interesting. I am not really sure because I have had a best friend who in retrospect seemed very controlling and narcissistic. I am married but my husband shares NONE of my interests so no competition there (lol). With my friend however the friendship seemed to work if the pecking order was not changed. I noticed after a while that if I had a better academic accomplishment or got some accolade than it needed to be belittled. If I did or said something different than it was stupid unless someone complimented me and then she would copy it and act like she invented it. I was really not competitive until I started noticing the put downs and then of course reflecting that back. We don't associate anymore because I moved on. I am not really sure how an AS/AS friendship would work out - I think the variables of personality could come into effect here too.

Thanks for your reply!

Since you mentioned it, I wanted to add something but forgot about it when I made the original post. Do you (the readers) feel like you need to compete against your significant other/good friend in the activity, or that somehow it just ends up that way?

I have had few personal interests that involved competition(who reads more?)I did have a friend,exboyfriend who went biking with me and he was much better biker,that didnt bother me.I also had two boyfriends who taught me Gin(card game)and cribbage.It took me few days to really "get it" but then I kept beating them and they eventually wouldnt play me any more.It really sucked because I enjoyed both games.The one who taught me Gin was very controlling in general and seemed most upset with "the way" I played.He said I wasnt "doing it right"...but I wasnt cheating and I was winning but he could never "strategize" because my brain worked so different.Sometimes when I would go dumpster diving or thriftstore "hunting",I would feel jelous if they found something that I really wanted but I always tried to be up-beat and congratulate them because I wanted them to continue going with me(and knew my jealousy was stupid and petty)In general,I am not competitive,sometimes I would prefer losing if it would keep the person playing with me(but I cant lose on purpose because it would feel disrespectful....though sometimes I try and hold back a little.)

Nobody seems to keep up with my interests. They are far too specialized.

My best friend in college focused on Physics. He thought he was studying reality and thus knew everything at times. He picked up a job doing computer support at the University and started getting uppity about how he knew so much more about computers than me. So we sat down at a computer together one day and I gave him a breif introduction to sorting algorithms. I constructed the program in C with such natural ease, as if it was my native toung and I only learned English as a second language. All the while I related the parts of the program to what was being done and how it related to resources such as computation time and memory utilization and how it could be optimized better, but I was only giving a brief review. He conceeded that he'd never be able to compete with me on computers and was much nicer about computer issues after that. BTW, I went on to score in the top 7% in the US for the GRE computer science subject test. In any other subject, I'm either average or a little below.

The closest I've come to shared interest with my wife is our child. She's very good at defering to me when it comes to doing something new; like the first time for changing diapers, swaddling, giving him a bath, etc. This makes me feel great! She appreciates that I can solve problems and trusts me with our child. I would work out how it was done, do extra research as needed, and show her the results. She'd then pick up the task, kinda kicking me out. I found it odd that later (when she complained that I didn't do these tasks) she would criticize me about how I did them and would take over because she knew better. I decided it was best to let her just do it and not complain. Pick your battles, as they say.

It took some hard talks about why I was adverse to helping out to resolve some of these issues. A lot of it is about how the information is presented; constructive criticism is fine, but she has to show me how and why the change is needed and isn't just different than the way I like to do it. If she can't make a reasonable case, then either 1) she does it her way, or 2) I do it my way. Her choice.

It's great that she shows me better ways to do things for our boy; she has more experience being with him all day. I really don't want to repeat a leaky diaper episode in our bed. Also, whenever I'm at home, I take over baby care and she gets a break. This is hardly fair; she has to keep up with him a lot more hours than I do, but it's what I can do as I've got the day job. So I try to be open about doing extra tasks as she requests.

Unfortuantely, the one thing she wishes I could do most, I can't possibly imagine how to occomplish: read her mind and do things for her without being asked. It's hard enough figuring out when she's upset so I can follow the plan I've developed on how to get her through her moods.