Being in other people's houses
I think the problem for me is partly what was said previously about not being sure what is appropriate or not and also having to (or feeling I have to) put on my 'normal act' for a prolonged period with no place I can easily escape too if I need to. The worst is probably the in-laws since they are always going to be judging me to some degree. Interestingly, the only member of their family (apart from my wife) that I have felt relaxed around was a nephew who it turns out is actually schizophrenic - I guess us non-NTs have a good radar for our own kind lol.
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AQ46, EQ9, FQ20, SQ50
RAADS-R: 181 (Language: 9, Social: 97, Sensory/Motor: 37, Interests: 36)
Aspie Quiz: AS129, NT80
Alexithymia: 137
I feel very strange visiting other people houses and notice everything and anything that's different from my house, which in most cases is 99% of the interior.
I also start imediately to scan the shoes at the entry, looking for any threatening sizes. If I see mostly small kids shoes, I know I can cope. If I see adults shoes, I start to sweat. If I see heaps of adult shoes, indicating they have other, strangers visiting, I just want to run home again.
I also study every detail from how the house is constructed to what kind of wallpaper used. I scan the hi-fi, tv-set, all electrical equipment, sockets and where they are situated.....I could go on forever.
StarTrekker
Veteran
Joined: 22 Apr 2012
Age: 33
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,088
Location: Starship Voyager, somewhere in the Delta quadrant
I really hate going to the houses of people I don't know well, and it takes at least five or six regularly scheduled visits for me to get comfortable there, because by that time I know the routine better, but initially it's just too hard to sort out the social rules. It starts before I even walk in the front door; do I take my shoes off to keep their carpet clean, or leave them on so as not to seem overly presumptuous and informal? If they offer me a drink do I say yes to seem polite or no so as not to inconvenience them? How am I supposed to sit on the furniture? It's more comfortable to sit on my knees but do they not want my feet on the sofa? Am I supposed to compliment their home? What if I can't think of anything nice to say about it? And that doesn't even include the sensory stuff; strange houses always smell funny, and the lights can be too bright and there might be kids screaming or a lot of people talking and on and on and on, it's just so ridiculously hard that it's never worth the trouble. As for other people coming to my house, it's not often I have my own visitors as I still live with my parents, but sometimes I do, and I can never remember to offer them drinks or to invite them to sit down or to do any of the perfunctory introductory things a good host is supposed to do, so the whole interacting with acquaintances or strangers in a personal setting thing is just far more tiresome than I'd like to bother with.
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"Survival is insufficient" - Seven of Nine
Diagnosed with ASD level 1 on the 10th of April, 2014
Rediagnosed with ASD level 2 on the 4th of May, 2019
Thanks to Olympiadis for my fantastic avatar!
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