04 Nov 2014, 9:33 pm
So what is it with spontaneity that people (i.e. neurotypicals) find so, shall we say, glamourous and desirable??
I know part of the DSM states that a diag crit. for Aspergers is "lack of spontaneous seeking to point out objects of interest" - although that was never me. In my case, it was more processing speed and trying to consciously think of something appropriate to say in a given context like let's say a date or with a crowd of potential friends. The fear of rejection i.e. "the lizard brain" had hijacked me more than once, you could say. Yet NTs expect you to "lose yourself in the moment" and the corollary criticism we've heard all too often from them, "you need to stop over-analyzing things." 
I was cowed into being less spontaneous and keeping a low profile by my stepmom as a kid in the 1980s, before anyone knew of Aspergers - she clearly figured out that I had "some sort of problem" and wanted to suppress any urge of spontaneity in me, because I didn't seem to intuitively see "the big picture" or ToM and thus the consequences of my spontaneity. 
During the 1990s, I soon learned that my lack of spontaneity was to my detriment, and I had to take risks. You know how they say that on dates you never get feedback (except for the nonverbal hints we miss)? Well, one time at the age of 21, I landed a date with a young woman who was "all B's" - blonde, busty, blue-eyed, beautiful...and things appeared to be going well for a little while - but get this - about 1.5 hours in, she got up from the table and said something I'll never forget: "You know, you seem like a really great guy, with a good head on his shoulders, but you really need to be more spontaneous (I'm looking for someone who's more spontaneous)." I replied in panic-mode, "what do you mean?" - and predictably she responded with the familiar clichés like losing yourself in the moment, go with the flow...which made no sense to me, she seemed to like intellectual conversation and such, so I didn't suspect anything. But then it made me realize, through much non-success over the years, that my lack of spontaneity was a barrier. In hindsight, I should have been aware of the context that this was just a date, a light-hearted easy-going moment with no formal interview, so chalked it up to the Aspie "context blindness" - that, and lack of experience in having friends and such (or past girlfriends) to be spontaneous with, in a playful teasing kind of way. You could say that's Aspie black-and-white thinking, where playful teasing I thought of as "bad" or offensive, when it's not. Coloured by past experience.
In other situations I've been in like customer service or hospitality, spontaneity was required - under pressure it's worse of course.
Yeah, OK, I get it - if I'm a police officer, I absolutely need spontaneous intuition in stressful situations, but really...? I can objectively see that spontaneous behaviour is not really required in most situations to a large degree, it's basically a remnant of evolutionary psychology where humans had to be able to "size up" people and situations quickly, or they were dead. I would surmise that's why young women find the trait attractive as well, from an evolutionary standpoint - it's like they have a protector. Of course, it took me YEARS to figure this out, even though I took basic anthropology in university.
Fortunately, I am more spontaneous today, and in more recent years; and while I often feel that my youth was unfulfilled due to my inherent lack of spontaneity, to me it was more of a survival mechanism than an ASD trait per se.
