Not quite sure why I’m doing this now. Probably because I’ve talked about Autism with someone recently and it’s the kind of stuff that makes me think. Here’s a random list of “odd” things about me. Make your own diagnosis.
- Dealing with social situations has always been hard for me. I am not terribly good at reading people or understanding the subtext of a particular situation. It often comes up with my wife.
- It takes me a significant amount of processing time to understand what I am feeling. The why often takes even longer.
- In noisy situations, I find it difficult to “tune out” other noise around in order to hear someone talking to me.
- I find emotions particularly difficult to control.
- I have difficulty remembering what someone actually said to me. I can, however, recall how I interpreted it or felt about it. This makes it very difficult for me to, for instance, answer the phone and take a message for someone else. Most of the time, if our home phone rings and nobody is home, unless it’s my wife, something like the school, or someone I am expecting to hear from, I simply don’t answer it. Saves arguments,
- About 10 years ago when I worked in an actual office (as opposed to at home), I would occasionally sit under the desk of my cubicle.
- I do not have a very good ability to regulate my voice within a moderate range. When I worked in an office, I ended up making a point to go into an office to talk. I’m a little better now, though my wife can usually hear my phone conversations downstairs, even with the door closed.
- Christmas Music, after a period of time, irritates me.
- I am frequently too engrossed in what I am doing or thinking to see what is going on around me. I have a “high” noise threshold when I’m in my zone.
- I find it difficult to “break the ice” with people I don’t know or in unfamiliar situations. The first phone call I have with a particular customer–something I have to do from time to time–frightens me to the point of trying to avoid it. I’ve had to get better at it, obviously.
- I have been accused of having very narrow interests. That’s pretty much true. A perfect vacation for me is when everyone else leaves the house and I’m home alone. It’s happened, and it’s joyous. In fact, I stay up late long after everyone else is asleep to get that time to myself.
- I rarely listen to music aloud if anyone’s home. If I do, it’s usually headphones.
- I can remember numbers better than the average person. To the point where I frequently don’t use the phonebook built into my phone and just dial the digits. It’s faster. I also remember crap like my first phone number, our telephone number when we lived in Spokane, etc.
- I have a fairly good associative memory. If I am trying to recall when something happened in my life, I can usually pinpoint it within a year or so based on what year I was in school. For example, I looked at an undated picture of my dad and my sister this afternoon. My dad was sitting in his Celica, which I knew he had when I was in second grade. My sister was fairly young in this picture also. That places the photo at approximately 1980-81.
- I am not a very detail oriented person. Most of the time. In some things, I am the opposite. “Narrow focus” I suppose.
That’s all I can think of for now. Have an early morning meeting, so I should go crash while the getting’s good.
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