r/aspergers • u/_pantiesinwonderland • 28d ago
For me: that time I received an expensive ring in a really beautiful box (one that opens like a camera shutter), I spent 10 minutes fascinated by box and playing with it before saying something about the ring!
173 Upvotes
1
u/machonm 28d ago
Mine would be not knowing when people are hitting on me or showing romantic interest. Before this comes off as sounding braggartly in any way, I'll say I'm a very average looking person and this has only happened a handful of times (at least that I know of from people telling me).
One notable time that sticks out is when I worked in a small specialized technical team. A man on my team was telling me all about an upcoming camping trip he was taking with friends to the mountains. I mentioned it sounded like a lot of fun. He proceeded to tell me about how there were several men going, they all shared tents, watched movies (one of my special interests) and did all sorts of other activities together. I asked question after question out of pure curiosity. He then proceeded to ask me if I'd like to be his guest on the trip, to which I said sure, so long as my schedule accommodated. He was very excited and told everyone we were going there together. A few hours later this person left our shared common workspace and everyone broke out in laughter. I couldnt for the life of me figure out what was so funny. Well, as I said the person telling me about this was a man on my team. I myself am also male and happily married to my wife (now for over 20yrs). This gentleman had apparently been hitting on me on and off for weeks. I just thought he was a super nice guy and enjoyed chatting with him about various things. The camping trip was a very well known gay excursion trip and this person didnt realize I was not only not gay but also married. So I had to go back to him and tell him I was still happy to go (because the trip sounded genuinely interesting) but that I was happily married and not interested in him as anything more than a traveling companion. In the end, I felt horrible because I had zero idea he was remotely interested nor any clue I was going on a gay camping trip.
Similar things have happened to me with females I've worked with but after this particular event (which became fairly notorious around my workmates), people started telling me explicitly that person X was hitting on me. My wife has even mentioned it to me on a couple of occasions because she found it charming that I was so oblivious and was some sort of sign of my love for her. Now that we both know I'm autistic, I've lost that unwarranted charm <g>