12/16/2025
I am interested in how many other people on the spectrum do this? (long post but worth it ... I feel anyway)
1) You go online to view menu, pictures and directions to a new restaurant that you have been invited to go to. You will know what you are getting long before going there. There is a good chance it will be chicken fingers.
2) When you pet an animal, you are more focused on making the pet feel better than you are on how it makes you feel. You like to scratch under the collar and in places you think they are more itchy.
3) You have a drawer that has to be perfectly organized right on top of a drawer that has soy sauce packets that have started to solidify. You know you should throw them out, but at this point realize they might be your longest relationship.
4) When someone says "We are all going out after work to a place we think you would like to go to" ... and you feel both happy for them, and concerned they are also insulting you. At no point do you realize it is an invitation to go with them.
5) You arrive 30 min early for everything because you might encounter an unknown variable in your drive (traffic, accident, Godzilla attack etc) and then sit in your car so you don't look creepy arriving 30 min early.
6) When people threaten to "not call you anymore" as a form of punishment, it does not feel like a punishment at all.
7) You own 20 glasses but use the same one every day. Same with forks, spoons and plates.
8 ) You watch the same movies and shows, read the same books, listen to the same music and play the same videogames OVER and OVER and OVER and feel great about doing it.
9) If you have a wrinkle in your sheets and it is touching your toes, you will get out of bed at 3:23am and remake the bed.
10) You eat everything in orders. Sort your candies by colour before eating them in order. You arrange your plate and eat in order of most appealing to least appealing. If there are colours involved (rainbow pasta) you will both eat in order of color and in order of favorite.
11) Holding eye contact feels like staring into a bright light. You can force yourself to do it, but it is going to burn the whole time and might leave you blind afterwards!
12) Trying your best to mirror facial expressions and mannerisms but end up appearing fake and creepy or like you are mocking them.
13) You overshare information in an attempt to make connections with people, then spend days or years ruminating about it (probably long after everyone else has long forgotten about it)
14) You say the same things in your head, over and over and over. The same song, the same phrase, the same sound... day after day, month after month. You try your best not to do it out loud.
15) You buy clothes by how they feel as the first criteria. How they look is a distant second. And the tags have to be removed IMMEDIATELY when you get home with it.
16) An object in a drawer stops existing the moment the drawer closes. All the important things in our life needs to be out and on display or it doesn't exist any more.
17) You explain everything in EXACT details to other people to avoid the possibility that they misunderstand you. You appear "hard to please" or pedantic but you really just need to be understood.
18) Your shoes must be tied to the exact same pressure and there cannot be any wrinkle in the tongue of the shoe. If one is too tight, you will sit on the ground and fix it, regardless how long it takes. This might end up with you throwing both shoes in the river and walking home barefoot if a balance cannot be achieved.
19) You keep one part of your body outside the covers of your bed to act like a radiator. A leg or a foot must be outside to allow it to regulate the temperature of your whole body.
20) I am adding this one in so that it ends in a good number. I don't have anything for this one, but I cannot stop on 19, I am not insane!! I guess this is a thing in itself after all... It is nice when things work out.
Please do not use this as a method for diagnosis, nor mention that people NOT on the spectrum also can do these things. This is just a list to make people on the spectrum feel more seen and know they are not alone.
Please feel free to add to the list.
(Snuggle-Puppy added for effect)
