Partner Stims

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What are your favorite stims that involve other people? I used to do these all the time in high school, and now as an adult it is a mark of true friendship when I start stimming with a person. My favorite partner stims are:

• Playing with their fingers and hands
• Shaking their hand
• Braiding or brushing their hair (I was notorious for this as a kid!)
• My friend Andrew always wore sweaters and would pull his hands inside the sleeves, then I would grab the end of the sleeve and bounce it up and down with his hand in the middle like when you put a potato in a sock and hold the ends and bounce it (side note, that's very fun too)
• Squeezing the squishy parts of their arms
• Rubbing the smooth parts of their skin
• Putting my ear to their neck or belly to feel their skin and hear their sounds (I do this mostly when drunk or when feeling very affectionate)
• Petting them
• Bouncing their hand up and down like they're giving me a low five over and over
• Rubbing my head on them like a cat and purring
• Making animal sounds with each other (obviously only with my friends who make animal sounds)

What about y'all? Do y'all got favorite two-man (or three-man, or four-man, or n-man... ) stims?

Except when it comes to my mother and grandmother, my personal space bubble is a good 3-5 feet. I can't imagine ever feeling compelled to touch somebody else, so safe to say I'll never have any "partner stims" haha.

The only partner stims I practice are with my actual partner.

I don't stim with anyone thou I am very affectionate with with my girlfriend..

Just the thought of any of those makes me shudder.

Yeah, I'm with the others on this one... I've a hard time understanding how you could do any of that. I typically stay away from people entirely, which is hard enough to do... let alone actually touching them!

One of my close friends lets me stim with her hair (stroking it, brushing, plaiting it etc). Her hair is so soft and silky and she likes it a lot when people style her hair.

Wow this is something I never thought about before. I play with my cousin's hand all the time. Always have. We are only a few moths apart and raised together and very close.

I never really thought of these as stims. My last boyfriend I liked to stroke when we were in bed and I play with both my kids hair. But I stim mostly when upset/agitated/anxious and so at these points I am very much in a bubble of 'don't come anywhere near me or touch me'

Only with my husband. I rock foot to foot and tap or poke him as I go back and forth. I often find myself patting him. I do sometimes rub my forehead on him like on his shirt when watching a movie or just being on the couch or on the bed but I am a face-rubber. He pats me on the forehead and sometimes he puts is hand on my forehead palm to my forehead and vibrates his hand because it settles me. He also smashes me if you count putting weight on yourself as stimming. It's the way I am affectionate towards him. I think he likes it but I worry about his affection needs too since I am sure he likes the traditional petting, stroking (which actually agitates me often), hugging so I try to do those things too. And I shouldn't be reading anything on ASPartners when people post about it here because it makes me feel more insecure and more like I might be failing somewhere and not realize it.

I have aspurgers and I also take care of a girl with autism. She has a stim with me where she grabs my hand and walks in circles around me which also serves to make me spin. It's kinda a stim for me too. I used to stim by spinning in circles when I was younger. I eventually learned that it wasn't appropriate behavior so I stopped but I never stopped liking it. I will totally take the opportunity to stim with her! I had a lot of stims like that with my mother when I was younger that I have since stopped because they were "weird". I have more recently started stiming by rubbing the back of the little girl I take care of. She likes it. It's like I'm stiming for her.

I like to be rubbed and stroked and I hear that is a stim for me. Same as for pimple popping


I don't go around touching other people to look for pimples or go out of my way to pop one when I see one unless it's my husband. I also don't make anyone rub me forever. I can never get enough of it and I love it when my son touches my hair and then I am always disappointed when he is done.

umm no, like Logston, I have personal space issues. Years ago (when I was young) it would bother me so much, that I was 'given' the arbitrary rule of an arm's length, but to be explicitly used with politeness

In the early years of our relationship, I used to have a verbal stim with my partner, telling him I love him over and over (like three times within a minute). That seems to have reduced by itself to occasionally saying it out of the blue. I know it annoyed him to hear it all the time, but he was very good about it and put up with it. I'm mostly 'no-touch,' but I will occasionally run my fingers over his hand, from his fingertips to his palm and back to his fingertips. He likes to have his beanbag rubbed casually while watching TV, so I do that sometimes. Sort of a stim for both of us, even though he is NT.

Nobody's touching me, unless we're going to have sex and I don't consider that an autistic stim.

I consider social hugging to be a perversion, except between romantic partners.

I totally know what you mean. My partner's gay friends all want to hug and kiss when we meet, and it freaked me out when I first met them. I did it, but I hated it. Now I've worked it out where I don't have to do it and they don't get upset. Even strait friends want to hug, or for guys, they want to shake hands. I hang back behind my partner and keep my hands in my pockets, and most people get the idea that I don't want to touch. My partner does all the hugging and hand shaking, and I don't piss anyone off by not doing it.
Having a socially outgoing partner (who understands that you are not social) is the best thing! They do all the talking so I can be quiet, all the touching so I don't have to touch, all the calling friends and setting up dinner dates so I don't have to be on the phone and my friends don't complain that I never call them. They do all the talking to the waitress at restaurants and all the being friendly to strangers so I don't have to. My friends know that I don't socialize without my partner, because I need that buffer between me and other people.