Do all Aspies hate crowds?

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I can't really say I love crowds. I hate being alone even more. I would love a situation where it could just be me and one other person on some deserted island in the middle of nowhere, but as this is highly unlikely, I just grin and bear it. I'm the guy who goes to large gatherings and just stands around not talking to anyone. It's weird. when you are in a large crowd or a party, it always seems like everyone else knows someone else there, and you are just the 'odd guy out'.

A big enough crowd can prevent me from entering into a specific bar or restaurant most of the time, especially when no one I know is around. On the few occasions where I do go to a compact place like a bar or restaurant that I know is likely to be crowded, I go knowing I'm meeting someone there.

I don't hate crowds at all and I can do very well in them. But I can easily get sensory overload depending on the crowd and what it is doing. For example, when I was running marathons, there was a huge crowd, couple thousand people. But we were all doing the same thing. And when we ran it was in an orderly fashion, everyone going the same direction. People were not screaming or yelling. So that was fine for me. If I go into a nightclub, however, I can't stay there very long. I will get overwhelmed quickly if it is crowded and people are all over the place and the music is not music that I can handle. But if it is a dance party with music that I like, I can dance all night with everyone else. So it really depends on the occasion and what the crowd is doing as a whole, if it is indoors or outdoors, in a big room that can accommodate the numbers and not feel full or in a small room where people are more tightly packed, and the types of other stimuli that are going on at the same time.

We ate at Red Lobster on a crowded day once and that was overwhelming for me I did not do well there at all. I also don't do well if there are a lot of little kids running around and screaming and carrying on. That can really get to me.

Crowds are the main reason I have never been a big nightclub or lounge type of person. I have gone to one recently just for the sake of meeting and hanging with friends for the night. That and drinking a little bit in order to take my mind of the surroundings.

I'm rather contradicting with this sort of thing. I do love peaceful places, but often I get panic attacks when I'm walking somewhere quiet and there are people coming towards me, because I feel compelled to make eye contact, and if I do intend to be friendly they might not be friendly back which I seem to take personally, and if I don't look at them I feel like I'm being weird or unfriendly. Usually I have good intentions when it comes to friendliness, but my social anxieties take over in most situations like this. I am much better at being friendly and approachable with people who I know. With strangers, it's a different story.

Which is one reason why I prefer to go somewhere more busier, because you don't feel so compelled to have to make eye contact with people. In busy places there is more going on and people aren't so bothered about you, like they are more when you pass them in quiet places.

But I don't always like places that are TOO busy, like where you can't hardly move. That is why I get the early bus if I want to go out in the day during the school holidays, because when the children are off school the towns seem 10 times busier than what they normally are. Kids really agitate me. Toddlers are loud and are usually screaming about something or other, and kids have bad motor skills and so run right into you, and teenagers are obnoxious and intimidating when they get together and form large groups what nervous people like me prefer to avoid. I just think crowds will be so much more bearable if it weren't for kids, which is why I love it when they are at school.

I've been told by my mother I don't like crowds but I don't agree with that because if I didn't like them, I wouldn't be going to malls or zoos or amusement parks or fairs or even go to a concert or to a video game convention. Those places have lot of people there.

I love crowds, especially when music is involved, like in big open-air venues.

[quote="natibbkf"] I love the type of crowds where I can be anonymous and just observe the world[/quote

Me too. I try to remember to wear sunglasses so that I don't come across as too creepy.

I very much despise crowds in fact even just seeing people in real life crowd or not but crowds more.

I am trying to learn not to be so anti-social, it was easier when I was younger because I would get really intoxicated to deal with it.
Today I am sober so I no longer have that crutch.

Being a recluse has it's pros and cons.

I don't particularly like crowds because I can't filter all the noise. The noise is just a barrage. I only describe it as loud static on a radio. Even when I was stationed in Germany, I sought the quietest restaurants and pubs. I knew then what I could and couldn't handle. This was years before AS was described in the DSM. The other soldiers in my platoon were sometimes perplexed at my habit of going places by myself.

Depends. At a sports arena, when the game is on and the crowd is mostly still with only a few people getting up for refreshments and bathroom break every now and then I have no issues. However, when the crowd is moving (specifically, when the game is over and everyone leaves within a few minutes of each other in seemingly random directions) I feel very overwhelmed.

I go grocery shopping on week days before 3:00pm. It's less crowded then. Same goes for taking a walk downtown. I can't stand the crowds on weekends.

I can stand some crowds,ive gone to some music shows and that wasnt so bad,i guess its because the focus was on the show and the music was louder than the crowd noise the same goes for movies ,going in and out can tense me up but once in the theater it went away.but dances and the bar scene i never liked ,i could handle it for a bit but usualy needed to go out to get some air,thinking of it now my friends would think something was wrong but could never tell them why cause i didnt know.also i always hated crowded buses and metros and would usualy stare out the window.

Some really bother me, like grocery stores. Others I can tolerate.

For me, not crowds, but the noise they generate.