What is "a preference for sameness and routine"?

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The DSM IV doesn't say that you MUST have that particular trait, only enough of the various major traits.

That said, inflexibility comes in many different shapes and forms. I'll happily change my routines, software versions etc, but I've got things that I refuse to let go of - special interests, certain specific software (Lotus Notes) - If my company got rid of it, I'd leave (I think).

I'm like that. People sometimes say:
Don't you get tired of having spaghetti everyday?
Me:
No...
People:
Wouldn't you prefer a change?
Me:
No...
I actually feel a bit weird after a few days of no spaghetti .
People often find my excessive use of the computer me wasting my life. They can't comprehend that the computer IS my life .
Sometimes people also find it weird when I get kind of upset when I start a conversation via IM differently. Like once, I said 'Hello' instead of 'Haiz', and I spent about an hour fixing the transcripts and explaining to her that it needed to be consistent XD(and then I had to get rid of those transcripts).
I also always have to put 'EMZ=]' on the end of my posts. I sort of hate it because imo, it's a thing you'd put at the end of a text, or something someone adds who doesn't know how to spell(well, does, but refuses to).
But yeah.
EMZ=]

I have that problem but I have thought that it is not the problem about keeping a routine. In fact, I just don't like meeting friends personally. I prefer to meet friends in a work, a lecture, or academy rather than to sacrifice my freetime at home. I don't have a strict routine at home but I just dislike meet friends when I don't want. (and almost everytime I don't want to meet them)

Another thing I used to do -- there was a particular brand of frozen macaroni and cheese I used to eat a lot as a kid, and I had a routine when eating it, chewing and swallowing in a particular way and a particular order. I liked doing that, though, because I liked the food.

A preference for sameness and routine can't be solely an aspie trait. I know plenty of NTs who like to listen to certain songs "on repeat".

Macaroni is my favorite food. My dad told me yesterday I used to eat Macaroni and chocolate moose and that was all I ever ate when we ate at buffets. I must have been real young then because I can remember eating other foods from the buffet when I was older but it was all the same food but most of it was mac and cheese.


I mostly have pasta for dinner but I love mac and cheese.

Every non-autistic person has routines. Especially children are very keen to have routines and react positively to routines/negatively to a lack of routines.

Autistic children and adults have a serious reaction that is no longer within normal limits (normal as defined by that the level of distress is consistent with the importance and significance of the situation).

Feeling stressed or uncomfortable if a non-autistic person is supposed to go on a spontaneous shopping tour is typical and average - most people will react a bit stressed - but an autistic person could react by throwing silverware at the wall or being unable to respond verbally or being unable to continue with whatever they did before.

Autistic routines of someone with mild AS can mean they are cranky, even aggressive at someone for cooking the wrong vegetables (or cooking them in the wrong way).

I think having a preference for sameness is a more general trait than having specific rigid routines.

I don't naturally desire rigid routines but I have to force myself to have them because otherwise I'm just too absent minded to function. I don't like taking the energy to think about common daily choices because my mind would rather be on more interesting things. If I have a routine it means I don't have to think as much to function in life. Things are just automatic.

As far as preference for sameness goes, yes, I don't like disorder and unpredictability in life. I don't like having my things moved or misplaced. I also have meltdowns when things of mine break. Being disconnected from the internet gets me extremely upset too but I think that's because I'm addicted.

Well I'm not quite as routined as I used to be, but certain things I can not break. For example, it is completely unnacceptable to brush my teeth before I have taken a shower. The proper order that I have always used is to take a shower, brush my teeth, and only then go to bed. I also almost always eat the same thing on sandwiches. Sometimes, being the socialist hippie I am, I will start doubting myself. I'll tell myself "Maybe, just maybe....I'll eat something different next time." But then the next time I still put the same thing on.

Other than that my life is rather unstructured. I'm sure if I was older and lived alone though, I'd get into more routines.

I think a lot of NTs could fit that description.

My take on it is that a person prefers routine and continuity in their daily routine. One day is much like another.

I know as much as I complain about being in a rut, at the same time change scares me on some level. I like the dependability of knowing what comes next. As much excitement as new and different challenges offer, I embrace them with bittersweet love. I like the change of things to keep it interesting but it disturbs the routine I rely on to keep things stable and predictable.

Oh the irony.

But the thing is NTs aren't inflexible to routines. Sure they have them too but they aren't going to have a cow or get upset or flip out when they are interrupted in their routine or when something unexpected comes up they have to stop their routine and do something else such as having to pick their kid up because his or her car broke down. The NT might just do it without feeling annoyed and feeling anxious to get back home while an aspie might. They just want to do it and get it done with so they can get back to what they were doing ASAP. Some might refuse or have anxiety the whole time and be grouchy to their child.

To be sure, many of the small routines I still automatically develop, such as microwaving macaroni cheese in a certain way and checking my email in a certain order, could be found in lots of NTs. I think, however, that it's possible to tell the difference. When I was a child -- and still, for that matter -- my favourite colours were red, blue and green, in that order, and I tried to fit the toys I played with and suchlike objects into a system in which red was best, blue second-best and green third-best, with other colours, I am afraid, left in the dust...I also, because my superstitious mother had said that three was a 'bad number', developed a prejudice against three and a preference for five. Once in English class when I was eight or nine we read a story about the Wright brothers going sledding as children, figuring out a bit about aerodynamics and loving the speed. The story ended with one of the boys thinking, "We flew...we flew...we flew." I was struck by the story but unhappy with the three-time "We flew" at the end; it seemed to me that the phrase should have been thought five times. I tried thinking it five times, but realised that a phrase has a special ring when said three time that it doesn't have when said five times. This made me rather muddled and a bit worried. I think that's what distinguishes the AS child's routines and rituals: actively trying to fit most things into a system, attaching a lot of importance to arbitrary systems, being inflexible about them.

Routine really helps me. I think it's a coping strategy--a healthy one--to deal with executive dysfunction. When I start a routine, the next step follows naturally out of the one I'm carrying out; so it's much harder to get stuck in the middle, not knowing what to do, or keep doing something way longer than I ought to, or lose track and go to some default (often purposeless) activity. I've been lately taking advantage of this, creating routines deliberately. I can do a lot more things now than I could two years ago, and more then than two years before that; and a large part of my progress has been creating routines that incorporate important activities.

Knocking routines off kilter can make me a hundred times less efficient. It's upsetting mostly because I feel like I'm wasting my day, not even doing things I enjoy, and I can't figure out how to get back on track.

Me too