Are aspies bad at replying to communication?

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Are aspies in general not good at replying to e-mails, SMS, and returning phone calls? My aspie is horrible at replying and getting in touch with me (we are only friends at this point) and I wonder whether it is because he dislikes me or perhaps he does not see the need to reply.

If you send someone an e-mail with "Happy birthday" and the guy does not reply, will you not take that as a bit of an insult? Or do aspies feel that they should not reply with a "thank you".....

Yes we tend to be bad at it, we will leave things for days/weeks/months and pick up right where we left off at times.

Not always but enough. I find that often I don't have anything useful to communicate. Aspies tend to communicate based on function, not necessarily social or emotional need.

But if someone sends you a happy birthday message, wouldn't you at least send a thank you back?

Not necessarily - especially if one has learned that things like this are often just courtesies and replies are not really wanted. For instance, the question "how are you" often doesn't necessitate a reply; I've noticed, in fact, that professors in my department will sometimes say this as they are walking away from me - implying that not only do they not want a real reply, they don't want one at all and are only using the combination of words as a sort of greeting.
"Happy birthday" doesn't indicate any requirement for a reply. It's not a question or even anything open-ended. Although I would reply (because I feel an obligation to reply to pretty much any e-mail I am sent), I can completely see the logic in someone's not realizing that a neurotypical person would even expect a reply to such a message.

I don't know but I hate stuff like that. Same with Christmas cards, going to the airport to say goodbuy/welcome to friends/relatives, shaking hands, hugging, wishing others well, visiting friends/relatives at the hospital because they're sick, holiday celebrations, etc. I hardly call or e-mail friends unless they call or e-mail me. It's not that I dislike them, I'm just not interested in talking at that time. I only want to hang out when we both have something to do that we find enjoyable not just to hang out. I'm not sure if this makes sense?

Why do you care that he didn't say thank you? Are you asking something in return? You're obliging him to do something he may not want to or care about.

I am very bad at this also! For me it’s nothing personal, just don’t know what to say or how to respond. I also feel I have nothing to talk about due to the fact nothing has changed in my life. I do feel guilty about it from time to time but still can’t seem to do it. I told my best friend ( from childhood) I would call him a month ago and still have not done it. I haven’t seen him in years. Still can’t bring myself to do it…. Maybe today…

Yes I often don't see the need to return calls, sms, e-mails, etc. As I get older and wiser I'm starting to make a much bigger effort to do these things anyway to be polite and to keep relationships green.

From experience I know that courteous messages like that, (for some reason) behoove me to respond and show gratitude. Nevertheless, when I recieve a message like that I struggle with how to respond, what words to use, and why I have to respond in the first place. By the time I've got everything sorted out to the point where I -can- respond, the time to do so has already passed. So I will either respond very late, or just give up and not respond at all.

Hmmm, so it is an aspie thing then. I wonder why....

I'm pretty bad with replying to things like that, usually I just type out a response, then backspace it all and type out something else, then repeat this for a while (Time spent doing this varies from 3 minutes to 5 hours) and eventually I will have typed something I am happy with and respond with it, and if I don't type anything I'm happy with I just give up and don't respond at all.

It takes time to process that sort of unusual communication. We can't do it automagically like neurotypical people do. And often we just don't see the point in responding. It isn't functional.

On my birthdays, I don't think about who is telling me what, or trying to figure out why or what to say. The whole day I'm thinking "Today I hope to get confetti cake and Star Wars stuff."

If I responded to a "Happy Birthday" message with the above statement, would that be enough to satisfy you?

I have inadvertently offended people when I failed to reply to an email. It just didn't occur to me that a reply was wanted. Sometimes I overcompensate by replying hurriedly and obsessively to any little thing. I'm just not good at gauging when a reply is expected or how quickly it should come.

On the other hand, I like it when someone replies to me... so I should probably figure it out!

This is so true. In fact, I have given up trying to figure out what, when, where and why, and just send some stock answer (Thanks for the card!).

Situation: Birthday e-mail in in-box.
Available Actions: Respond / Do not respond
Decision Tree:

1. Work Account & sender is from abroad. Do Not Respond.
In most of the places my company works, these greetings are required and pro forma. No response is required or expected. In fact, we'd actually annoy senders by responding, since our (unexpected) reply would obligate them to send a more personal follow-up. It would be like providing a detailed answer to "how are you" in the U.S. or accepting an offer to share tea with a stranger in Central Asia.

2. Work account & sender is from U.S. & message is generic. Do Not Respond.
Why contribute to my colleagues' distraction/spam load?
Exceptions: I know the person is likely to feel slighted if she does not receive a response; I know/suspect that the person is attempting to create/expand a relation with me or my department (and I wish to reciprocate).

3. Personal account & I don't know you well & message is generic. Respond
I get mildly annoyed at the interruption, but ignore that and say: "Thank you." I do that because it's in Emily Post and because as a child I did not get to eat dinner if I did not do this. (True story.)

4. Personal account & I do know you well & the message is generic. Attempt Response
I get really annoyed. You've got to be kidding. A generic e-mail? Geez louise! You might as well just have texted me: "HPBD Luv Mom." I write a scathing response but delete it. In the confusion, I forget to send a thank-you note.

5. Personal Account & I do know you well & it's a personal message. Respond
I send a thank-you note with a personal response, if I can think of one. See (3).

6. Personal account & I do not know you & it's a personal message. Segmentation Fault
Urp... I play with the dog's ear for 30 minutes while I try to decide if you are flirting, or mocking, or confused. I search for hidden meanings. I write several responses and save them to the "drafts" folder. I complete three budgets and a quarterly report to distract myself. I wake up in front of the computer just in time to run out the door to work. In the evening, I archive your message without rereading it and hope vaguely that I'll remember to respond some day. If you do get a response, it's because I accidentally send one of the draft messages a few months later while cleaning up my mail archives.

Looks like you've got about a 1 in 3 chance.

-RF

No, i wouldnt think so. I'm bad at sipheoring what other people mean, Like miscommunication hell!

You have to see that we don't function the way you do. Sometimes we just don't feel like replying because we are interested in something else and then we will forget about it. i.e. we do not prioritize the social because we lack (some of us) the emotional understanding of the emotional consequences, we don't see it as highly important.

Then there are other aspies who are abused throughout their life and many who used to try socializing gave up on niceties (typical reciprocation) because they were burned doing it wrong too many times.