Do you feel 'big life events'?

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I didn't know how else to word this in the subject line. If I grad from university , for example, I don't know if I'll even care. Not in the way all the pomp that seems to go with it seems to matter to others. I was thinking back to other events in my life as well. I don't know. Fuss and bother is such an ordeal.

I feel a want to not go to them and find them a waste of time and money.

<--- Finds weddings, funerals, baby showers, bachelor parties and events of that ilk completely time wasting.

Nope. The only thing I was looking forward to at my 1st wedding was wearing a pretty dress. My "landmark" birthdays came and went without a cringe. My high school didn't have caps and gowns at graduation, so that was not a big deal. They didn't have a prom either. When I got my college degree, I'd just had a baby, so I didn't feel up to fooling with a ceremony. I got my diploma in the mail. My second marriage, we went to the court house on my lunch break, then I went back to work. My mom was sick for so long that even holding her hand when she died was anti-climactic.

I often don't feel them, but when I do, it usually takes months to a year before I realize it was an important event in my life. I feel that way about epic book series' and long movies too...I have absolutely no opinion on them until months and months later. I remember my Great Grandma dying when I was 9 and though I was very close to her and saw her every other weekend at a minimum, I felt absolutely nothing. Now I reflect on that and I'm sad but at the time, I was like a void of emotion.

I did not even bother to walk the stage when I graduated. I also think it is silly to celebrate silly things like one month anniversaries. Most birthdays are little more than an excuse to have my favorite food.

I didn't turn up for my graduation. No loss.

I won't get married for lots of reasons, but a big one is that I detest the thought of a wedding and being the centre of attention.

When I switched highschools at age 14, I only told two people and my teacher. No leaving do required. Yay!

I don't even know if there is some kind of ceremony dealy when I finish my Associates Degree. I'll probably be thinking "This is cool and all but this better get me hired.".

Thanks all. I started wondering if I "should" be having more of an "experience", for lack of a better word. There is so much emphasis on "big life events" - or is that a Hallmark conspiracy? I wonder how much of it is commercially driven. I saw wartime pictures where the bride wore a dress she could wear for any occasion. I wonder if NT's feel plugged into these events, or if they only think they should be?

I wouldn't have gone to my graduation if I had had that option. As it was, I really didn't think about it at all, even when it was actually happening. It just came and went without me giving it much thought at any point and I remember being very surprised that it seemed to be something so significant to my mother, as it hadn't occurred to me that it would be significant to anyone else either.

Birthdays don't mean anything to me, I don't think about those either and I don't remember anything in particular I ever did on a birthday. I don't like being asked to attend weddings and funerals and so on because there are always a lot of people there and it's a very difficult environment for me. If it was in a more autism-friendly environment I wouldn't mind going, but I still don't have any strong feelings about the events themselves.

Like others here, I don't really understand the importance others place on events like these or the excitement they feel about them. It doesn't make much sense to me.

No, I don't feel the need to celebrate them. I didn't go to graduation or have any 16/18/21 birthday parties. I know some people find this strange, but I just don't care for it. This often makes me terrible with other people's birthdays. My gf's birthday is coming up in less than a week and I don't feel any sense of urgency to do anything... I know I have to (and I will haha) but I don't feel the pressure or the excitement.

I also don't do big goodbyes (leaving a job, school etc.). I tell one or two people and then just leave. I don't get what all the fuss and bother is about to be honest.

Yes, I've wondered that a lot too. I can't help but feel that some people are so keen to conform to the local norm that they don't even realise how superficial they feel about it inside. I might be worng, but I just find it near impossible to conceive of someone genuinely buying into this stuff.

Here's another question: How many of you spend time and money on things like Christmas/Diwali/Eid cards etc. [whatever the big local holidays are in your area] to all your friends/colleagues/family each year?

I tried again and again to do this when I was at school. I was often successful, but sometimes never got around to handing them out so I gave them away the following year instead. As an adult, I should be upping the ante to send cards to family by post as a means of staying in touch, but instead I've decided that I finally don't have to do all that stuff anymore. Posting a letter is a near impossible feat for me and it just seems like a pointless exercise to attempt to post hundreds of shallow and meaningless cards each year unless I also go to the trouble of writing a personal letter in each one (which I won't). Do you regard this as evil and anti-social, or honest and pragmatic?

9/11 made an impact and I think that was a big life event. Watching live on TV and phoning my dad to tell him about it.

Wow, I'm not alone! For my high school grad (kind of a farce as I was short credits, but they put you through the motions), I went to the earlier ceremony because my parents and grandmother were excited. My brother never completed grade 8, so I guess I was their only shot at something like this. It was horrible and I tripped when I did my 'walk'. I wore a bridesmaid dress which kind of fit in at the time, but it was something 'good enough'. I went to work that night rather than party. I learned by this grad event just how I did not have a social group but for a handful of other people who were also left out of every other group. Granted they were probably the only people worth knowing, but we were not a 'unit'. It not only didn't bother me to go to work, it felt way better. I worked with a small staff who got mad at my boss for 'making' me work on grad night. I told them he would have given me time off, I did not want it.

Eh, not really. The only reason I walked the stage when I graduated from college was because my mom really wanted me to do so. I don't really celebrate my birthday, either.

Part of my problem, I find, is that I am often too distracted by my surroundings to pay close attention to some big life events. I was at the local cathedral for something a couple years ago, and I was too busy taking in the building that I didn't really pay much attention to the event I was there for. The other issue, of course, is the fact that I'm not really into socializing, so I'm usually off in a corner somewhere either by myself or with a small group of not-so-social family members

I don't. I don't see the point of sending out cards the person would look at briefly then set aside.