Do you try to line things up with your head?

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If there's a light on the other side of a window, do you move your head to adjust the framing in interesting ways. If a set of objects would make a regular shape if you adjusted your position, do you adjust your position?

I'm not sure if I'm the only one who does this. I've just realised this might make me look quite strange.

Yes, I do this. Usually (but not always) in private.

Autistic people love patterns.

Same. I don't do it heaps but yes, I do it.

Can you elaborate a bit more? I think I might but I don't understand fully.

Yes, and if I'm walking by the corner of a big building, I look for a ledge or stringcourse which I can "sight down." Usually there's a slight ripple, which is faintly disappointing, but sometimes I am rewarded with a perfectly straight line.

I learned as a child not to be seen doing this, because it's weird.

I do this a lot. A lot.

A few years ago my daughter laughed at me and asked what I was doing. I told her I was lining up two pigeons on a roof and adjusting my focus to turn them into 3 pigeons.

Her laughter was empathetic - when she sees me doing it now she either ignores me or refers to it as "the pigeon game".

It's very restful.

I also play the "Peter Greenaway Game" in which the object of the exercise is to line up views and vistas etc so that they appear as symmetrical as possible. Particularly high points are awarded if you can include a historical building in your view. (One for aficionados of British art-house cinema, that).

Yes. I do this too. I've spent several years working as a "designer", so I apply the same skills there.

Mind you... I have to straighten the paintings in people's houses.

I also called out a television installer for installing a 50" TV on the wall in our office and not levelling it.

He insisted it was level. I told him it wasn't.

So we checked it. 1200mm long, there was a 10mm drop from one end to the other.

He told me I was a freak, because no-one else would have picked that.

"Yeah, I know."

If you guys hear a repetitive noise (beeping etc) do you tap your foot/hand with the noise?

Yep. I line up edges of furniture with lines on carpet and such. I also do what I think is called the "parallax view" -- looking at something with one eye closed and then the other in order to get a slightly different viewpoint.

War Wraith, your story about the crooked TV made me laugh. I can do that kind of stuff too. I once eyeballed a 10' length of PVC pipe I needed to cut in half, and only missed it by a 1/2" from being exact. Another time I was dividing a package of hamburger into three packages. I decided to see how close I got to them having an equal amount of meat. I got out the scale, and two had the same amount while the 3rd had one ounce more. My family thinks I'm a nut for getting all excited about things like this.

Wags...yep. I do that too.

Yes, maybe not a tap, but some kind of small movement, perhaps a finger.

Usually you can't catch it no the first beat though. Do you have a set number of beats that you have to catch it on, and then does it feel unsatisfying if it stops before the pattern is complete?

YES!

It comes in handy now because I've modified that habit to automatically look for the best shot composition for photography.

Another question: Does anyone ever close one eye when looking at something close up? I did this all the time when I was a kid.

All the time, constantly... drives me mad, I don't feel a need to do but I just can't stop..

Glad its not just me then

Stu

I am so pleased it isn't just me!

My wife did an impression of me the other day looking like Virgil from Thunderbirds because my head was bobbing around, apparently for no reason. I hadn't really thought about what it must look like externally.

I do the one eye thing. I used to think I had x-ray vision when I was a kid before I realised how it worked.

Do you do the thing where if your eyes are a bit wet from the shower you half close them so the liquid bunches up on the lower lid and diffracts the light, then when you rotate your head, sparkles move round the lightsource and you can group them?

No, I haven't, but I'm gonna. It sounds cool.