Delayed emotional responses

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I've been involved with at least two aspies in the past and have noticed that it took them a while to realise that I did in fact love them.
One of them confessed that he had no idea and realised it about three months later even though I was stroking his arm, telling him how handsome he is, etc.

I had a major fight with an aspie a couple of months ago and we were not speaking for a month. We spoke again about a month ago and I bought a gift for his birthday two weeks ago. After I gave him the gift, I saw him at the supermarker and said hi to him; he responded with an unfriendly hi but nothing else. Three days later he thanked me for the gift. This past week he has been smiling at me and talking to me more, but still takes longer than usual to answer my e-mails.

Should I keep being friendly and encouraging with him and is it likely that he will reciprocate, but sometime later?

I get emotional delayed responses sometimes. Sometimes it takes a long time for me to register things. I think this might be common with Aspies actually. I would say just be very patient and build the relationship slowly.

This is most defiantly me.

My theory is that I have been suppressing my Aspie self for so long that I just instinctively suppress everything including emotions at this point in my life.

Is there anyway of undoing this instinct with losing whatever functionality it gave me?

One of my aspie friends said that he reacts to the last crisis for a while. Example: If we had a fight a month ago and now we are on speaking terms again, he will still react to the fight for some time.
Does this make sense? Does you delayed response take days, weeks, or months?

I see multiple things here

what you are talking about specifically here is not delayed response, but holding on to something long past what an NT person might. I have been accused of this quite a bit. I have many reasons.

Yes, I also am slow to react, many times due to being so unsure of what I am reading in another person (as in what exactly does the other person mean or feel about this) - I have also had a lot of encounters in the past which hurt me and this sets up conflicts which only slow the processing of a situation.

It could also be "processing lag."

Something happens. Time is needed to understand what it means and how to best respond to it.

Freudian slip? :-p



I dunno but I too feel like I've supressed my emotions to the point of being uncontrolled and automatic and that supressing my emotions was highly functional. I'm slowly reading about emotional numbing (a form of dissociation) to try and get them back. There's not much literature on dissociation, unfortunately, but you could try looking that up first.
It's often claimed to be caused by abuse or other traumas, but I would say that not being able to function in society properly day after day would be a good enough to make you try and be a separate person from who you actually are.

Whether or not you'd lose your functionality if you were to allow yourself to be more yourself, I couldn't tell you.