question about time passing and bonding

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I have a strange sense of the passing of time. It's like I can go for decades or whatever length of time and not really understand that time has passed. It's hard to explain.

I guess an example is if I were to call one of the kids that I used to play with when I was really little, I would expect her to be able to pick up with me right where we left off over 40 years ago when we were little tiny kids. I have not seen her since I was like 5 or something but to me if she called me up right now, the friendship I felt for her would still be the same as if no time had passed. I have gotten in touch with a couple of people I was friends with in high school, I only had a couple of friends in high school and it is always shocking to me that they have really moved on and are doing other things with careers and life, not that that part is surprising, but the surprising thing is that they don't value the friendship we had as important anymore. I think when I bond with someone I bond for life and I have heard that that is an Aspie trait. It always confuses me and hurts me when I find out that others do not. Does anyone else understand what I mean?

Wow, I understand exactly what you mean. 100%. Beautifully stated.

As a child, and right up to my 20s I never had more than 2 close friends at a time, mostly only one friend, and sometimes none. With two exceptions I have lost touch with all of my childhood friends. If I would meet any of the others, I would reconnect as if no time had passed.

I am married to one of the two friends I am still in touch with Regarding the other old friend that I still consider to be in touch with, there have been periods of a couple of years where we did not communicate, because of all the other things in our lives, not because the relationship changed. Now, if we talk on the phone, it's like setting the clock back by 30+ years.

Later in life I have made further friends, also one at a time. With modern technology it has become so much easier to stay in touch. Email and asynchronous communication captures most of the relationships, and I have very little need to see people face to face. Now my/our small business partnership represents a collection of my closest friends.

In a way, you're lucky you have friends from school! I never had any friends before college. And from college, gee, maybe I have two or three.

I've found that reconnecting with older friends is a mixed bag in terms of results. One will sort of put me off as if to say, "Oh, nice to know you, but I'm not interested," while another will want to reignite a friendship. It's a crapshoot.

That reminds me, I need to try to email a friend from college whom I found out also has Aspergers. We had one email exchange which was nice but then he dropped the ball. (I blame his Aspergers!)

I don't think I will get the chance to reunite with old acquaintances this lifetime, it has not happened so far. everybody goes their own way, scattered to the 4 winds.

I completely relate. It makes me very cautious when I do happen to reunite with someone, because I don't know how much that time/distance has eroded their feelings about me.

Wow, thank you for your responses. I am really glad that others understand this and can relate.

I would have to say that my mind registers the passing of time as something very brief. If I recall living in Boston which was in 1989 - If I did not mathematically work it out - I would guess I had lived there perhaps three or four years ago. If someone were to correct me and say, "No - it was actually eight or nine years ago." - I would be certain that they must be mistaken - It could not possibly be that long ago. But When I look at the calendar and see that it is now 2014 and I do the math 2014-1989=25. I am kind of dumbfounded.

Even when I met up on Facebook with a childhood playmate I had not seen since I was eleven years old - my mind registers the events of playing with him which would have been in 1965 as something still fairly recent - when in fact it was forty-nine years ago. In this particular case he was overjoyed to hear from me. I can think of other cases that the lapses were far shorter and they did not seem particularly interested beyond exchanging brief niceties.

I have no way of knowing if this is how other people think or if this is something common with people with some form of Autism or if it is just me. I guess from some of these posting here today - it is not just me.

Apart from the few friends I've had, I've largely forgotten the names of the people who I went to school with.

On one occasion a stranger approached me at an airport, introducing himself as an old classmate from 25 years ago. I neither recognised the name, nor the face, but he remembered my name and said that he immediately "recognised" me. It took me a few minutes to be convinced that this was not some sort of scam. Either this shows how "good" I am at ignoring people who don't share my interests, or it shows how recognisably weird I seem to be.

My reaction would have been very different if I had bumped into one of my old friends.

Yes, I very much know what you mean.

Bonded for life and even though the other person has moved on or never knew you attached to them too. This is something that causes me a lot of grief. I didn't know it was an Aspie trait though. And I also experience the whole time distortion thing in daily activities and in life experiences. Something that happened that really struck me that happened about 9 years ago feels like it just happened and I forget that the other person has moved on from it and probably doesn't even remember or care. They move on and I don't. Leaves me with a feeling of always being left behind.

Interesting thread.

It's really comforting to me that you guys can relate like this. Thank you. I was feeling the pain of this last night when I started this thread. If really feels good that others know how I feel.

This describes me very well, too.

I can definitely relate to this too. I seem to struggle a lot with grasping the passage of time. I often feel like I've had long periods 'asleep' and 'wake up' to find it's a different season. Or can't work out where a whole decade has gone even.

As regards other people, I struggle to imagine them as grown/changed from when I last saw them. For example, earlier this year I went to a family funeral and my younger cousin drove me. She's in her late 20's now but it seemed very, very strange to me that she's driving and has 2 children as to me she's still in her teens as she was when I last saw her.

Last edited by greengirl27 on 06 Oct 2014, 4:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Me too. And seeing some of them on Facebook gives me a really weird feeling, like yeah I remember the person's name and face, now that I see it anyway, but otherwise I can't remember anything about them.

There have only been a few people in my life, I can really pick back up with as if no time has passed. But that's only in terms of being able to talk to them, not necessarily resuming an everyday friendship and hanging out in person.

Outside of that, I find it really awkward and difficult to reconnect with people, even if it hasn't been that long since we talked. It doesn't mean that I don't care about them, but I just don't know how to talk to them. I need to be in regular contact with someone to feel comfortable talking to them.

Sorry! I had to do this.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f06QZCVUHg[/youtube]

I am a very nostalgic person. I often wonder what others I used to know are up to right now... I will be an old man one day and still wonder about their lives, but I don't think I'll ever pick up the phone and dial their numbers. By now, most have probably already left their parents' houses anyway. A strange thought.

Yeah, when I meet an old friend I pick up where I left off, to me I remember it like yesterday when we hung out. During my 20?s this worked quite well, I still have one college friend like this, though I now wonder if she is simply a nice person that tolerates me in small doses. Everyone else moves on and if I have not been a part of their lives it?s only me that feels the bond.