NTs don't like change either

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I have noticed how NTs like to sit with the same people at the same table all the time. I have seen this everywhere including church and school. They do get upset if you sit in their pew or table. They don't like to make new friends if they can help it. Have any of you noticed this?

I read articles on how to achieve marketing success, improve your life, and live your dreams.
Pretty much every single article talks about the importance of overcoming your fear
and making changes in your life.

As for NTs who like sitting in a certain spot in the pew each week ...
well, some of them might actually be undercover Aspies.
You're welcome to sit in the same pew with me,
that said, for logistical and sensory reasons, I am getting the end seat.

In the local restaurant, there is a communal table that tends to have the same group sit there every day. They can range from the quite wealthy to small farmers and ranchers. There are, however, some people who would raise eyebrows if they sat down.

One in particular does local odd jobs who has some peculiar ideas. He once told me that the way that they find breaks in buried fiber optic cables is by the sound of the light as it escapes from the cable and that they used an oscilloscope to measure the sound! No amount of arguing would dissuade them from that crazy idea. But what makes him unacceptable is that he fell for one of these internet work scams where they launder money by getting him to go to Western Union offices to pick up money orders, take out his share, and then send the rest to other criminals in Africa. He also tried accepting packages and shipping them on. He's having to go further and further to find a Western Union that will accept or send money orders for him. I don't know why he isn't in jail yet -- the sheriff's department is definitely aware of his activities.

There was also a communal table of coffee drinkers every afternoon at a local fast food restaurant that has closed down. I used to talk to them quite frequently.

I notice this all the time. But I'm not one of those Aspies who thinks that Aspie traits are polar to NTs. It is actually quite natural for most humans to like sameness. I know a lot of NTs who like to have the same routine in work mornings, like shower first then eat breakfast in bath robe then get dressed after breakfast, exactly the same every work morning for years.
I actually don't have a routine in work mornings , I get up and do things a different way round each morning.

We have certain processes at work. Veer slightly off the program and you get pulled up about it. Yet those same processes they don't do and never will.

Give them something one way one week, then the same thing slightly differently the next week and you have to explain it all again.

Write what you want them to do on a piece of paper (instead of asking) and it is as though you've given them a blank page.

Most people have a "plain clothes uniform" at work, they like to sit in the same place and work at the same job, station, with the same people etc.

Everyone has a "comfort zone".

Have talked with my husband about this often, and we agree that the difference is one of degree - abrupt change irritates him, but often derails me.

Going with the "strangers at the table" concept, a stranger sitting down at our table would bother him, but he'd be able to carry on a conversation and come to a decision whether to embrace the addition or invite the interloper to remove himself.

I won't be able to participate effectively in the conversation, and will be absorbed for some time after it's all over with processing how upset and flummoxed I felt.

This seems to me to be pretty typical of how I feel comparing myself with NTs...we differ in degree, but not in kind. Mostly.

NT's like to give autistic folks grief about not liking change when they aren't any better at dealing with change.

NTs like to sit with the same people because they see themselves as a part of that "group". Anyone who isn't in that "group" is an outsider, an intruder, and a freak. This typically begins in adolescence when NT teens think not being part of any group is worse than having the plague.

I have always preferred sitting alone and away from groups of people and if they don't like it, that's their problem. This is my "normal", not theirs.

When I was a grad student in the 70s, I used to regularly sit at the dining hall off to the side where few people ever sat and sometimes someone I knew who was a member of the Church of Christ would come sit with me. After a while, others started sitting there, too. It grew and grew and after a couple of years a great many of the students who were members of the Church of Christ were sitting there. Many days, especially at supper, there might be 100 people or more there.

I was usually the only one who wasn't a member of the Church of Christ who sat there. One day some freshman got irked at me about something and asked loudly why I would come sit in their section when I'm clearly not a member of the Church of Christ. Before I could think of an answer, the one who first started sitting with me there answered him with, "He's not sitting in our section -- we're sitting in his section." That made me feel good, but it sure confused the freshman.

I am exactly like that.



This is what happened to me at lunchtime at work. Out of all the people in our team I've been there the longest, so they would sit with me at lunch (me being there first they are joining me on their first day at work, though of course I didn't invite them literally). One or two close colleagues is fine, but then the group starts getting bigger and bigger, from two to three to six [budge up around the circular table] to needing a bigger [long] table to fit everyone on before running on to the group at the other end of the long table........

What started with having "1-2-1 (or 1-2-3)" conversations end up with me trying to eavesdrop four conversations and never getting a word in edgeways.