While not responding

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People with AS are said not to always respond or show any interest when they're spoken to or otherwise someone is trying to make a contact with them.
What's usually going on inside your head at times like that?


Due to lack of time and not wishing to influence the answers of the others, I'll post mine later as a reply.

god damn it im playing counter strike

1. I'm concentrating in something else and it's very hard for me to switch instantly.

2. I'm thinking how to respond, mainly what does this person want from me.

3. It's my defense mechanism when I know the person is trying to engage me with mean intentions.

Yep.

Not interested at all, but i need to pretend to some how.

GOOD ANSWERS, and along what I was going to say

Sometimes people will be asking me a question and I won't even notice because I'm usually thinking about some obscure topic. At a recent family gathering, an aunt was trying to ask me a question and it wasn't until my dad brought it to my attention that I noticed.

My friend has noticed this in me all the time, and he calls me an "as*hole" because I'm "not paying attention."

I've been blamed and accused and yelled at for this trait since I've known myself.

I've also been on the verge of being fired for not responding when called.

no comment!

This will usually happen with my parents. I'll be reading the paper or something. Its like i'm caught between 2 worlds, I can hear them, but can't respond, they keep repeating themselves, then suddenly I explode and shout "what. I then get told off.

That's what happens to me. I can hear them, but I can't respond. It's like they're in another dimension calling me there, or very far away across a huge field and I can hardly hear them.

I am thinking "say something, SAY SOMETHING!! REACT now! don't get that horrible reaction from them AGAIN that you are ungrateful, ungiving, snobby, snooty and altogether ARROGANT by not reacting. oh, please react, Merle, please, please pretty please with sugar and cream and strawberries on it? in just a second or two you will lose the chance and we KNOW that we can never get that chance back again just SAY SOMTHING you IDIOT!!

Me: "yes?!"

Merle

That's how I torture myself after I've screwed it up.

I always need to think what to say, then think through how people might respond to that and possible inferences in most situations like that.

You always hear parents say to their kids "Think before you speak" and somehow it ends up as us aspies being the only ones who do, and people think we're weird because we're not so hypocritical.

Loved that cartoon!