A touchy-feely Aspie

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That's me. I absolutely crave physical contact and touching. My ex-husband used to lie in bed with me and caress my entire body literally for hours at a time. I could never get too much of it.

Unfortunately, none of the men I've dated since my divorce has been like that. So I never get enough physical contact. I occasionally treat myself to getting a full-body massage and it's heavenly.

I realize that by the textbook, this is just the opposite of how I'm "supposed" to be. So I'm just wondering if there are others like me ...

Me, too.
But I'm not diagnosed, so I don't know whether it counts.

I'm like this as well, but I don't like physical contact from strangers. I had to train myself not to overtly respond negatively to handshakes or slaps on the back/other common social contact.

Oh, it counts.

I'm not officially "diagnosed", either. But there's no doubt about it.



I know what you mean. With me, handshakes are ok. But have you ever been in a really crowded elevator or commuter train, and felt the crush of bodies around you? I don't care for that at all ...

Can't get enough of cuddles! Perfectly fine with handshakes too, and other stuff like that. However, not so good when I'm surrounded by hoards of people. I guess I feel vulnerable and threatened when in a large crowd. Also quickly move away when someone perhaps gets a little too invasive for my liking.

Sure
Totally addicted to touch and to be touched
I'm diagnosed as autistic and in the online test i scores total ASness
I think the problem with the textbook is that it doesn't take into account the level of our selectivity

for instance
i rarely speak,sometimes months will pass without me uttering a single word
but i can speak and when i do i can speak a lot
just need someone that's in my same wavelength
{i feel that voice and touch are very close}
the same is true for touch
don't like to be touched and can spend years without human contact but when with the right GF we touch all nights
and in the mornings too

Yep, me too.

I love to be caressed and to caress. Unfortunately, never found someone similar...

As for not liking being touched, I feel quite awkward when someone gets too close. I have a female coworker that leans over me when I show her something on the computer screen (she does it with others too) touching her breasts to my back. It really bothers me. It's not bad, but I feel it is completely weird in this environment. Until now I managed to stay put and not draw back

So, maybe the "by the book" approach to interpreting these things tend to miss the touching with someone you are confortable with and only sees the ones in other social interactions.

I guess for some touching is a sensory issue and for some it's a personal space issue. For me it's mostly a matter of personal space; I have to be emotionally intimate with someone before am comfortable with them touching me. Once a guy I knew casually put his hand on my shoulder and even though I didn't jerk away he commented on how he could feel me shrinking away. It's automatic like a body memory, as a matter of fact before I came to WP I assumed it was because of a trauma I must have repressed.

Now I wonder.
I’m thinking survival value. Being touched by someone who is not in your inner circle, however that is defined in any situation, should always be uncomfortable, if not threatening. Reading this thread, I’m wondering whether it’s just a human thing, that when someone touches you, it should always matter who and how and why, and that modern culture makes unnatural demands that others accept when Aspies don’t. They make and change the rules by some unfathomable process (CalvinBall) and in some situations hugging is required, to the point where the only way out is with some self-denigrating excuse.

That’s familiar. I’m thinking of someone in particular. At first, the touching was just punctuation, intended in a friendly way. I didn’t like it, but I tried not to react. I know he sensed it, but he kept doing it anyway. It became a kind of passive-aggressive thing, with me trying to subtly keep furniture between us and him trying to catch me off guard. At first, it was because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Later, it was because I was afraid to antagonize him, so we both played the plausible-deniability game. How do you say, “I don’t like that,” without him hearing, “I don’t like you.”?

I am very touchy-feely.

Good point. There's a huge difference between being caressed by a spouse and being pressed by strangers in an elevator.

I think the same applies to eye contact. For me the degree of which I can maintain some kind of eye contact depends on the relationship. I definitely feel the physical sensation of stomach dropping and vertigo if I look someone in the eye that I don't know well and less so with someone familiar. For me psychologically it's like those dreams where you find yourself in front of a crowd naked. I can never maintain constant eye contact w/ anyone-it seems intrusive to me.

and for some the sensory and the personal space is the same issue
that's why i agree with Aimless that AS eye contact issue is also related to intimacy and the forcing or training of the autistic to handle it the NT way is like raping them
done professionally of course and approved be science so it's must be ok

nara44 wrote:

yes-
I think your body and your mind are the only things completely yours and that is why rape is short term slavery and slavery is long term rape.

The hardest eye-contact of all is when you're in an abusive relationship with someone who believes he has power over you and reads power games into every glance, every gesture. Or any teacher or cop. Or a parent who hates you.

Probably most studies about touching and eye-contact are based on the perceptions of such people. Garbage in, garbage out.

Vary true and very sad
The NT interpreting light hierarchically and by doing so they are blocking any chance of true communication and meaningful cooperation
it's toxic as instead of seeing and understanding other people they imagin they own everything they see
actually,in a way, this blindness is also the cause of wars and hunger and injustice as any stupid territorial claim and dispute is based on it
people don't see and understand
they rape the world around them with their stupid blind gaze