Reasons an aspie would make plans then never follow through?

Post Reply New Topic

Recently, I've had a close guy friend/crush suggest we hang out on a particular day to go to the movies. I commit and say yes but when the day comes (usually a few days later) he never follows up with time, etc. is he wanting me to arrange it or did he change his mind?

I actually had to cancel plans on Friday for a meetup event. The reason why as being the host was partially due to being ill the whole week and the other reason being lack of response on the website for the event. I postponed for sometime in August since I likely won't be able to host the event until then.

As for setting up dates, I'm used to people cancelling on me. Not me cancelling on them. If you really want to know what the arrangements are or if he just changed his mind, maybe you should ask him.

There could be a number of reasons.

He could panic and be afraid to go.

He might have issues with planning and organization

He might not be aware it's his job to plan the outing.

Could be any of those, or (in keeping with number 3), he may be expecting you to contact him on the day, if you're serious about going. If he doesn't hear from you, he may assume something came up, or you weren't really interested to begin with. Meet him halfway. On the day you agreed on, call him up and say "Hey, are we still gonna __________ today?" You might try adding "I didn't hear from you, so I wasn't sure you still wanted to" but if he's an Aspie, he may not pick up on the hint the first hundred times.

Remember to add in ALL the reasons an NT would make plans then not follow through.

It could be for normal reasons or it could be for weird reasons. It could be he hates you.

You could ASK HIM of course =)

I thought not following through with plans was more of an ADHD/ADD thing. :p

I had a similar thing happen from an NT person just a few weeks ago.
We had decided to go to the movies, but the person never got back to me about the practicalities of it.
Then the person shows up on my doorstep a couple of hours before the movie starts and wants to know if we should get dinner first.
I say, I thought it was off, since you didn't say anything.
This has been a trend, over the last five years every plan we have made has been broken and only communicated when I contact the person the same day to ask about times/places to meet, so I just made the (to me) obvious conclusion that the person wasn't actually going to go through with our plans, and didn't really feel like asking anymore.

My advice is to double-check on the day or the day before that your plans are still on, and resolve any practicalities, like where to meet, if anyone is picking the other person up, at what time, and (for me this is a big deal) what the dress-code is. And maybe who is paying for what. (In my country everyone pays for themselves, or one person pays for the movie and the other the food or somehting like that, but in the US I understand that the man is supposed to pay if it's a date. I don't quite get the social rules there. )

Being specific with every detail and reiterating it the same day/the day before is most often the best way for me to understand what is expected of me and adjust accordingly.