Turning emotions on and off

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Can you choose when to turn romantic emotions on and off? If it is not the right time to be involved with someone because, say, you are this person's supervisor or the person has just gotten a divorce, would you choose to turn your emotions off when interacting with that person and turn them on when you are no longer in a position of authority over said person or when the person is over their divorce?

If so, how do you do this and is this change (from turning emotions off to turning them on) abrupt or gradual?

I don't think so.
I think people will typically have the same romantic or sexual kinds of feelings in those situations, but make a real effort to reign them in and keep them secret because of the scenario.

Keep them secret from others or themselves?

I don't think it's possible to turn emotions on or off; only to make a conscious effort to display your emotions or not.
I think typically Aspies tend to not show their emotions unless they are very strong, and certainly in my case there is a disconnect between what I feel and what and how I can express it. So much so that if I feel something less intensely I may not even be aware that I am feeling it; like putting your hand in warm water with the hot tap increasing in intensity, so you don't realize how hot it is until you start getting burned.

It is totally appropriate to moderate the display of your affection for a co worker in the work environment, especially in front of other staff, and especially if one of you is the supervisor of the other.
Even more so if they are going through or recently have been through a divorce.

On the other hand if you have genuine feelings for this person, you should find an appropriate time to find some privacy and discuss this with them. This is not something you should wait to do; it is better to be open and honest about your feelings for someone than to let it become a barrier to communication and to make things weird between you.
It may be difficult and embarrassing, but not as much as missing an opportunity and finding out later they were interested, thought you weren't and started dating someone else instead - I've been there, and it's not nice.

By all means you can have a relationship with someone at work, even a supervisor or subordinate, but you must keep the communication and interaction between you professional in the workplace.

Alla, there are two ways to look at this. Women can turn a man's romantic emotions on and off fairly easily. For example, I'm not in a particularly romantic mood right now, but if an attractive woman were to disrobe in front of me, that could change in a hurry

Seriously, such emotions can't really be turned off, but they can easily be turned from love and affection to hate and rage.

I agree, you cant' turn emotions on or off, but like energy and matter they can be changed into different forms or altered by outside influence.
Lust can become love and vice versa.
An argument can turn love into hate, and a misunderstanding can turn frustration into anger, resentment, and rage.
Emotions are like the oceans; they form waves and tides, and some are stronger some are weaker, but they are always there and always changing.

I can sort of turn off my romantic feelings to some extent, if they aren't very strong or it is a new crush or something. What I do is

1. Tell myself that a relationship wouldn't work out, that it's a bad idea, etc.
2. Don't display the feelings in public or to the other person
3. If thoughts pop up about the person, I acknowledge them but try to redirect my thoughts to something else (distraction basically)
4. Try to think of bad or neutral things about the person to counter the unrealistic positive feelings/thoughts
5. Avoid the person if I can-- I try not to be mean about it, and sometimes it can't be helped, but I don't spend extra time in their presence
6. Try not to deny to myself I have the feelings or force them out of my brain, because doing this will backfire and make it stronger, and just make you attracted and angry instead of not attracted

It generally works, although it's much harder if it's somebody you have known for a while, are close to, or have had feelings for for a while.

No. Once you're turned off, you're turned off, no matter what you try to tell yourself.

Last edited by TheJaguarEmpress on 10 Jul 2013, 8:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I can to a limited extent, and/or for a limited duration.
1-6 like "the_grand_autismo".

Relationships at work rarely work, and when they go sour its hell to play. Nobody will recommend you get involved in a work relationship.

Also, it's not uncommon for young pretty girl secretaries to smooch up to the male boss for extra credit. Wage increase, favouritism, softer work load, better working condition. It's a dangerous game to get involved in.

Nope, there is no on/off switch.

You do it like this...
Emotion Regulation

in one recent situation, I could not turn off my emotions, it is just that I have these buttons that if pressed, make me emotional. I haven't yet figured out how to remove these buttons.

There are indeed buttons for me too, that hit the nervous system raw and unfettered.

But speaking generally, loves, likes, dislikes, anger. These usually happen slower, and are therefore more controlled.

Not at all true. i have had relationships wih coworkers and that is not a problem at all. Some I had relationships with before we worked at the same place, one I got involved with while we worked together, and there has never been an issue with anyone. As long as you both are mature adults and don't turn into a$$es the moment you break up, it's a non-issue.

I would not recomend getting involved with anyone who has power over you, or someone you have prower over in the workplace, because that will cause all kinds of problems.

The best thing is to either talk to your crush about it, or work on rediectng those emotions into a friendship.

Can you explain why these happen slowly for you? Does love, for example, have to pass through logic first? Do you just decide to be in love with someone?

I actually have been able to do this until recently... maybe for about the past year or so I haven't. Before about last summer, I would just think "I have no chance with her" and that was that, a simple statement of fact, and I put my feelings out of my head and went about my business. Then sometime last summer/fall, I actually gained a bit of self confidence, started realizing I'm actually pretty awesome, and started thinking maybe I did have a chance. It drove me batshit insane that I couldn't turn my feelings off anymore throughout most of the past year... I'd never really had them before and didn't know what to do with them. I didn't know how to act on them (and still to a large degree don't), so I started drinking a LOT to get rid of my inhibitions. The main result of this was pissing a lot of people off, as well as a wide variety of partially hilarious, partially sad and pathetic stories, most of which you can probably read about as they were happening on this site if you're so inclined hahaha. Pretty much went through what I feel like NTs go through around age 13-14, except 7-8 years late... in other words, the emotional half of puberty. Finally went on my first real, planned date of my life a couple weeks ago at age 22 after I decided to grow a pair and ask a girl out while having a BAC under .20 haha