Are AS people more likely to mistake obsession for love?

Post Reply New Topic

I have been wondering this. AS people are prone to obsessive behavior, that is a given. We have extra difficulty in relationships. Are we prone to mistaking obsession for love? Thoughts?

It's hard to answer that question when "love" itself, in the context of sexual relationships, hasn't been appropriately defined. At least, whenever I ask anyone they tend to dodge the question.

Yes, we are more prone to mistake obsession for love.

I think most definetly. Obsession is a desire for the object in question without necessarily caring about him/her as a person, only an object. Obsession and love are not the same.

I don't think so. I think there are people who throw around the word "love" lightly and people who reserve the word for more serious and enduring bonds, but I don't see any clear aspie/NT divide on this issue.

When younger YES I was for sure "prone to obsessive behavior" and feel this was partly due to me not understanding myself, lacking confidence and wanting something that I did not know how to have, emotionally I just did not get it, working on th at one still - but has got a lot easier with maturity..

I am currently obsessed with a certain somebody.

The only real obsessions I've had since I was 12 were various women.

if people are encouraged to make their obsession their life profession.... i say that it'd be a good thing for love! i say real love takes a lot of persistant interest to work. you still need the right person though... damn!

I don't know if it's necessarily mistaking obsession for love, but maybe that obsession is a part of the way we love? That, as with anything else we are interested in, we get consumed with thinking about that person?

I definitely find myself obsessing about people I like, but I do my best not to let it become a burden to them. Sometimes it's a simple matter of reining it in a little, just not calling/emailing every single time I feel the urge.

There's also the fact that we're so literal, and I know that when I was younger, I often misinterpreted casual flirting or friendliness for something more serious, and ended up constantly analyzing everything the person said/did, until I finally figured out I was imagining more going than what actually was there. Ah, life lessons. They suck.

good stuff in this thread so far.

i think im with gwen. although i am prone to mix up the giddiness of meeting someone new whom i find interesting, having a crush on said person and being obsessed with said person in the early stages of getting to know someone, its usually something that straightens out eventually. its quite usual for me to have an above normal level of interest in new things and new people in my life, so thats some kind of obsession, albeit a very temporal one. but mistaking it for real, true love... no way.

its interesting, dividing things up that way... a girl at uni who has given me some attention intrigues me - she seems to be nice but i barely know her, so im interested in getting to know her better - a girl i met online is a most interesting and pretty person whom i think to have a bit of a crush on. what is really messing the whole situation up is that a good (female) friend of mine re-entered my life lately. at least for me, it was always a relation on the verge of love... the kind of thing you can absolutely see becoming intensely romantic once it gets a tiny step closer. now while the first one is something entirely different, having the katter two girls in my mind the way i described is pretty... weird.

i can mistake very intense friendship for love, though... happened once to me and almost ruined a most important (to me) friendship.