Odd Quirks And Your Exlanations

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So I'm sure all of us are just full of odd tendencies. The wonderful quirks and eccentricities that the usual person can't begin to understand. So I've decided to start a thread on it, think of it as a self-discovery type of thread if you want. The idea is to list any quirk you have, and give the explanation you give other people for it if asked about it. If you don't have an explanation, leave it to other members to make up theories that might explain it. Almost like a game, I guess. I'll try and start, I'm not sure what kind of format to use, so change it if you've got a better way.

Conversation Amnesia: If I'm talking to someon online, and in the middle of conversation they disappear, I'll have forgotten most of the conversation by the time they come back and have to re-read it. The same thing can happen in real life, or on the phone.
Explanation: My short term sucks, and obviously you didn't think the conversation was worth remembering since you left it, so I decided to forget it while you were away. Something like that.

Question Questions/Answers: I question a lot of questions, and sometimes an entire conversation can consist of me (sometimes jokingly) questioning everything being said.
Explanation: If something doesn't make sense, it confuses me. Then again, now that needs an explanation. Why would something not making sense confuse me?

Sentence Fragment Ignorance: I'll sometimes space out and completely miss a piece of someon's sentence during conversation.
Explanation: I can't tell them, but I'm not interested, and it's pretty obvious I was spacing out and lost in my own thoughts.

There's other I'll think of later.

My stim: I run around to music in my backyard. My family is used to it, but it must look pretty strange (if not comical) to people who don't know me very well.
Explanation: Although I look like a quiet person, I actually have a lot of pent-up energy, and my preferred way to get rid of it is to run. It's also a great way for me to get in touch with my imagination; I love daydreaming when I run. I like listening to music while I run, because it's no fun when it's quiet.

Imaginary Friends: Even though I'm 17 years old, my closest friends are imaginary. I enjoy talking to them in my mind, and making up adventures for us.
Explanation: Having imaginary friends is important to me because it gives me the feeling of having social interaction, yet they can never hurt me. I can love them as much as I want, and they'll never reject me, leave me or get tired of me. My former therapist even told me that she thought it was an ingenious way of combating loneliness.

Clover obsession: I can't pass a patch without looking down. Usually I'll spot a four-leaf if it's there. This almost invariably leads to me searching the entire patch.
Explanation:
"What are you doing?"
"Looking for four-leaf clovers."
"Finding any?"
"35."

Number/Letter/Month/Day analysis: I assign colors, genders, and sometimes personalities to almost all of these things.
Explanation:
Me: "What color is the number 3?"
Friend: "Whatever color you want it to be." Or, one time, "Blue!" (It's really orange)
Me: "What about the number 2?"
Friend: "Depends on your diet."
Me: "What color and gender is the letter Z?" (It's dark grey and very masculine).
Friend: "Shut up!"

Unpredictable academic achievement: Sometimes I'll do a brilliant job, and sometimes I won't do the job at all.
Explanation: None yet, tell me if you have a good one. This is going to happen again tomorrow.

Coffee drinking at 2 AM when I don't necessarily plan to do homework: This one is pretty obvious.
Explanation: The truth. "I'm nocturnal" or "I'm a late-night coffee drinker" usually suffices. Sometimes I say "I'm pulling an all-nighter" and don't really feel the need to mention that there's no good reason for me to pull an all-nighter.

Pencil spinning: I got a new pencil grip and it makes my pencil spin really fast so I sit during classes and just spin it and spin it and spin it and spin it...I've been doing this for at least 7 years.

Explanation: I dont really know. Maybe because I love circles and I have a liking for wheels.

I verbalize just about everything I do, I've tried stopping because I'm not blind I can see those ppl staring at me.

explanation, I look at them and laugh and walk away, once in awhile I tell them it helps me to work it out, or remember what I'm doing.

I've tried stopping, when I'm not to stressed then I can keep it in my head

tapping leg
moving hands while i talk
moving fingers around

_________________
Name: Yoshiyahu
Drive to Madness: Love..........and power!! !! !! !! !! !! !
Omni: Potent
Omni: Temp
Face of Madness: Myself

Physical awkwardness due to AS: "I have really bad balance, is all."

Flapping my hands or making odd gestures when I talk: "I'm Sicilian--I'm supposed to talk with my hands."

Talking to myself when I'm trying to figure something out: "My Interior Monologue is escaping!"

Everything else: "Forgive me, I'm socially awkward."




Oh, and Grey Kameleon...when people start harassing me about my Synesthesia [asking me to name the colors and personalities of everyone in the room, every month of the year, every number, et cetera], I just say something like:

"You're a light blue. No wonder you're so annoying." [Regardless of what color the person's personality actually is. I find this shuts up the curious little bugger very quickly.]

I'm new to this forum, and I have not been diagnosed with anything, mainly because I haven't tried getting tested. My significant other, who is a psychotherapist to boot, has mentioned the possibilty of Asperger's-like manifestations. In grade school thru high school I never really had friends, and I would always prefer to go explore the grassy areas of school alone looking for bugs or be in the library. I just couldn't cope with other kids and interacting with them. I was terrified of sports, especially balls coming at me, so needless to say, I avoided the playground at all costs.

Here are a few actions that I have always been confounded by, all go back to childhood and have always set me apart from others in many ways.

Action: I move my hands all the time when I talk, and many times I try to describe the shape of the thing I'm talking about with my hands, even though I am saying the word at the same time. My fingers also seem to want to describe words, and I have friends who have kidded me about it.

Explanation: I've always figured it was because I'm Italian, but who knows. That's what I tell people anyways; it just might be true.

Action: I am always moving my legs and feet in some rythmic way when I'm sitting, although my dad does too, so that could be hereditary.

Action: I flap my arms when I get impatient at waiting for something or someone. This only happens when I'm with someone I trust.

Explanation: I've never really had an explanation for this, although I know it dates back to childhood.

Action: I find myself unable to figure out what to do when someone unexpectedly gives me one of those walking "hey buddy" hugs. I think I've insulted people at times by not reciprocating. I don't have a problem hugging people when I know it will happen.

Explanation: I have no explanation for this either. The sudden interaction surprises me.

Action: I have these frequent tics and sudden movements that I never noticed until I saw video of myself, which may explain why I don't like to be on video. If you see me talking or even just sitting, I will do these quick sudden movements, maybe a hand movement, a blink, a head or shoulder shrug. I was really alarmed when I saw myself doing it, as I hadn't noticed it before.

Explanation: I can't explain this.

Action: I stick out my tongue when I'm concentrating on something or thinking. It's more like licking my lips, but for an extended time.

Explanation: I think this is probably pretty common.

Quirk: I see myself as a tormented soul because of my AS.
Explanation: It makes me feel better to look at myself of someone who's fragile and vulnerable. Don't ask me why (crap...now THIS needs an explanation!)

Quirk: If I'm having a "tormented soul" moment, I simultaneously turn it into a subplot for the main character in a story I'm writing, because she's based on me. I often add dramatic visual effects and music (it's meant to be an anime) to portray her emotions and thoughts, even as I'm having my own internal struggle. It's like falling off a cliff while wondering what words you'll use to describe it in your diary. It's messed up.
Explanation: In a last-ditch effort to express myself and my inner struggle as an aspie, I'm making this quasi-autobiographical story; and in order to make it interesting, I blow all my obsessive thoughts out of proportion when I add them to the storyline.

Just as a frame of reference, here's an example of a "tormented soul" moment:

[I am watching "Arjuna," an anime, with my cousin]

[In the show, there's a girl, Sayuri who's a mutual friend of a teenage couple, Juna and Tokio]

Cousin [talking about Sayuri]: Oh my God! What a backstabber! She keeps flirting with him [Tokio], look! What the hell!
Me [in my head]: What...? [out loud] Really?
[Later]
Cousin [about Sayuri]: Hey! Did you see her push Juna aside to give him the medicine? She should have let Juna do that!
Me [in my head]: What...? I just thought she was trying to help...
Cousin: *gasp* Look at her! With that cloth on his head! And she fell asleep, like she's his girlfriend or something! Oh my God, what a frigging backstabber!
Me [in my head]: Really...? But... I never thought about it that way... I always saw her as a friend of Juna's... It doesn't look to me like she's trying to take Tokio away from Juna... Is this how most people would see this? Would most people think Sayuri's acting strangely? Is it just my cousin? Or is it me? ...I've always had trouble understanding people... It's got to be me... I just don't think the way other people do... There's something wrong with me... I'm not right in the head... [out loud] Let's watch something else...

Question: Does anyone else think like this?

I don't need to explain myself to anyone.

If they have a problem with anything I do or say, then they can tell someone who cares because I don't.

I always bounce my leg.
Always.
It's been this way for a long time, but once I started my depression medication, it got worse.
I have really strong leg muscles because of this though...
Also, I do this random jumping/shaking motion at random times.
Sometimes, I don't notice that I'm doing it, and people look at me funny.
I just tell them I'm alright most of the time.
Most of my friends know that I have AS and OCD, so they understand.
I'm obsessed with things being divisible by four.
Extremely obsessed.
I used to have to look at a person's face in a certain way: Right eye, left eye, nose, mouth. or Left eye, right eye, nose, mouth.
Most of the time, I do both of those.
I find myself doing this all the time, and it can sometimes be rather debilitating.
I went through a phase where it was so bad that I couldn't watch movies anymore, because I'd be too busy checking people's faces out.

I move my hands around ALOT while talking.

I think it helps me to articulate my thoughts more accurately. If I'm moving my hands around I don't speak as disjointedly or awkwardly as I would be otherwise. There aren't as many lulls in the conversation or discrepencies in my comprehension of the idea I am attempting to convey. They sort of keep things going.

Of course, I don't give people that explanation when they comment on or ask about it.

I know that they don't really want a longwinded aspie explanation of my discrepentices in comprehension or my inability to vocally articulate my cognitive understanding with a suitable degree of accuarcy. Why would they care about my discrepencies in comprehension? We've just met and my explantion is far more indepth than they care about.

If I told them that (while moving my hands in a strange flowy motion) their eyes would glaze over and they wouldn't want to talk to me again. Plus, my day-to-day vocabulary would be considered more than a bit odd if I talked like I thought.
They wouldn't care about my 'discrepencies in comprehenion,' they'd just find someone else to talk with who isn't such a weirdo.
That's another quirk of mine: a large and regularly utilized vocabulary.

The way I typically deal with the questions about my hand motions is by laughing and using motions that are purposefully over-dramatic. Then the other person usually laughs and the conversation moves on.

I guess I'm making fun of myself in a way, but not in a mean fashion. Its more like having a sense of humor about my own excentricies. I try not to take things too seriously and I think that helps me feel less stressed about my oddities and others to feel at ease about their own insecurities as well.
A sense of humor helps with alot of things.

Mine would be talking almost purely in analogies and metaphors. People in school would get so irritated and say they didn't want to talk to me because I talk in riddles. I don't know why I do it. I've done it as long as I can remember.