Is a memory like this normal for an aspie?

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Today I was talking with a girl about some memories from 3 years ago while I was living for two years in Romania. I thought having a detailed memory is normal, I thought its quite normal to remember almost everything. But she was shocked. Here is just a small bit of the things i remember.

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Ok, just for fun, I will be a bit more detailed about the trip to mount Sinaii

I picked up you and Sandra in a place where they serve coffee. Can't remember the name, but I do remember it has a green logo, when you enter on the right there are breads and stuff, on the left at the very entry of the door they serve coffee for which you first have to pay at the place where they serve bread. You had your hair untied, not in a knot, it was the only time I ever saw you with your hair not tied up You were sitting on the left, Sandra next to you on the right. The benches had red leather couches, the benches itself were made of light wooden oak.
After waiting a bit we stepped on the train, railnumber 8, it was quite at the end of the train. You wore a brown jacket and sat at the right side of the bench at the opposite of me, Sandra sat on the left side.

A small part of the conversation.
Sandra: When I was in Amsterdam once I smoked a joint with a friend. I walked in a tunnel and I felt everything changing. I than walked a lot and took a cold shower, next day I was fine.
Me: First I talked about her energy being high while that happened, that she was trapped in her head for a while and that that made that cause the feeling. Later on I started to talk about chakras and you were laughing and made suggestions you could believe in anything except that. I loved the way you were laughing.
You also made a really bad 'dana' (but funny) joke, throwing in the suggestion of a 'quicky' ) tsssssss... )

Do you remember that after we came back from snowboarding we went to the irish pub and were playing darts? You were saying 'he knows his math' after I quite rapidly summed the scores. The people got more and more scared when I was throwing darts, since I almost killed ppl with it
I drunk 5 glasses of Heineken, you 4. Later on while being on the corner of the two streets crossing you called me a hotty and resvana's look became more and more 'hostile' the last 30 minutes
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Lol I have a very detailed memory just like that, too. I can remember absolutely everything about things that took place years ago, even when the other people don't remember any of it at all.

But when it comes to short term memories, I can barely remember a thing lol.

Ow, I would trade my long-term memory for a short-term anytime! Err, where am I by the way?

The girl constantly said when I was chatting with her today 'Did I say that?', 'Did that happen?' etc. Funny when you know that 3 years ago you gave the girl a pink paracetamol/ubiproven which contained 10 pills in total while getting them out of the fore-tray of my green backpack. She was like 'Jesus Christ'

I have a very detailed memory. I remember everything that's happened in my life.

Sounds fairly similar to my detailed memory. I note also, your memories seem very visual- which I relate to.

But my working memory is incredibly poor. I cannot hold any info in my head that to then implement in a sequence - unless it is in special interest realms and in those instances it is always a visual retention of the info. I think my poor working memory is one of the reasons I have absolutely NO understanding of maths beyond subtraction/addition and basic divisions. I'm not sure about that, but i suspect so.

aah yeah, Im not a standard aspie neither, I suck in math bigtime, except adding/extracting goes pretty much ok. Neither am I good in languages, well that is after I got severely traumatized and got depersonalisation/derealisation chronically, now my short-term memory is even worse and got even more absent-minded...

That is not very detailed.
But I see how you are good at remembering conversations.
I am horrible at that.
I am better at identifying shapes and colours and numbers.
And very very good at remembering faces.
There is someone with eidetic memory on this forum.
They are called eidetiks.

I rememder details really well and I have a pretty good visual memory. It's strange because my NT friend's brain works like an aspie's. Her memory is also very detail oriented. We were discussing this last week. She doesn't have the social problems I have, but she's definatly not 100% NT.

True, its not very detailed for an autistic person, but a NTér wouldn't remember this I guess. Heck, it was three years ago and I still know the colors and materials and facial expressions of something not important. I don't think thats extremely neurotypical..

Funny you mention memory....my mind works like a tape recorder, yet is somewhat selective.

My first two memories are around or before age 1. The first is seeing the janitor in our apartment building and screaming and crying my head off -- he wore a foot-high Afro and had a palamino kind of face (he suffered from vitiligo). The second is blowing out my candles on the birthday cake, rolling around in a small rollable walker with a yellow tray, and playing with a brown paper bag.

The rest is highlights and selected scenes on tape.

Also, that's how I write my poetry -- I run some tape in my mind, rewind, slow-motion playback, get the details. Yes, my fantasies and the stories I dream up work like a tape reel too. I play the tape, jot it down, try to describe as much as I can.

My short term memory seems to be very bad, but I am fine with practically every subject in school. I seemed to have problems up until I was in the 5th grade, but they were all social issues that interfered with my work. Math seemed so hard, but when I got it I REALLY got it, and I was placed in gifted classes all through middle and high school- even a gifted art class, LOL.

I also have executive dysfunction, but I think my IQ was close to genius when I graduated High School (is 132 pretty high? they acted like it was) and I have been to college and I research as a hobby, so I can't see it going down. Do IQs decrease? sorry- I dont mean to go off-topic.

Anyway- poor working memory and good long-term memory seem to be a trait of autism- especially apparent on those with a special interest about which they store vast amounts of facts. Also, it seems the working memory is good if someone can do math in their head well, which I can, and yet I have the special interest and vast amounts of stored research but I have almost every trait of a woman with Asperger's. I do not have a savant level skill and I have never obsessed over a person.
This is what I mean by traits:
List of female Asperger's traits

Im rambling again- what I am getting at is that when I hear about porr short term memory I wonder if that applies to me or not. What is a good description of that? I mean, I have problems finding things and never remember where I park when I go to the store. I remember at Walmart because I always park in row 6, but elsewhere I always have to search for a while.

My AS son who is almost 5 has an excellent memory for details. It is funny because I can remember details very well, and I am NT. My husband has many AS traits, but his memory for detail is not as good as mine. However, his memory for trivia is off the charts. He gets almost every answer on Jeopardy right. I was wondering if the combination of our genes is what caused our son to be AS. Neither one of us is, although my husband is great at math and computers, and I have an accounting degree. I am very social and outgoing, and my husband is definitely the shy type.

Oh I just remembered something- or forgot it, which is why I am bringing it up here. I will go into a room to get something and forget what I went in there for. I also forget words in mid-sentence. Is this what is meant by poor short term memory? I do this every day, not just occasionally, and I am only 37- it isn't like I might be just getting old. I have annoyed others with my incomplete sentences. I know what I meant to say, and I think I expect them to know as well, LOL. Maybe that is not a memory thing though.

Yes, that sounds like my memory. I remember entire conversations and events like that in excruciating detail. I also remember facts, words and other sounds, texts I've read, even poems and songs in languages I don't speak. I remember events which happened to me at age 3 as if they were yesterday. Some people around me have often found this very disconcerting.
But in other ways, my memory is very poor. I can't remember tasks or instructions, I forget things I'm supposed to be doing, or places I'm supposed to be. When someone gives me instructions, I usually have to recall the sound of their voice speaking the instructions in the exact words they used, or else I can't remember how to do whatever it was they told me to do. Sometimes I forget what I'm saying in the middle of a conversation, or what I'm doing while in the act of doing something. I remember names very well, so well that sometimes I have to pretend to forget so as not to creep people out. But I can't remember faces to save my life, and often don't recognize people I don't know well until someone mentions their name. Also, I often can't remember strings of numbers, like phone numbers, either unless there's a word or image associated.

Ugh, yes it's very common for AS. I however have a worse memory than a NT. I have a horrible short term memory and a pretty bad long term memory too. Like I studied computers for 6 years but I can hardly remember any of it, which is why I hate it when people ask me to fix their computer problems.