I don't understand this NT behavior.

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I sent plan ideas to hang out with a friend and she said she was busy/work/school etc. Yesterday on Facebook a friend asked lets go to dinner tomorrow my friend said yes. I feel OMG you want to go out with this friend but hate that I plan weeks in advance. I don't understand the behavior of up and going that next day or week! I plan weeks/months in advance! I've been planning to see Toy Story 3 in theaters for over a year!! !! ! With all 3 my sisters! (My older sister has took us to the past 4 Pixar films so it's a sister bonding thing IMO we saw CARS,Ratoutille,Wall-E and UP! together in theaters so I planned to see Toy Story 3 WAY ahead of time!) Besides the fact that I LOVE the franchise. but I don't get this hey lets go out tomorrow ok fine thing. I like planning weeks/months in advance I just don't understand doing it the other way.

It's because we tend to be a lot more organised, plus we become more attached to routine than NTs we need the routine for certain days planned out in advance.

I get uncomfortable if I have to do something, go somewhere, or have someone around our house without proper planning either.

A lot of NTs prefer things to be done with spontaneity, unlike aspies. Some NTs don't like to commit to things early in case "better" things crop up, too.

I think it's to do with prioritising. Some people don't want to commit to less important stuff a long time in advance when they know there is really important stuff lurking on the horizon. For example, I want to go to the market at the end of the month with my friend and would like a definate answer. She can't give a definate answer because she has lots of upcoming stuff with her kids, the details of which haven't yet been sorted. To her, the kids stuff is more important. To me, going to the market is more important.

I agree I see planning movies/buying X game as important while others don't. I also felt awkward when my relatives came down I didn't expect it I was nervous since I hadn't seen them in years. LOL! Plus the one guy smack me on the back as a "good bye thing" ODD! IMO anyway. Hell I've planned to go to a midnight launch for 3DS and that's probably not coming out till this holiday I REALLY HOPE! I plan WAY ahead. My family don't like the planning idea.

I don't know about movies or anything, but when it comes to food, I just never know what I'll be hungry for from one day to the next. The thought of planning a meal months in advance is NOT appealing, since I'm sure to change my mind. In non-food issues, though, I'm like you, and need to know exactly what's going to happen and when.

for me, i HATE having to reschedule stuff, and i dont know if i will *feel* like doing X in 3 weeks. what if i am tired, or cranky, or pmsing that day?

and i agree, kids make plans harder. it means doctor visits, play rehearsals, soccer practice, picking them up early because they hurt/broke/forgot X. things i may not find out about until a day or two in advance.

i also suffer from what my family calls "swiss cheese brain" or "goldfish memory". i cant remember plans made that far in advance. i cant even remember what i ate for breakfast this morning. oh wait .... i forgot to eat breakfast this morning. see? how can you expect me to remember going to lunch next week when i forgot breakfast TODAY?

=P

I like to be mentally prepared before doing something, doesn't matter if I like it or not. I guess NTs don't have that as much as aspies do, aspies also have more problems with liking surprises for instance.

I understand and I think everyone else here does to, why you make plans I know I do for everything, however a plan means going from A to B in an order specified by the maker, well especially if they are girls and NT, in my experience they like to do things sparatically, I don't understand why but they do, so your plan may have made her feel locked in, idk that's my guess?

Sometimes people don't want to commit. Maybe it's because of family issues and kids wacky schedules that change a lot, or like the other poster said, something better may come up, or maybe they will forget and plan something else and have to cancel because they themselves are disorganized, or they forget and don't show up and then you're upset and they are trying to avoid that, or they don't want to remember they have to do something on a certain day any more than they need to.

It could be that they want things on their own terms, and not yours. A very good friend is like that, and she NEVER plans anything. It's always..we'll see when the day comes. We don't do much together

I'm NT and I am a planner, I schedule everything. I'm very organized and I have to in order to get done what I need to do, especially with a child. I absolutely cannot stand surprises. I need to be mentally prepared for everything.

It drives me nuts too.

I like spontaneity SOMETIMES but rarely. More often than not I need to be mentally prepared for things.

My mother's the worst for this. She always plans things then assumes she's told everyone, so I end up knowing about everything pretty much when it starts. Like, I could plan a day where I'd go to town and walk around a bit and it turns out we're going to a christening 5 minutes before we're actually going.

NT here. I think depends on the NT.

If I'm not really busy and stressed, I like to do things on the spur of the moment, sometimes.

At other times, I really, really, really like the schedule.

Also, I know an aspie who hates "being scheduled" so, that may not always be an NT thing--or it definitely isn't for him.

I don't plan things in weeks or advance. That stuff overwhelms me. It's decisions decisions decisions.

I don't know if it's NT v. AS or more a personality thing. Some NT's are very much planners, and I make a point to know who they are, or we'll never end up doing things together. Me ... I have trouble seeing out weeks in advance, it's too much information to carry around, and who knows how I'll feel or what I'll be in the mood for. Still, if I get an invitation, I'm happy to make the plan, and some things definitely have to be planned or they won't happen. But, mostly, I enjoy just finding a little hole and making the decision to just do it.

I used to plan a lot more than I do now, so it might be something that becomes less with age and experience. 10 years ago I was obsessed with food and cooking and would plan meals for a week in advance, down to the calorie. Any events happening within the week would have to be planned for and meals planned around them. I would also have a routine on getting home from work and a fixed set bedtime, which I enforced for my (ex)husband on the basis that I needed to sleep at that time and couldn't do so if he was still up elsewhere in the house. If things didn't go to plan I would become very upset, but luckily this happened infrequently.

Since living alone I have become more flexible, although I have also been more emotionally unstable (and have poor sleep and eating patterns - tried to get back into obsessional organising again, but it doesn't work anymore). Organising everything does have advantages and I have been praised for my (self) organisational and time keeping skills. Certainly is a very useful skill in my job. My response was always that I had to be organised otherwise things would become too stressful for me - it is stress avoidance because I don't deal well with stress. But I really can't understand people who are constantly disorganised - I don't know how they can live with such chaos, I would lose my touch on reality and become psychotic.

Nowadays I do have plans a long time in advance, but they tend to be plans I have made with other people (and most of my friends, although NTs, are also busy people and like to plan, although not obsessively). I don't plan meals very much anymore and I can do things last minute if I don't have any definite plans and I feel like it, whereas before even a night in not doing anything much would be a definite plan and I would miss out on things (and feel really bad about missing out) in order to keep to the plan (because I'd feel worse if I didn't).

I have a sort of visual calender in my head (not dates, but all the weeks, months etc. marked on), and automatically put new and potential events onto it when I learn about them, so I can literally see ahead in time. I often stick other people's events onto my mental calender too and end up reminding them about things they've forgotten about.

At any given time I'm usually working on some such project that...

1. Has a deadline
2. Will encounter technical difficulties not accounted for in the deadline.
3. Will not make the deadline
4. Must be finished as soon as possible.


I have to have an idea of how close I am to finishing certain phases of it, which I can really only estimate within a time frame of three or four days, so if I'm asked to a movie or something, a month in advance, and I know I will be working on a project at that time, I can't make any promises that I will be able to attend because it's too far along for me to be able to estimate if I actually have the time.

I can make a much better estimate if I'm asked if to the movies within the next three days of present time.