Question? Dilema? Contradiction?

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My mother told me that as a baby I rejected all forms of affection. I could not be hugged.

In recent years I have learnt (mainly through relationships) to accept hugging and give hugs back. I have learnt the value of expressing this informal expression of love and caring. This led to me becoming dependant on hugs and when I was not getting enough, I would get very upset. Now I am trying to get the balance but its not easy.

I hug my friends all the time and most recipricate, but when I get a non-meaningful hug this causes a small dilema for me. I like consistancy in hugs... but like I said, I am trying to find some kind of balance.

I do love hugs (now) but at the end of the day I would prefer to be without them - Life seemed easier before hugging.



Also, I understand that an Aspie can have trouble getting on with thier peer group. I think this applies to child age but I find the same is still true at my grand old age of 36.

I am very uncomfortable around people my age. Most of my friends are younger than me and I am only attracted and feel affection for younger people. I sometimes have a mental age of a pensioner (as I have been told many times) but I also act and think like a teenager (again, as I have been told many times).

I have friends around my age but I can not connect with any of them like I connect with younger people.

Am I normal (in an AS way)? Do other Aspies feel like me?

Apparently I didn't like hugs/affection as a kid and it's still true now, I dislike both. But I think it's perfectly normal for someone with AS to 'learn' things like that or adapt to it to the point that it becomes part of how you are around people when it otherwise wouldn't have. I've found that, while there are plenty of things I don't have/understand that seem to come naturally to NTs, I have learned these things. So that's probably the same for you with hugging. I have never had a relationship and have no proper friends, so that could be why I've never had a need to learn to enjoy these kind of things.

I don't really get on with people my age either. I haven't done since I was 13 and the only reason I thought I did before then was because I was unaware of my problems. I much prefer talking to people older or younger than me usually. Although this doesn't seem to apply on here. On WP age doesn't seem to make any difference at all and I enjoy talking to people of all ages on here. But in real life I definitely have very little in common with other 18/19 year olds. I can act much more mature than them at times, but also much more immature at other times.

Aspies are normally reasonable and rational when healthy.

We learn what comes 'naturally' to those like affection and emotional expressions IF we find it necessary or desire to.

hey, cyclosarin,
good to see you back!

seasparrow et al,

I think we can learn to do most anything and if it is not done to our standards, we are disappointed. for example, I will see a color I like and then reject other colors, and, I now find, I will even reject THE EXACT COLOR I am looking for because it is somehow not how I pictured it in my mind when forming the appreciation for it!

I used to think I was just 'crazy' but I think you can be 'crazy' AND experience Asperger's Syndrome, also.


Merle

I never liked hugs or affection until after I was with my husband. He's very calm and I feel comfortable around him and for some reason with me that equates to feeling affectionate and inclined to touch him. That does not extend to others though even since knowing him. If my brothers hug me or my friends, I freeze up. If anything it's more confusing for them now because I'm openly affectionate with him (or as Sopho would say, we indulge in shameless PDA as well as private displays). So I'm not so sure I learned it in any fashion as much as I finally found someone I felt comfortable sharing that with. We have a really strong intellectual attachment so maybe that made it different.

Don't know if was my AS, or me mum, but hugs were rare when I was a lad. Our first few years of marriage TM used to say I would 'drain' her with my hugs. I needed so much affection, I'd take it from her with my hugs. Now I can give and take with hugs, and it's jolly nice. But strangers? No way. Has to be someone I care about. I hug some of the men I've grown close to at our church, and they appreciate it. But if some woman I barely know throw one on me, I freeze up.

When I got into AA I learned to hug and it was 'safe' if you will. It was ME that had to learn how to hug 'safe' by the way. What I reacted badly to was someone that wanted to give me a 'back massage' because I had gotten in trouble with that one several times.
When I went back to see my parents after 23 years ( I had escaped from the State Institution they had put me in when I was 17 and I thought I would let some time go by before I made contact with them. If I didn't have to do a 9th step to stay sober, I would not have gone, but there it is. Upon alighting from the Greyhound Bus I hugged my mother and then my father, who's first words to me were 'My, we are gotten quite Continental, haven't we?!"
(this from a Kansas man in a tee shirt and suspenders!)

I am almost presentable in polite society, these days, but it is a thin patina and soon wears through.

Merle

Patina. Great word.

I'm finding the spontinaty of hugging to be kind of wierd. It seems to be dependent on the med. Nice when it's there, but fleeting right now, sweet o just be able to really mean it out of the blue with SwampBlossom. On the outside world I can do it, but it means nothing, it just sets up a better air to a meeting of people, when needed. Sometimes when not asked for, it just rattles the s**t out of me. Hand shaking on the other hand, I like.

My family was not a huggy family. The only times anyone hugged anyone was when we went to visit family (who expect hugs the minute you walk through the door). I don't know if I rejected hugs when I was very young, and so I grew up with parents who distanced themselves, or if they just didn't like displaying affection, either. The only times my parents or I said "I love you" were when one of us was about to have surgery, or die.
That said, I think I crave affection and love, but I don't feel comfortable seeking it out, or saying "I need a hug". I just do without and hope for it. I do give my children tons of affection, though.
I do not understand the women I work with (in their 30s) who act like little girls and sit on each other's laps and play with each other's hair in the breakroom...it actually makes me extremely uncomfortable (not in a homophobic way, but in that way like...am *I* supposed to be like that, too?)



I have always had older friends. I thought it had to do with being an only child, but I don't know for sure. Now I have friends my own age, but I am now "old". ha

Same. Best friend I have ever had in my life died when I was eight - nine, she was in her sixties - seventies.

I am sorry for your loss...and I'm sure it was a huge loss.