Hyperfocusing on new friends/connections

[BreaksOver]

I noticed that sometimes when I connect with someone and I'm really excited about getting to know this person, they become the only thing I think about. And I mean this for connections that are purely platonic. Sometimes I've met people I really wanted to be friends with, and if we end up getting along and becoming friends I get a bit obsessed.

What usually happens: They're always on my mind and take up a majority of my thoughts. I try to ask them all the questions that I want them to ask me. I want to know as many details as possible about them. I'll imagine future conversations and practice what I'll want to share. I basically want to talk to them 24/7. And I know that isn't possible, which is why I tend to daydream about future conversations. I imagine them accompanying me throughout my day. Mostly because they're on my mind so much that it feels like they're by my side at all times. I imagine us spending time together, or if we've already hung out I'll just replay those memories over n over. I think (or hope) that every single message I get on my phone will be from them. I sometimes draft lists of questions that I'd like to ask them. I will usually draw them or make a playlist, though sometimes I won't ever share those things with them. And like with anything that I'm obsessing over, they end up as extras in my dreams lol. Not being able to see or talk to them is super difficult for me. Especially if they get busy or something important comes up for them, it makes it sooo hard for me to focus on anything else.

It is just like a special interest for me, except shorter lived and with a person. Eventually it fades, but it can be several weeks before it does. Sometimes I've confused this with having a crush on someone, but I've had this exact experience with almost all of my close friends. I don't obsess over any of my existing friends anymore (the initial obsessions were probably like a month long at most) and our relationships feel very healthy. We take our space when we need to, and I don't feel as though I will die if I don't interact with them for more than 24 hours. But it's so intense at the start.

I've tried to ignore it but I'm realizing that it would be a lot easier to just accept that I have very intense emotions at times. It is kind of difficult to deal with though, especially because it's not possible to talk to someone at all hours of the day. I do my best to be respectful of others and give them their space. When I'm feeling like this I won't even send a message unless the other person does first, because I don't want to come off too strong or cross any boundaries. But when I'm in that period of being obsessed with a new friend, it's really hard to not figuratively pull my hair out while waiting for a response. Honestly it drives me crazy that I'm like this. At least with a regular special interest, I can do as much research as I want and dedicate my whole life to it and it's not all that strange. But when it's a person I can't help but feel like I am being a little overwhelming.

Is this an experience anyone can relate to?

 

[Progster]

Yes, this has happened to me a couple of times. A new person becomes a special interest. No stalking or anything perverse like that, but I have mistaken it for romantic interest and briefly entered a relationship for all the wrong reasons. The danger is that I might be too intense/too much for the person. I did it more when I was younger, it hasn't happened for a long time now.

 

[GypsyMoth]

Is this an experience anyone can relate to?

Absolutely.

I end up feeling very quiet around that person, like if by talking I’ll spoil the moment. It’s like I resonate very deeply with them, like ...



If you don’t mind my shifting headspace on you here, I’ve recently read that having a crush in a new relationship, or a sexual attraction at the outset of a new, albeit non sexual relationship, is quite common in autism. I don’t know why & can’t cite it at 2 a.m. in the morning. But you can Google it.

I personally have no problem being someone else’s special interest. Which probably sounds quite odd, but it helps fill in the gaps I feel on my end of the relationship. Assuming, of course, no harm is meant to me & it is a relationship built on trust. I assume the boundaries will sort themselves out if built on respect and appreciation for the other.

@Progster mentioned this being too intense for the other person. I am generally too intense for most people but have learned to keep myself out of most relationships on purpose (or otherwise—I haven’t had a lot of success in the friendship department). Like you, @BreaksOver, I, too, obsess over, think about and daydream not only conversations but how our time has been/will be spent. I have actually been wondering about this. Does it mean I am living out the relationship I would like, rather than the relationship I actually have? I do not believe myself able to have the relationship I would like.

I regret not knowing how to express my thoughts or feelings adequately in person. My only estimation is that perhaps my response may not be wanted or appropriate, and so I withdraw. I’m not suggesting this in your case, only, it’s how I handle it. If you were the person I was obsessed with, you’d probably never know it. And I would eventually go on quietly with my life again because I’m afraid that ultimately, the other person might reject me. Being alone is somehow better, to my mind, than being unwanted.

(& yes, I am a hypocrite here—telling someone else it is right to love & risk losing that love than to have never loved at all is much easier to say than do.)

(And for those of you who know me here who are curious, surprise! I actually do not bleed out everything going on in my life. I thought I’d save this tragedy for myself. [If I were reading this, and I hadn’t written it, I’d softly breathe out a sarcastically humorous reply: “remarkable.”])

I have more to say—much more to say (as people here can attest—in text I am rarely at a loss for words)—but it is 2:30 a.m. My insomnia has gotten the better of me & I have a very stressful morning ahead of me. (I’m having confrontation for breakfast. NOT looking forward to it.) But if you’re patient & can wait for a further reply from me, I usually circle back around in a couple of days. Just let me know you’re interested in hearing more or I might let it go. I probably will not share the personal experience I am currently in too much online, out of respect, but I’d like to think I’m pretty good at asking questions. You don’t have to answer them online; they’ll just be offered to help you think through it from a different perspective, if wanted.



...it’s like I’ve always known them.

 

[BreaksOver]

but I have mistaken it for romantic interest and briefly entered a relationship for all the wrong reasons.

This is something that has worried me in the past. I think now that I've recognized this as an autistic thing I'll be able to better cope/know to wait out my emotions. Better to let the feelings subside a bit before acting on them, at least for myself. It's also helpful to know that it doesn't happen as often for you as you've gotten older.

Does it mean I am living out the relationship I would like, rather than the relationship I actually have?

I relate a lot to this, and this is actually part of why I've tried so hard to push back against these feelings. I'm very scared of projecting my own ideal relationship onto a person and then totally missing red flags (which I've done in the past). I want to get to know them for who they are, not who I hope they will be. This is part of why I'll do things like draw the other person, because I can kinda indulge myself without going overboard and crafting a personality that they don't have in my head.

If you were the person I was obsessed with, you’d probably never know it. And I would eventually go on quietly with my life again because I’m afraid that ultimately, the other person might reject me.

Yep, I'm this way too. I've never told my current friends if they became a special interest for me. I used to be a lot more scared of rejection and would just avoid reaching out at all. Honestly I've been trying to get better at that because I'd rather take a risk and make a new connection. Like you said, it's easier said than done.

But if you’re patient & can wait for a further reply from me, I usually circle back around in a couple of days. Just let me know you’re interested in hearing more or I might let it go.

I'd definitely be interested in more of what you have to say! Take your time, of course. There is no rush.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

I don't have this as an adult,...but definitely did as a child growing up. If I had a friend,...it was an every day, all day thing,...literally. At some point, perhaps weeks down the road,...we would have a bad interaction and I would completely drop them. I would spend time by myself for weeks, then at some point, I would pick up the relationship again,...or not,...or with another person and do the same thing again.

So, I am still a bit confused as to what was happening as a child, but I think that neither they, nor I, understood what was going on and eventually, we would separate and go our own ways. I never had a consistent relationship with anyone. By the time I was 18-20 years old, the only person I "locked onto" was my wife,...and I have had zero interest in friends since that time.

 

[PastelPetals]

Yes this has been an issue my whole life. I will attach to one person and make my whole life about them for a few months but then I get bored and I drift away.

I have realized that fixating on a new person who is being nice to me or maybe who I am not close to makes sense because I don't have to do the amount of emotional work that a normal relationship requires. It basically is an intense honeymoon period where I am learning about this person ( I love to figure people out) and I am receiving some amount of attention from this person that in turns fuels my fixsation.

However it's always going to fizzle out quickly because in the end I don't know how to have a friend. I am slowly getting better at it but it tires me out and overwhelms me. I often give more to the relationship then I get due to being autistic and self conscious and it burns me out. I prefer to have crushes than actually having relationships and the same is true for friends.

I also know that if I don't have a human special interest every once in a while that i get kind of sad because even though I don't need a ton of social interaction this type is one I crave every so often so I go online and meet people and find people to obsess over. By the time the interest has passed I have not bonded to then enough (it helps not physically seeing each other I think) and they have not bonded to me so no hurt feelings.

I have a person special interest right now and I love how happy I feel whenever I talk to her! As long as you don't hurt others I don't think it's bad or anything. If you are finding it hard to deal with life due to thinking about the person you may want to find some ways to regulate your emotions a bit more via therapy and skill building and you may find that longer lasting relationships work better for you who knows.

I have seen this more in autism and it fact I believe it is listed in paperwork somewhere about concerns my parents had about my social skills seeing people more as projects or obsessions and not long term relationships. I wish sometimes that I could maintain relationships better but I have so many good memories with people and everyone drifts in and out of your life so I am grateful to everyone who has liked me.

 

[GypsyMoth]

I have been reading a lot about relationships lately. One thing I've read is that some ND relationships start deep and intense and then whither. I'm not sure why. Yours seem to level out. Mine seem to disappear. It's something I'm concerned about because I would like better relationships. I've had the friends I've had for many years, but we've moved quite a bit and I am two months into a new job surrounded by new people. It would be nice to make some workplace friends.

I started replying again last night, but didn’t finish. I think I am better at masking & being factual at the end of the day than the beginning. Here is more what I was hoping to say. I read a lot of myself in your OP, so maybe it will be a help to you.

When I am around someone I feel emotionally separated from, I don’t want to be touched. I feel a constant tension. I tend to do things more directly—e.g., I face them squarely, I keep my answers short, I keep them on a direct gaze as much as possible and because I am highly aware that they can read more from my body language than I am aware of saying with it, I try to smile and act relaxed. (Because, if there is an issue, I don’t want it to escalate.) Yet the accusation that comes back at me then is that I’m being passive aggressive! So something I am doing isn’t working. Inside, I don’t want to be in this conversation. Outside, if the emotional situation has been very poor, touch becomes very painful. I don’t only not want to be touched, I recoil from touch without thinking about it—I just do it. This means I have to be hyper vigilant of my surroundings and aware of when I am being touched (a hand on the shoulder, a casual rub on the back), so that I can stop withdrawing physically, because the message it sends would escalate the situation. In this case I am describing, the other person receives casual gestures like these as affirming that all is well in the relationship. And maybe for that instant it is. But I think the touch gives them the sense of well being, while for me it’s reversed.

Now for the opposite scenario. Someone with whom I have a positive emotional connection I find I want to be around them all the time. This happens a lot with a certain friend I’m rather newly friends with. I find this person’s mannerisms and gestures invite me into their conversation. I’m still afraid to look at them eye to eye for longer than a passing glance. (I’m not sure why but it feels very emotional —maybe vulnerable?— and I think I don’t want them to see that. They read me like a book anyway so it probably wouldn’t matter, I just find I can’t. I think I mask very well so I don’t think this is noticed.) Last time I saw this person, I had an almost overwhelming desire to sleep. To just lie down on the couch and go to sleep. I have no idea why. (I normally have absolutely no compulsion to fall asleep around other people!) The few times this person has touched me—to straighten a collar—it’s been pleasant and welcomed. There’s more, but I’ll stop here except to say—because somehow it seems important to say—they smell pleasant, too. Which got to be a really weird thing to say about someone. It’s almost an intoxicating feeling to be this relaxed around another person and I really can’t describe it because it’s not intellectual, it’s something else. I don’t think it’s entirely emotional (having an overwhelmingly deep desire to suddenly fall asleep is an action, not an emotion). I find that I don’t have a lot to say around them, nor do I need to, while in the above scenario I seem to always need to be talking myself out of trouble. (Not that it works.) The funny thing is, even though I don’t talk a lot with this second person, I feel fully heard and understood. It’s got to be the strangest relationship I’ve ever been in. I find I think about it a lot. I do have some trouble transitioning between the mediums we use to visit over, being in person is almost overwhelming compared to texting. I hope this person hasn’t noticed—I don’t want to offend in any way.

Anyway, I get your struggles with being obsessive. Do you think it is your way of processing what’s going on in this relationship, until it settles into a more predictable routine? I think that might be what’s going on with me.

(& no, I don’t think I could have been this emotionally transparent last night after a full day’s work. I hope sharing these things doesn’t reflect badly on me. This isn’t the sort of thing I really want to share but thought it might be helpful to you.)

 

[Neonatal RRT]

I started replying again last night, but didn’t finish. I think I am better at masking & being factual at the end of the day than the beginning. Here is more what I was hoping to say. I read a lot of myself in your OP, so maybe it will be a help to you.

When I am around someone I feel emotionally separated from, I don’t want to be touched. I feel a constant tension. I tend to do things more directly—e.g., I face them squarely, I keep my answers short, I keep them on a direct gaze as much as possible and because I am highly aware that they can read more from my body language than I am aware of saying with it, I try to smile and act relaxed. (Because, if there is an issue, I don’t want it to escalate.) Yet the accusation that comes back at me then is that I’m being passive aggressive! So something I am doing isn’t working. Inside, I don’t want to be in this conversation. Outside, if the emotional situation has been very poor, touch becomes very painful. I don’t only not want to be touched, I recoil from touch without thinking about it—I just do it. This means I have to be hyper vigilant of my surroundings and aware of when I am being touched (a hand on the shoulder, a casual rub on the back), so that I can stop withdrawing physically, because the message it sends would escalate the situation. In this case I am describing, the other person receives casual gestures like these as affirming that all is well in the relationship. And maybe for that instant it is. But I think the touch gives them the sense of well being, while for me it’s reversed.

Past time to get out of that relationship. That kind of stress,...with your "fight or flight" response activated all the time,...forget about the emotional stress,...that's a tremendous amount of physiologic stress. People literally have heart attacks, cancer, immune dysfunction, weight gain, hypertension, psychosis,...etc. Seriously. This is not good. I am concerned. I mean that.

Passive aggressiveness? No. He doesn't trust, believe, or understand what you are saying is true. His own cognitive biases and personality traits are on display. His narcissism is blinding him, and he's playing the "classic" victim role. Textbook behavior. Passive aggressive behavior is a deceitful behavior,...and I know from my own experience with a stressed mind,...a stressed, autistic mind,...what I say is pretty transparent, factual, and blunt. I couldn't be my "truer self" in these situations. All the walls are down. In your case, he may be interpreting your calm exterior and short, but direct answers as "deceptive",...a rather common mistake that neurotypicals make,...as they still want to "read between the lines". "So, what you're really trying to say is,...." and then their cognitive biases kick in and they get it all wrong. You're like, "No, you dumb***,...word for word, what I literally said."

 

[GypsyMoth]

@Neonatal RRT, the way he presents it, I’m the one with the problem. I may PM you later, just to not sidetrack the OP.

 

[BreaksOver]

..we would have a bad interaction and I would completely drop them.

This used to be me a few years ago.

It basically is an intense honeymoon period where I am learning about this person ( I love to figure people out) and I am receiving some amount of attention from this person that in turns fuels my fixsation

This describes it perfectly. This is exactly what happens for me. And this is actually why I've ended up in pretty toxic relationships in the past. I'm thankful to have much better boundaries now, so even if I have a fixation I won't tolerate someone being abusive.

If you are finding it hard to deal with life due to thinking about the person you may want to find some ways to regulate your emotions a bit more via therapy and skill building and you may find that longer lasting relationships work better for you who knows.

It's definitely something I plan to bring up to my therapist eventually (although we have much more important stuff on the docket at the moment). Luckily I am mostly able to deal with it with my existing coping strategies. Previously the most frustrating part was not knowing why I did this. And now that I do...it is a lot less distressing.

One thing I've read is that some ND relationships start deep and intense and then whither. I'm not sure why. Yours seem to level out.

I think mine have leveled out as I've gotten older + continued to improve upon my communication skills in therapy. That's not to say that just learning stuff in therapy will help everyone but it certainly helped me cope with the aftermath of such overwhelming emotions. :')

Anyway, I get your struggles with being obsessive. Do you think it is your way of processing what’s going on in this relationship, until it settles into a more predictable routine? I think that might be what’s going on with me.

Wow I have never even thought of it that way. I think that would play a big part in it. Obsessing over a person certainly helps me figure out just how much to mask vs. how much to reveal. I feel like part of it is also the novelty of a person entering my life - and specifically, a person I am very interested in befriending. The latest person I've been experiencing this with has an interest that aligns with one of my special interests and seemed to be equally as excited to get to know me. I don't think they're ND, or at least not autistic, but they actually like me which made me happy. It took me a while to get the confidence to initiate a conversation, but once I did we really hit it off. That was pretty much the inciting event for them to become a special interest of sorts. Excitement + processing newness seem to be the formula, at least in my most recent experience.

Very glad to hear from others and know that I'm not alone in this.

 

[NDR2]

I haven’t experienced quite the same thing, but I do think in the past some of my approaches to making friends may have seemed sort of “aggressive.” Particularly if it was a woman I was attracted to. I’ve been through some trial and error in the process of being in group social situations. At first I would ask if anyone wanted to exchange numbers, and seeing if anyone in the group would say yes – that didn’t work too well. It was later suggested to me that I ask just one person each time. So I tried that for a while. It worked better, but some people I asked said yes just to be polite – their tone seemed to say they were reluctant (I know that’s something that often isn’t obvious to us) – and then when I’d text them I wouldn’t hear back. So now I think that it’s best to ask people for contact information only if you have a reason to – like to invite them to something they express interest in. One suggestion my speech therapist had was that if I have a shared interest with someone I say, “We should get a group together to do that.”

So it’s true that relationships of any type do take time. I know that that can feel frustrating sometimes – particularly when it’s always been hard for you to make and keep friends.