As I mused the fire burned

[4277311]

Lately whenever I've been around people who don't know me very well, I start to feel slightly Stalkeresque. Because of my 'keen eye for detail' as the colloquialism goes, I tend to know far more about people than they've actually told me: like how many kids they have and when their birthday is or how many biscuits they had for lunch

Comments

[inever]

Yes. All of those things are the same for me.

Frustratingly, being face blind means that I can remember when your appointment is, but not what you look like. And for some odd reason I'm also bad with names. Probably because I receive that information aurally for the most part. If people wore name tags, if only for a few moments, I'd be certain to remember their names.

[kisekileia]

YES. I'm the same way about names as you are. I'm great at remembering them when I see them written, but not when I hear them spoken, and I can get people's faces confused.

[sevenjades]

Oh, boy, do I know this intimately. I like to call it my Secret Agent side, but if I'm not very, very careful it can be a Stalker side. Never mind I don't really care about the details or what they say about someone's life - I just happen to notice and bring it up

[ringwraith10]

Hmm, I don't seem to remember important things all the time, but I do often remember minor details about people. I have a friend, on the other hand, who was diagnosed with Asperger's and she can remember EVERYTHING. She even gave my dog a present on his birthday, which I had mentioned once. She can be useful to have around.

[old_cutter_john]

All those things apply to me too, even though I'm not that small a person, and even though some people find my presence frightening if it registers on their consciousness at all.

I find that people get weirded out by the way I remember things even when they've told me those things directly. They start out by expecting the level of attention common among neurotypicals. Actually, they expect less from me, because, being autistic, I don't give much in the way of feedback. I usually see a moment of horror right after I replay the third thing for a person, and she suddenly realize that I've been listening the whole time remember everything.

[arielhawksquill]

I usually see a moment of horror right after I replay the third thing for a person, and she suddenly realize that I've been listening the whole time remember everything.

I've had this moment, too. A lot of the NTs I know repeat themselves a lot without realizing it, and if I say something that lets on that I've heard the story before, they get suspicious and ask "How do you know that?"

Me, I've always identified with the lyric in "Psycho Killer" by fellow autie David Byrne: "say something once/ why say it again?"

[subtle_rift]

I've had that problem! I was hanging out with a group of people for the first time. Early on in the evening somebody gave somebody else their mobile number which immediately embedded itself in my head. Five hours later somebody asks what the number was, and without thinking I instantly repeat it perfectly. Then everybody stared at me.