"I Sit, And Look At Paintings!"

[Captain Caveman]

Excuse the Mr Bean quote when he was asked what he did when he went to the USA in that film. The title I was going to use for this thread reminded me of that quote. Here is the title I intended.

WATCHING...

For my first few years of school, at every play time in the playground I would stand in the corner away from all the other kids and watch. I would not play. All the other kids all running around. It was all too much for me! I found the quietest corner of the yard I was allowed to be and I just stood there.... Every play time I returned to the same spot and got upset if another kid tried to get me to play or came too close to "My spot".

Whenever I faced a new senario involving groups of kids and as I got older, groups of people, I would go quiet and watch, as watching is what I did!

The only problem to this is that not being included one becomes a target to bullies and those who see one is on ones own and tries to force one to get involved... So I learned how to mask, and later learned in life to be the first to start a conversation with a silly remark and once people who didn't know each other started talking, I would then go quiet because I would have then diverted attention away from me so I could then go quiet by myself and watch, without anyone realizing I was quiet if that makes sense? As people don't like being watched if they notice they are being watched!

Now I do not know if watching is an autistic thing. When I got more confident later in life, I started being confident in talking, but then when I started I wouldn't shut up! Haha!

 

[Sherlock77]

I "watch" lots, I do believe it is an Autistic trait.

For me I actively "watch" in public through my urban photography, I watch the world far more than directly participate in it, and I do enjoy doing that even though to many people it might seem like a lonely thing.

I suppose part of it for me is that I suck at sports, my hand-eye coordination is dreadful, so I will watch rather than participate.

 

[SusanLR]

I've always said that my life has been like being "a watcher."
Going through life inside my bubble, just watching.
Watching people, animals, plants, the world.

Like watching tv, I watch others watching tv and how they shout back at it or whoop it up while watching sports. So involved even though they aren't physically there.
But it is something they feel a part of is why they react in such mannerisms.
I watch and find some things very interesting, but it's all out there, somewhere all around me. I just don't feel the connecting part.

My companion sometimes comments on how I talked with others at some gathering we were at. Like a compliment for a job well done.
Yes, I can talk. But I never initiate talk.
Someone sitting by me at a table may say, "I'm Judy. And you are?"
"I'm Sue." And a how do you do? Then the chit-chat begins. I answer a few questions but soon drop out as they seem to continue conversing with others at the table.

I like the old hippie cartoon that says: I'm just passing through.

It even looks like me!

 

[Boogs]

We watch when we can't 'touch'. There's an impassable barrier. The screen of a television, the remoteness of a social group, the ignorance of incomprehensibility, the lack of a rule book, the exclusion of others...

It seems the most natural response to need to gather more data, and our eye's transmit so much of what we can take in, surely it's a natural response - people even have hobbies/entertainment based around just watching something.
I'd judge the watching to merely be a symptom of something else, which is that barrier we can't cross but wish to or need to. That thing we can't understand must be studied to come to an understanding and our minds are compelled to do so - but some more than others.

 

[Captain Caveman]

I've always said that my life has been like being "a watcher."
Going through life inside my bubble, just watching.
Watching people, animals, plants, the world.

Like watching tv, I watch others watching tv and how they shout back at it or whoop it up while watching sports. So involved even though they aren't physically there.
But it is something they feel a part of is why they react in such mannerisms.
I watch and find some things very interesting, but it's all out there, somewhere all around me. I just don't feel the connecting part.

My companion sometimes comments on how I talked with others at some gathering we were at. Like a compliment for a job well done.
Yes, I can talk. But I never initiate talk.
Someone sitting by me at a table may say, "I'm Judy. And you are?"
"I'm Sue." And a how do you do? Then the chit-chat begins. I answer a few questions but soon drop out as they seem to continue conversing with others at the table.

I like the old hippie cartoon that says: I'm just passing through.

View attachment 139373It even looks like me!

Yes! Starting conversations is so hard! I would wait for others first so I would know what to say back. If no one talked I felt so awkward as awkward eye contact situations begins and I want to close my eyes and shut the outside out and .....
So I learned to say a silly thing to start people talking so the eye contact would not be at me and they would then talk to each other... (I could then go quiet and watch.....!)
But before I learned this trick to start others talking, I would just want to curl up and hide! (Would sit there fidgeting).
But I find it difficult to do in an environment that is a shutdown risk such as hospital or doctors waiting rooms as I can already be in a partial shutdown daze... [Grr! In a daze now thinking about it!!!]