Are Aspies suspicious of others?

I recently dated someone with Asperger's and he started criticizing me a lot after a few months.

A few things that still bother me after the fact, he kept asking me questions as though he didn't believe some of the things I said about myself. Things that I told him about myself as we started dating was that I work out regularly at the gym, used to run races, and was a tomboy as a little girl. I no longer run races but occasionally will jog around the neighborhood. At the time I met him, the area I lived in wasn't the safest area, so I stuck with doing treadmills and weights at the gym. I have worked out for about 10 years now and at times am more or less tone. I have a sedentary job and do the best I can.

Anyway, he asked me questions a lot in such a way as though he was suspicious of me not really going to the gym. "I'm surprised I never saw you there." Even a few months after we broke up he said this once again. Well I made it a point to avoid his particular gym after we broke up because I didn't want to run into him. I didn't run into him before partially by chance and also because he made a big deal about maintaining separate interests and not "doing everything together." A lot of times I was tired after work and wouldn't go there until later in the evening too when he would go straight after work.

On another occasion, he made a comment to someone how I "claimed to have been a tomboy but...." His friend mentioned, "Well maybe she was riding bikes with boys and playing in the mud." The fact that I was a tomboy is pretty obvious to most people because I still have a lot of those traits. You won't catch me in a dress unless I'm asked to wear one. My shoes are all boots or clunky clogs. I wear makeup but no jewelry and am an engineer. Furthermore, I know I'm not crazy on this one. I have pictures from my childhood to support this.

Another suspicion he kept mentioning, the area that I lived in had a motorcycle charity ride that brings 100's of bikers to ride across a bridge where I lived. He kept commenting that he was confused as to how I didn't see it. He must have asked 5 or 6 times. I'm guessing he's wondering if I wasn't home that weekend. (This was right before we started dating.) The truth is, I probably had my curtains closed that weekend and was watching movies in the house, completely oblivious to anything outside. My answer didn't seem to be enough.

Anyway, towards the end of our relationship he made some comments that I wasn't "being myself." In the context of that situation, he was accusing me of hitting golf balls with him for him and not because it's something I would like to do. I had taken golf lessons a year before I even met him. This made me paranoid and thinking he thinks I'm exaggerating things about myself to make it seem like we have more things in common. Not true at all. But it sure made me doubt myself and my sanity to a degree.

Is this a common Aspie trait? Or is this just him? I've never dated anyone that kept asking me questions like that. In the end he complained that we didn't have things in common, but we had plenty of things in common. The situation has made me feel crazy.

i think you're making far too much of this. he's out of your life now. forget him.

but to answer your question, people with AS can be somewhat more suspicious because they don't tend to pick up on facial expressions and body language. so, they're more at the mercy of those that are dishonest and often suffer for it too. for example: ask my father a question and the first thing he'll say is "why?". but people with AS are individuals. and, as such, i think that's a better view of your experience, rather than trying to pin it on his AS.

I am an Aspie (female here) and I actually think Shock_The_Monkey was far too dismissive in his/her post and it's not as simple as "he's out of your life, forget him, nobody has the right to invalidate another person as he/she has with you and you have every right to seek any answers you want.

I'm going to answer your question as best I can, some Aspies are suspicious by nature and your ex sounds like the type of Aspie I try to avoid as I too don't enjoy dealing with paranoid or suspicious people especially when there is no basis for their suspicion or paranoia though I will say in his case that he may have actually been trying to get to know you or even figure out why you do certain things but he also sounds like he was one of these over the top, overly literal creatures and you're probably better off without someone like that.

On the other hand you get Aspies who are the complete opposite, these types can be too friendly, too open and too trusting even on occasions where they actually have a good reason to be suspicious, these types generally wouldn't give two sh*ts if they didn't see you at the gym and they're generally just happy that you give them any time.

Yes it is an Aspie trait but not every Aspie has this trait if that makes sense?

Sel x

GG33 wrote:I recently dated someone with Asperger's and he started criticizing me a lot after a few months.

A few things that still bother me after the fact, he kept asking me questions as though he didn't believe some of the things I said about myself. Things that I told him about myself as we started dating was that I work out regularly at the gym, used to run races, and was a tomboy as a little girl. I no longer run races but occasionally will jog around the neighborhood. At the time I met him, the area I lived in wasn't the safest area, so I stuck with doing treadmills and weights at the gym. I have worked out for about 10 years now and at times am more or less tone. I have a sedentary job and do the best I can.

Anyway, he asked me questions a lot in such a way as though he was suspicious of me not really going to the gym. "I'm surprised I never saw you there." Even a few months after we broke up he said this once again. Well I made it a point to avoid his particular gym after we broke up because I didn't want to run into him. I didn't run into him before partially by chance and also because he made a big deal about maintaining separate interests and not "doing everything together." A lot of times I was tired after work and wouldn't go there until later in the evening too when he would go straight after work.

On another occasion, he made a comment to someone how I "claimed to have been a tomboy but...." His friend mentioned, "Well maybe she was riding bikes with boys and playing in the mud." The fact that I was a tomboy is pretty obvious to most people because I still have a lot of those traits. You won't catch me in a dress unless I'm asked to wear one. My shoes are all boots or clunky clogs. I wear makeup but no jewelry and am an engineer. Furthermore, I know I'm not crazy on this one. I have pictures from my childhood to support this.

Another suspicion he kept mentioning, the area that I lived in had a motorcycle charity ride that brings 100's of bikers to ride across a bridge where I lived. He kept commenting that he was confused as to how I didn't see it. He must have asked 5 or 6 times. I'm guessing he's wondering if I wasn't home that weekend. (This was right before we started dating.) The truth is, I probably had my curtains closed that weekend and was watching movies in the house, completely oblivious to anything outside. My answer didn't seem to be enough.

Anyway, towards the end of our relationship he made some comments that I wasn't "being myself." In the context of that situation, he was accusing me of hitting golf balls with him for him and not because it's something I would like to do. I had taken golf lessons a year before I even met him. This made me paranoid and thinking he thinks I'm exaggerating things about myself to make it seem like we have more things in common. Not true at all. But it sure made me doubt myself and my sanity to a degree.

Is this a common Aspie trait? Or is this just him? I've never dated anyone that kept asking me questions like that. In the end he complained that we didn't have things in common, but we had plenty of things in common. The situation has made me feel crazy.

Aussiegal79 wrote:I am an Aspie (female here) and I actually think Shock_The_Monkey was far too dismissive in his/her post and it's not as simple as "he's out of your life, forget him, nobody has the right to invalidate another person as he/she has with you and you have every right to seek any answers you want.

i answered this post because it was creeping down the board and no one else had. i've actually decided lately to give these kind of posts a bit of a miss because i spend a lot of time on them and the lack of gratitude i get in return is often simply quite off-putting. much a kin to your opening para, as it happens!!!

so, let me start with "nobody has the right to invalidate another person as he/she has with you": i never said they did. but one can make as much or as little as one wants of these things. i'm for the latter approach.

and as for "and you have every right to seek any answers you want" i never said the OP didn't either. but i'm not going to advocate dwelling on it and being miserable about it, as the OP appears to be.

Aussiegal79 wrote:... some Aspies are suspicious by nature ...

and so are some NTs. the exam question was "are aspies suspicious of others?". and whilst i've never read anything about this being an aspie trait, i do recognose that there may be some reasons for this, as i stated: "people with AS can be somewhat more suspicious" but it's not what i'd call a significant characteristic of the condition.

Aussiegal79 wrote:On the other hand you get Aspies who are the complete opposite ...

there's undoubtedly a naivity related to AS in social matters. but again, so are some NTs.

Aussiegal79 wrote:Yes it is an Aspie trait but not every Aspie has this trait if that makes sense?

and therefore, in summary, i think it's very misleading to call this an aspie trait. apart from this not being a diagnostic criteria, i doubt very much that people with AS differ markedly from people that are NT in this regard.

candidly, you sound like someone with an axe to grind over this issue. but please don't take it out on me!!!

I've also never heard of this being an aspie thing:/ I think being suspicious is more of a personality trait/outlook rather than something related to neurology.

In reading the OP, you never said that he ever actually questioned anything you did. One thing about aspies is that we don't use implications much. Typically speaking, if we ask a question, we mean only that question, and not anything else. I have had this same trouble with my husband, the other way around. Being a very curious person, I like to know "why" everything, and sometimes he takes my questions to imply that I think he's wrong, or lying, or he doesn't know what he's talking about, but that's not my purpose at all! I only want to know what I asked, because I'm curious. I don't even realize that my question could sound like it's implying something else because I don't think like that. But whenever I see a contradiction, it gets my curiosity up as to how it happened. It may not even matter one whit in the grand scheme of things, but I'm just curious. I'm not thinking about the other person not being right, I'm just wanting to fill in the gaps to see how it happened.

That being said, only because I could see my husband and I having some VERY similar conversations to your own examples, I suspect that it wasn't even about being suspicious at all, just him asking things that he was curious about.

slugger wrote:That being said, only because I could see my husband and I having some VERY similar conversations to your own examples, I suspect that it wasn't even about being suspicious at all, just him asking things that he was curious about.

actually, i think slugger has nailed this one. thinking about it, i have similar issues with my special friend but in reverse, obviously. if i ask her anything, she often seems to automatically think i'm questioning her judgement or being critical of her. i have to try to explain why i've asked what i have and/or reassure her that i didn't mean it in the way she thought i did. but i've always put this down to her personality rather than it being a somewhat typical NT reaction. maybe i've got that wrong and that in fact being a 'reason whyer', as i imagine most people with AS are, is actually quite irritating from an NT perspective.

I must say that it took me a long time (ok, years!) to figure this out! And only because it seemed like so many of our arguments had a similar basis, either he would keep telling me that I'd "go on and on" about a topic that was over and done with in his eyes, or else he'd get upset because it seemed to him like I was questioning his words. Once I finally realized the root cause, we were both able to relax about it. Now when it happens I can just admit that "I wanna know why, why, why!" and he rolls his eyes at me (just teasingly) but now he's much more patient, knowing where my motive is actually coming from.

I see this as just honest curiosity that was misinterpreted. Either the curiosity was worded in such an awkward way to seem like it was suspicion (which I could definitely see as an AS trait), or you were reading too far into things. Or both. I always joke with my wife that for men 2+2=4 and for women 2+2=5,678.04.

Sometimes I find myself asking my wife similar questions that your AS ex asked, but I make sure to word them in a such a way that they don't come off as suspicious because I am not suspicious, I am just curious.

As far as suspicion in general, I am very suspicious of, well, everyone I don't know. Whenever a stranger approaches me I go on high alert thinking that they may be distracting me so another person can come up and steal my wallet or that the person who approached me may pull a gun or knife at any second and demand money (I live in the 2nd worst city for violent crime). I see that as a healthy suspicion though.

slugger wrote:I must say that it took me a long time (ok, years!) to figure this out! And only because it seemed like so many of our arguments had a similar basis, either he would keep telling me that I'd "go on and on" about a topic that was over and done with in his eyes, or else he'd get upset because it seemed to him like I was questioning his words. Once I finally realized the root cause, we were both able to relax about it. Now when it happens I can just admit that "I wanna know why, why, why!" and he rolls his eyes at me (just teasingly) but now he's much more patient, knowing where my motive is actually coming from.

That happens A LOT with me and my wife. I feel like she goes on for ten minutes about the same thing and I'm sitting there like, "I got it nine minutes and thirty seconds ago, will you stop already?!"

Aussiegal79 wrote: On the other hand you get Aspies who are the complete opposite, these types can be too friendly, too open and too trusting even on occasions where they actually have a good reason to be suspicious, these types generally wouldn't give two sh*ts if they didn't see you at the gym and they're generally just happy that you give them any time.

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Too friendly and open? That sounds like my high school experience. I was seen as someone who was too nice, but a pushover. I was often bullied into doing things for others and had no idea that they were taking advantage of me. I really thought they were my friends. After high school, no one kept in contact with me and that was a clear indicator that they weren't my friends.

As I've gotten older, I think I'm become more suspicious of others because I've been used before. I'm still friendly, I just think more skeptically.