Okay so I have this friend, for the sake of his privacy I’m going to call him Carl. For a little bit of background Carl is neurodivergent and I met him online about 6 years ago,we met in person 4 years ago and visit each other at least twice a year. Well throughout our friendship there has been an on and off conflict where everytime he meets someone he has the intention of dating, he completely ghosts half his friends, never calls, never responds to calls, takes DAYS to text back, and will ALWAYS be on call with said romantic interest. (9 times out of 10 they are people he has met on the internet.)
Well today I sent him a reel on instagram that wasn’t supposed to really be offensive, I could have seemed passive aggressive in the message I sent with it but the video was like “that one friend when they get into a relationship” and it’s a joke about the ghosting. My message that I sent with it said “sorry boo but it’s true lol”.
He took offense to this.
He made the claim that he “hyper fixates” on people he likes, only wants to talk to them, talk about them, and think about them. I felt like using the term “hyperfixate” on a person felt just wrong and it felt worse later in our argument, I feel like a better term would have been emotional/anxious attachment, obsessive attachment, or limerence. Well I explained that that’s unhealthy and a habit he should consider working on breaking because it’s affecting his friendships, and told him that he can break the habit…but he just snapped back with “I can’t just avoid a hyperfixation” and then “If it was a video game and I wasn’t talking to nobody because I was busy with that would you say the same thing? No you wouldn’t.”
Comparing a video game hyperfixation to a hyperfixation on a romantic partner just felt almost dehumanizing…?
I called him out on it and he just responded with “I’m not doing this right now.”
From my thought process as someone who is also neurodivergent, a hyperfixation is like an intense interest that comes and goes, some are more prolonged then others but usually they end at some point…so to call a person a hyperfixation just makes me feel like the feelings for that person will fade and will hurt everyone involved. But he doesn’t want to talk to me because I called him out on that..AITA?
I think you got into this discussion a little too deeply!
THIS! Just a brief observation would’ve been adequate. And you should’ve realized that it was a sensitive topic and backed off not double down.
When everyone is neurodivergent, no one is.
Hint: no one is, because there is no singlular “neurotypical” brain.
This is demonstrably false and also has nothing to do with ops question. NTA op. Even if he has a tendency to hyperfixate on people, that’s something he needs to work to manage. It’s not an excuse to be creepy towards someone or ghost your friends.
NTA for pointing it out, but it’s up to him now to reflect on his obsessive tendencies or not.
I don’t think it’s exactly wrong to point out a potentially toxic habit of his. However, it is entirely possible to hyperfixate on a person, I do from time to time. In my case, I have ADHD, and to me it feels very similar to when I hyperfixate on a book, or game, or movie. I want to talk about the person all the time and talk to the person all the time, and interacting with my hyperfixation in any way makes me feel good, just like when I’m hyperfixating on an object. And I, at least, have not found a 100% effective way of getting rid of a hyperfixation (the most successful thing for me is to try to redirect to a different hyperfixation like a book or show I know I’m already super into and have hyperfixated on before, but this doesn’t always work). That being said, I also recognize that it isn’t healthy and I usually try my hardest not to make it obvious. I don’t think he’s intentionally doing this, and he probably got defensive because it typically feels like it’s out of our control and just a part of us. But it’s also fair, as a friend, to point out how it affects you. I don’t know, I think I’d say NAH. It’s a hard situation.
You’re NTA, but you can hyperfixate on human beings, your personal feelings on that aside.
NTA – while that may work for some people, stuff like that has almost always creeped me out in the beginning of a relationship. I want a partner, not a stalker lol. Plus, it never lasts, then you have this person you barely know because they spent the first few months love bombing you.
I have always told people I dated that if you won’t be acting this way in 6 months, don’t act this way now.
When I fixate, I remind myself that the state is usually temporary. That my friendships with others have been long term, and while at the moment they don’t feel as “real,” I will still be accountable for those relationships after the fixation has faded. Even though my brain keeps telling me that the fixation is the most real part, I won’t always feel that way, and when it’s done, I’ll have to deal with the damage that I’ve caused after, no matter how bad I feel about it then.
Sometimes socializing feels like an empty construct, like I’m a marionette mimicking a human, but the effort is needed regardless and my friends appreciate that I make the effort, even if I can’t always “feel” the friendship. I appreciate their understanding that my brain is sometimes a pile of stupid and I’m not always the most intuitive friend.
When you’re neurodivergent, feelings can be incredibly intense or incredibly empty. It’s easy to chase the intensity. But feelings are transient, they come and go. Foundations require work and effort, no matter which part of the swing you’re on.
It’s okay to mention it, but since you already know what causes the behavior, cut him more slack. We are who we are.
This seems like he’s experiencing limerence so he could possibly have bipolar or something similar, and it’s often referred to as having a hyper fixation on a person. But yeah, YTA because instead of talking to him about something that was genuinely bothering you, you passive aggressively sent him a snarky video and then we’re surprised that he had a negative response.
Not really an AH, but you are hyper fixating on his hyper fixation of his relationships. Let him be, he will see that this approach is not what people want.
Not trying to get defensive or anything but I am not fixating on his relationships? I explained to him how his ghosting affects our friendship….i don’t care who he’s with, I care about his well being and I value our friendship.