This article was incredibly interesting as I probably have this. My wife has said that Im a bit odd and probably on the spectrum. I make eye contact (though my wife says I often dont). If I stare into someones eyes it makes me feel like Im falling and it makes it hard for me to think. I can be very social but it is exhausting for me.

My coping strategies to reduce stress mainly revolve around reducing commitments and things to track.

1) I dont keep any friends, my wife manages all social engagements, including with my friends. The problem with friends is they require commitments and I have no capability to meet them consistently.

2) I rarely read email, listen to voice messages, read slack messages, or read/open mail. For whatever reason I get very stressed reading email and listening to voice messages. This is quite frustrating to people around me but they have accepted it. When my wife met me I had months of unopened mail. I would typically pay each bill once every 3 months. I have about 6000 unread messages between 3 email accounts. When I go on vacation and come back I delete all my email. I havent listened to a voice message for a few years, though they are accumulating.

I have adopted a philosophy that just because someone tries to contact me, that it does not create an obligation for me to respond.

3) I make as few commitments as possible. I want to help people but I will only do it in the moment. I make no promises about future ability to take on tasks. I tend to work on only one thing at a time so I dont have to worry about accidentally forgetting about something that is not what Im focused on. I have whatever work project Im working on, whatever home project Im working on, and then I attend meetings where I participate but dont take any action items unless they are related to my project.

Ill often times buy some stuff for a project, my wife will put the items away, and Ill totally forget that I needed to do that project until I accidentally find the stuff in a cabinet.

4) I live from my calendar, but I still miss about 80% of non routine appointments. If I have a non routine appointment I pretty much have to think about it all day to avoid missing it so I try to schedule them in the morning to reduce the amount of time I have to worry about them.

5) people have bad dreams about showing up to a class not knowing about a test or final. I had this happen multiple times in school, including a class that I failed because I thought I dropped it (I was able to get it changed to incomplete so it didnt impact my GPA).

6) Most recently I have had a lot of stress worrying about properties that I might own that I have forgotten about, so over the last few years I have been selling all my real estate.

7) at work I have no capability to hold people accountable for more than one or two things. I have adopted a strategy of only hiring people that I dont have to micromanage. Over time the people I can work with demonstrate that we can make an agreement to get certain things done and I can rely on them to do it. I minimize the number of things that I have to track. On the plus side I stay focused on the top priorities and dont sweat the small stuff.

8) I have accepted how I am. Every strength is a weakness and vice versa. I apparently have very high self esteem so have never let it bother me that I am so incompetent in this area. Every time I miss an appointment/commitment, it reminds me to make less commitments.