I can relate to your situation as I think that I too suffer from ASD. When I am in a situation where there are multiple individuals talking, like at a party or a restaurant meetup, much of what happens just flies right by me. Anything that happens outside of a rather tight sphere around me is just background noise. I take ballet classes, and my ballet teacher has learned that if she wants to correct my position, the best place to be is standing right in front of me.
I have a theory that my condition may be developmental. I was effectively blind until the second semester of my freshman year in high school. That was the first time that my vision was tested, and it was found to be severely deficient, on the order of 20–400, or as my opthalmologist once said “Can’t count the fingers on your own outstretched hand.” I always wondered why I don’t have the same vivid images of my childhood that my siblings have, and I think that I did not have a vivid world until I got my first pair of glasses. One of the most vivid memories I have is when the glasses tech reached across the small table to put my glasses on for the first time and I realized that she had a face with all kinds of details and nuances. While I can now see those faces, I still am not at all good at interpreting any social cues.
To this day, though, I still have problems receiving information that comes from outside of that very small sphere surrounding my head. I missed out on a lot of the learning to interpret social cues that we are supposed to be picking up as we mature. I am at my best up close and personal, and I am great at connecting with one or two people in very close proximity, but very quickly can get confused and withdrawn in larger social situations. This has had problematic effects on my pretty much non-existent dating life, and you can see more about those effects in my post at:
