My apologies to the Mods if this is the wrong forum; I first considered IMHO but I’d like a factual answer if there is one, so I thought I’d post it here.
While at college I met a young man we’ll call Chad; he was a friend-of-a-friend. C was rather exuberantly friendly, but it didn’t take long for him to become an extreme wear on my nerves and those of others. The main problem was that Chad, despite being a twentysomething man, acted like a three-year-old.
It was bizarre. It was as though when his body aged his mind remained frozen at about three. He was obviously intelligent enough academically, but had simply missed the socialization train or something. He would do things that young men are just not supposed to do – ever been talking to someone, and someone else you know walks in, so you interrupt your conversation for just a minute to exchange pleasantries with the other person? Normally, your first companion will sit quietly or even say hello to the newcomer, but not Chad. Instead of waiting for the conversation to resume, he would start chanting your name louder and louder until you had to cease speaking to the other person to return your attention to him. Any regular person would understand that this is not appropriate behavior after about age three, but Chad simply didn’t comprehend this.
He acted inappropriately towards women, especially when it came to physical expressions of affection. Chad would just hang all over you in a manner that made me and all of my female friends very uncomfortable, and even when we made it clear that we did not appreciate this he would still attempt to continue this behavior. I’ve seen girls just lose their cool and snap at him angrily, especially when he came up behind them and tried hugging them suddenly. It’s not very pleasant to be minding your own business and suddenly discover two big burly arms wrapping around your frame without any warning at all. After I reported him to the authorities, Chad received a warning and backed off in his attentions towards me, but I still saw him acting in much the same manner towards other women. It got to the point where I and my friends would avoid him when possible and I became downright surly whenever he would approach me.
Part of Chad’s problem was in his unpredictability – I never knew if he would be laughing, whining, or seething with rage. I knew lots of young men on campus, and none behaved like he did. He genuinely did act like a three-year-old lost in a twenty-year-old’s body. Is there a name for this condition? When someone’s chronological age does not jive with their level of maturity? Or was Chad just weird? I’d really like to know.
Chances are that Chad might have had some degree of Autism. Perhaps not enough to make him intellectually disabled, but enough to make him socially inept especially in the circumstances you spoke about.
Saying that someone’s chronological age doesn’t match their emotional age assumes that you’re supposed to naturally attain certain levels of maturity as you grow older. People do mature as they age, but it’s mostly a function of their socialization by their guardians, and not of aging itself. So if a child’s parents do a piss-poor job of disciplining them, he or she probably won’t ever learn to consistently behave in an appropriate manner, no matter how old they get.
Of course, it’s possible that Chad has a personality disorder or other genuine illness, but without a degree or three in an appropriate field of study, we can’t diagnose him.
I see boys in men’s body’s more often than I’d like, though usually not that extreme. There could be a few crossed wires in this guy’s head, or he could just be an idiot. The difficult part is telling how much of which it is; people can sometimes have a slight problem (which is relatively easy to control), but use it as an excuse to act very bad; criminals have this tendancy. This guy may join their ranks if he can’t change soon enough.
In Ireland however it’s called “dyslexia and sure he’s only being friendly”. :rolleyes:
FTR, afaik, Asbergers is generally much more severe than that described above, but DAMP does tend to have touches of Asbergeresque behaviour in terms of boundry recognition etc.
It could also be that he has a type of schizophrenia. My wife’s boss has a daughter that had her ‘break’ when she was about 10 or 11 and now that she is 18 chronologically, she still acts like a 10-11 year old maturity wise.
Guys can also be social misfits, especially if they were excessively nerdy in high school (IMHO). I too was a nerd in school and hung out with two other guys who were far worse than me. Several years ago, I got back in touch with both of them via Classmates.com and found that nothing had changed in their lives SINCE high school. In fact, I was surprised that both seemed exactly alike they they didn’t keep in contact with each other. Both seemed to be compulsive liars and switched conversation subjects about once a minute to try to steer the topic towards something only THEY knew something about. If I had something to add, the topic would instantly switch to something very esoteric in either the IT field or fringe goth music/ industrial music scene until it got so esoteric no one would know what the hell they were talking about.
