Oh boy, absolutely. Glad to hear that someone else has this experience too. It's like the social part of my brain is drained for blood and energy, and it usually takes an hour or more after having stopped working until things return to "normal".

Say when I'm out traveling or doing some other activity that involves talking to people for most of the day. Conversation flows naturally and I feel at ease interacting with different people about anything really.

This has of course gotten better with regular practice and being aware, but rare times I still feel it is an effort to even produce a coherent sentence in my second language (English) after a really intense day of developing. People notice that I'm acting absent-minded too which is the worst part, but like I said, practice and awareness has generally made it better.

I think people who experience this should look at their development practices. Especially if you don't have a clear goal with what you are doing, you find that you don't have the time to do things properly (like reading code or documentation) or you are changing direction frequently. Chances are you are experiencing a lot of stress, which is one of the "best" ways to make people lose interest in other things.

I don't lose empathy, but I lose the ability to understand or speak English. If someone interrupts me when I am in deep in the groove I can tell someone is talking to me, but I can't understand what they are saying and I can't reply. It takes me around 5 to 10 seconds to context switch back into English.

Amusingly my wife assumes that I am deliberately ignoring her when she interrupts me and storms off in a huff half the time. My staff and students have just learnt that you have to say my name and wait a bit before speaking.

> my wife assumes that I am deliberately ignoring her when she interrupts me and storms off in a huff half the time

If you are interested in tools to reduce this sort of thing, my wife and I developed protocols that help. I've rot13'd them in case you are the type of person who hates unsolicited advice and would prefer to skip it:

- Jura bar bs hf vf qevivat n pne (NXN 2-gba-qrngu-znpuvar) naq jr ner pbairefvat, gur qevire pna fnl "cnhfr" naq gung rkcraqf bhg gb "V erfcrpg lbh naq gur guvatf lbh unir gb fnl. Ubjrire, V hetragyl arrq gb fuvsg zl nggragvba gb guvf bgure gnfx oevrsyl. Cyrnfr cnhfr fcrnxvat hagvy V fnl 'erfhzr' fb gung jura lbh ner fcrnxvat, V pna qribgr fhssvpvrag nggragvba gb yvfgravat gb lbh."

- Vs bar bs hf vf qbvat be guvaxvat nobhg n guvat naq gur bgure nfxf n dhrfgvba, jr vzzrqvngryl fnl "hzzz" gb fvtany gung jr ner guvaxvat. Guvf bar unf gnxra zr n juvyr gb ghea vagb n unovg orpnhfr frireny lrnef ntb V gevrq gb genva zlfrys abg gb rire fnl "hzzz" ba gur nqivpr bs zl choyvp fcrnxvat pynff va hav.

Vs lbh guvax guvf fbeg bs guvat zvtug or urycshy, lbh arrq gb gnyx nobhg vg nurnq bs gvzr gb npghnyyl qrsvar lbhe cebgbpbyf. bgurejvfr, gur zbfg yvxryl erfhyg vf pbashfvba.

The car “pause” keyword rings true to me. When my SO is in the car and I’m driving, if I say “wait” they wait. My mother was in riding along with me the other day and did not wait and I instinctively snapped “shut up” not even realizing what I was saying as I swerved to avoid a car that turned out in front of me. She did not appreciate that.

This would be great if I was able to say anything or even comprehend what was being said. I am effectively like a dog being spoken to by its owner. Like the dog I know someone is talking to me, but I have no idea what is being said nor can I say anything back - about all I can do is look at the person intently and wait for the context switch to finish.

Fyngr fgne pbqrk zhpu?

V va snpg npghnyyl qb.

Bayl bgure cynpr V unir frra guvf pbqr hfrq. V tb ol gur fnzr hfreanzr bire gurer jura V pbzzrag.

Is English your native language? I definitely have friction switching my focus to the other person, but it's not to the extent that I can't literally understand them.

Regardless, I agree with afarrell: explain this to your wife so she can understand your behavior. If you've never explained it, she likely doesn't understand.

English is my native language, but I spent the first 10 years of my career in Japan.

I didn't really notice a difference with which language was being spoken.

My Japanese colleagues came up with a joke (?). They'd ask me something mundane (like: did you eat yet?), but since I was so zombie-like for several minutes, they would slap a post-it on me.

I felt bad about this, but I was managing a 2M line code base (C), and they 'only' had to manage 250k-or-so transistors.

I now believe (for me) that if you (one) is debugging a large code-base, taking a moment to relearn human is to be expected.

It's a self-serving belief, but I have found little evidence that it is wrong...

Yes English is my native language.

As for the wife I have explained it to her on many occasions, but she thinks this is just an excuse that I have made up to allow me to ignoring her :)

Well, the truth is that you are ignoring her, right? You're focusing on whatever you're working on instead of maintaining the ability to even communicate with her.

I had a job where I seemed to be evaluated primarily based on how I talked in meetings. After realizing this, I cut back on the effort I was willing to put into development, cause it would impair my ability to discuss stuff there. Unfortunately some management got quite mad cause I wasn't able to pump stuff out like before. Inside I was just like "you're the one setting the incentives here bruh" lol. I had much better quality of life when I was able to defend myself in meetings so I just stopped working hard.

I am not ignoring her (I will turn to her and look at her), I just can't speak or understand what she is saying. I will be looking straight at her, but I can't understand what she is saying nor reply.

This happens. It has lead to most of my workplace disfunctions. It seems that even programmers can not grok that you can't even English right now.

Almost sounds like the neurons dedicated for auditory processing have been temporarily allocated towards the visual/logical tasks, hence the delay in switching back ;)

Yes that is my hypothesis as well. I have always been able to effectively shutdown my auditory processing when I am concentrating intensely on something (I was notorious in my family for having to be yelled at to get my attention when reading).

I do not. In fact I love taking a break from programming after a long day and talk to people. I think they work different parts of my brain, so it's relaxing.

I think part of this depends on how introverted you are. I'm introverted, so after a long day of hacking, the last thing I want to do is burn more fuel talking to people.

Somewhat similar, but when I first started programming when I was 14, I couldn't listen to music at the same time, it just felt like I couldn't process something "creative" while thinking systematically. Now, I can and I feel like the music occupies the right brain and the hacking/analyzing occupies the left side, basically stimulating both sides of my brain.

There are intense focus sessions though where I turn off the music and after that, I can't talk to people in the hallway and they think I'm being cold. Outside of exceptions like that, it feels mostly like context switching I suppose, like the systemizing side turns off and the creative/human side turns on, or at least, gains control of the gears, so to speak. The best way I can describe it.

I remember experiencing this when I was a teenager and into early 20s. There is something of a mode switch between hyper rational programming mode and human mode. Making the switch rapidly is a learned thing IMO.

Machines, at least within the individual program, is a set of orderly instructions.

Human society is anything but.

I find context switching to be tough. So yes, moving directly from coding to a discussion on sensitive topics is a danger zone for me. I might easily say something I shouldn't.

But once I figured that out, I find the more I code during the week the more I enjoy social and creative activities. It's like one part of my brain is tired and another part needs to be doing stuff for a while.

>Does anyone feel anti-social after a full day of programming?

If I did something cool or make a cool finding, I want to talk about it.

If I'm just gluing stuff together, I'm less interested in talking.

I don't think there's anything special about programming that would affect this -- just being tired after working.

I get that feeling quite often. After a few hours of intense focus on any activity, really, it is much more difficult to engage with anyone. It leaves me feeling both disinterested in other people and easily confused in the conversation.

No just the opposite, really. I find it harder to articulate words into speech for about 15 - 30 minutes, but the urge to do so is strong, kind of like restoring something "out of balance".

Autism spectrum anomalies linked with cognitive metabolic abnormalities -> use a lot of cognitive energy all day -> regress while brain recovers

Jung and some modern psychologists believe that hypersensitivity is its own thing independent from autism. Indeed they assign this trait to some highly intuitive and empathetic people because they pick up on cues that nobody else notices. The label is HSP or High Sensitivity. But having your senses cranked to eleven all the time, we aren’t equipped for that and if you don’t have elaborate coping mechanisms you will put yourself in many awkward situations. A lot of introverts are HSP.

A significant fraction of everyone acts thoughtlessly when they are exhausted or overwhelmed. I would encourage people, before self diagnosing [edit: or believing a clinical diagnosis - this field is more art than science] as Spectrum, to do a little more research and think about whether you believe you have the symptoms all the time or only when you’re overstimulated, and how bad you feel about your behavior afterward, when you have more clarity.

After a particularly intense day of coding it is almost impossible to be emotional with my wife when I get home.