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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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 :)
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.
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.
Human society is anything but.
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.
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.
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.