An Unspoken Social Rule

[DuckRabbit]

I always get criticized for saying this, but you should not take NTs completely seriously. Everything they say or do socially is about making the other person feel something, not about transmitting information. On the one hand it's artistic, on the other hand it is dishonest. If you liked her when she promised to call you and (in her mind) wouldn't have liked her if she hadn't, she got all the dopamine and oxytocin she wanted from that exchange. She will not feel bound by her word.

Look at it as a quirk. Maybe you can even frame it as charming.

I think it's quietly diabolical. Your response goes a long way to explaining the mind-set, even if I have to squint to understand it. It's all about making the person feel something in the moment, to reflect well on themselves. Do these people have no past or future? What flummoxed me was the triplicate nature of the overture. If you want that dopamine-oxytocin hit from the other person liking you/ thinking you're charming, whatever, then just express the sentiment once and we can all recognise it's a social game; but to go and concretise it by offering it three times??? . It's left a slightly bitter taste in my mouth so I still haven't bothered about that follow-up phone call...

EDIT/ AFTERTHOUGHT: It's like I hadn't taken the bait with the first "Skype tomorrow?" so she had to embellish it in order to authenticate it so I would believe that we were in fact going to speak on the phone tomorrow. Once she saw I believed her and was taking her at her word, she could then ditch the arrangement/promise in her own mind, content in her momentary dopamine-oxytocin hit - never to be recalled again.

I'm shocked at these (no doubt unconscious) thought processes. Isn't that what a narcissist does? --- reel people in and once they've taken 'his' bait (got people believing what a 'charming' guy they are), they can vanish into thin air, onto the next conquest. No need to validate the impression with actual behaviour; pure impression management. Narcissists have a terrible reputation because of their lack of follow-through; people soon learn how false and deceptive they are --- to think this is the modus operandi of many NTs...?!

 

[DesertRose]

Not sure if this fits, but, my dad was sure to teach me that your word is to be kept. Maybe it's my generation. But I was taught, if you tell someone you'll do something, you back up your word and do it. Its called integrity, (may be the wrong word?) Call it a virtue, or whatever. I know from observing today, if someone friendly says they'll call, or we'll do such and such, I pretty much just let it go. They may, or they may not contact me ever again. So, basically, just don't take it serious, but at the same time, be ready if they do. It's hard to deal with when it happens. Why can't people be straight? I think most of the time, they do this stuff just to be "polite", cause, it would be very impolite to make someone think they never wanted to see them again. Right? : /

 

[Mary Anne]

From Candidly Autistic:

To my friends on the spectrum, let me explain to you an unspoken social rule that possibly nobody has ever explained to you before

If a neurotypical asks you, “What game are you playing?” they’re not asking you to describe the game.

They’re asking you if they can play too.

If a neurotypical asks you, “What are you watching?” they’re not asking you to explain the plot of the movie/tv show to them.

They’re asking if they can watch it with you.

.

When neurotypicals ask you “What are you doing?”

What you think they’re asking: “Please explain to me what you are doing.”
What they’re actually asking: “Can I join you?”
Now here’s the really messed up part. If you start explaining to them what you’re doing? They will interpret that as a rejection.o

What you think you’re saying: [the answer to their question]
What they think you’re saying: This is an elite and exclusive activity for a level 5 friend and you are a level 1 acquaintance. You are not qualified to join me because you don’t know all this stuff. Go away.
.

This is why neurotypicals think you’re being cold and antisocial.

IT’S ALL A HORRIBLE MISCOMMUNICATION.

I didn’t realize, even thought it took me almost three decades to learn this, that this was such a paradigm changing realization until we had our conversation today.

But it really really is. One of the most bewildering realizations I’ve had is most people don’t talk to learn things unless its related to work or directly towards their own hobbies, all the words and questions are bonding questions if done socially. They are “lets make friends” questions.

So if I answer their question without an opportunity for the person asking the question to give a response or to join in somehow, the asker feels alienated and starts shutting down.

Example: what are you reading?

True answer but not what they’re looking for: Title of book

Best answer for social scenarios where I want to retain/create friendship: This book is about x and y but it has z that i know u have an interest in too.


Example: what are you doing?

True answer but not: drawing

Best answer for friends: I’m drawing but would u like company while I’m working?


And sometimes frankly I’m not in a headspace where I can process people so the answer is something like, “I would like to do something in a day or later, do you want to plan something?”

Tldr: communication is weird


that explains so much thank you

(why... do neurotypicals never just say what they mean ie hey this show looks cool mind if I join you?)

Further annoying?

They don’t realize that’s what they’re asking and they just feel rejected and go away. So you can’t even ask them what you did wrong because they can’t even put a finger on why they feel the way they do they just know you made them feel bad for some undefined reason.

What’s messed up about this is that we are the ones that communicate explicitly and simply and are pathologized for it, while allistics literally expect us to READ THEIR MINDS and that’s normal? How even is that reasonable? How is it we are the ones that society thinks are mentally ill?

Uhg.

Just so… for those of you who have to hide your autism, this is a great thing to keep in mind.

source
Reblogged from keelan-666

I do not agree with you! It might be true some times, but most times it’s not true. I ask people what they are reading, watching, playing or doing because:
1. I might be making small talk to get to know them better.
2. Because it might look interesting but I do not want to join in (I never do),
3. Because that person looks so calm, happy, or relaxed, and I am curious as to what brought that to that state of mind.

I am NOT trying to join in or jump in to the situation. I would say I am not a doer, but I am curious. If I ask about your card game, please do not assume I want to play (I detest playing cards, or other games). If I ask what video game you are playing, it’s only because I have never played any video games, and just want to hear from someone who does- but I have no interest in learning how to play either.
I often ask people about the things they are engaged in, because I am interested. I have no desires to join in or learn how to do the thing myself.

When I do art or crafts in public places, people often come up to talk to me and are quite interested in what I am doing. No one is interested in sitting down and doing it with me (thank goodness). When someone asks “what are you playing,” I can say “a book, “War and Peace”, or “I need to left alone right now.”

IF that person gets into a long conversation, I usually loose interest rather quickly. IF they light up and seem happy that someone expressed interest in them- that will make both of us happy.

Please do not give folks the wrong ideas. I been on the planet for 62 years and clearly have not experienced what you described very much- either as the doer, or the interested person. Or an observer nearby. I think when the situation is about children, maybe it’s true what you say, but otherwise, it’s not usually the case.

 

[Mary Anne]

So if I ask a NT "what are you watching?", they think I want to watch it with them?

No they do not. This thread is getting mislead.

 

[Mary Anne]

It's likely because of the rejection part of the equation. They use feelers because they place a high value on being liked. If the person they sent the feelers to does not respond favorably, they would also be able to spare themselves from feeling rejected. Whereas asking directly may lead to a solid yes or no answer = definite rejection.

The sad part is, not all people are able to satisfy themselves with a non-yes answer anyway and still feel annoyed with the person who "rejected" their feelers.



Yeah used to do that too, especially when I'm thinking about something else, or I'm nervous around the person. I lessened it a lot through years of practice...feels like I have to cover all bases or something so my answer would be of more use.

NT are not asking you because they want you to “like them.” This could not be farther from the truth. This derisive dividing and judging saddens me.

 

[LadyBird84]

Like mentioned above, I often have miscommunications in my marriage. My husband always says both my questions and answers are too exact and that makes them hard to answer?! While I think asking exactly what I want to know makes it easier? Quite often I'll accuse him of not answering the question but he says it was an answer to the question?!

All those social questions exhaust me.. Especially at work when I can never really tell if coworkers ask because they need to know or just want to talk.

ETA: Sorry for going off topic a bit.

 

[DuckRabbit]

Not sure if this fits, but, my dad was sure to teach me that your word is to be kept. Maybe it's my generation. But I was taught, if you tell someone you'll do something, you back up your word and do it. Its called integrity, (may be the wrong word?) Call it a virtue, or whatever. I know from observing today, if someone friendly says they'll call, or we'll do such and such, I pretty much just let it go. They may, or they may not contact me ever again. So, basically, just don't take it serious, but at the same time, be ready if they do. It's hard to deal with when it happens. Why can't people be straight? I think most of the time, they do this stuff just to be "polite", cause, it would be very impolite to make someone think they never wanted to see them again. Right? : /

But how polite is it if it's not backed up by actions? To me that crosses the line from polite to patronising. I think it was writer Martin Amis whose father Kingsley advised him to "always sleep with a woman at least twice" - in case she feels rejected if you sleep with her just once. How magnanimous of them! Never mind what it says about their own egos. I'd rather be rejected than patronised/ lied to. Someone has a quote on here about being patronised being just as bad as being insulted.

It is said that psychopaths are so powerful because they are focusing only on the present moment, whereas the rest of humanity is hobbled by focusing on the past and future as well, factoring in greater complexity. The impulse to smooth things over and make everyone happy in the present moment, only to chop and change later according to what is more profitable to the offerer, strikes me as psychopathic/narcissistic. How are some people able to disregard any previous connection or any expectations their utterances and omissions might have created? Does this not show a chilly self-centredness and lack of empathy? - what ASD individuals are so often accused of.

 

[Butterfly88]

I think it can be true sometimes but not always. I have online friends and we'll ask each other weekend plans. Some of us live in different countries so we have no plans of meeting up over the weekend and some of these friends aren't autistic.

 

[DesertRose]

But how polite is it if it's not backed up by actions? To me that crosses the line from polite to patronising. I think it was writer Martin Amis whose father Kingsley advised him to "always sleep with a woman at least twice" - in case she feels rejected if you sleep with her just once. How magnanimous of them! Never mind what it says about their own egos. I'd rather be rejected than patronised/ lied to. Someone has a quote on here about being patronised being just as bad as being insulted.

It is said that psychopaths are so powerful because they are focusing only on the present moment, whereas the rest of humanity is hobbled by focusing on the past and future as well, factoring in greater complexity. The impulse to smooth things over and make everyone happy in the present moment, only to chop and change later according to what is more profitable to the offerer, strikes me as psychopathic/narcissistic. How are some people able to disregard any previous connection or any expectations their utterances and omissions might have created? Does this not show a chilly self-centredness and lack of empathy? - what ASD individuals are so often accused of.

Society is self absorbed. It's the times we live in, or maybe always have.
I don't know about beong in the present moment, being psychopathic...I mean, you can't change things in the past, and the future is not here, so why dwell on either one? Just trying to concentrate on making the here and now enjoyable, sane, good and healthy for all involved is hard enough. If you do what's right here and now, the future is pretty much taken care of.
Yes it's patronising. Not everyone has morals, virtue, or even gives a flip about their fellow man. Today's society is all about 'me', and it seems like that it doesn't matter what others think as long as "me" feels good about "me", and if someone else is hurt because of "me" actions, that's OK because "me" is a great thing, and "me" does exactly what "me" thinks "me" should do, and what "me" wants, without caring what others think or feel. THAT is psychopathic and narcissistic. Me myself and I, make the world go round.
On the other hand, for someone to tell you they'll contact you later, and then dont, we never know what happened at the time they were to contact you. Maybe they had an emergency, a tech problem, a time management problem, just forgot, had something to do. All we know is what we see in our own sphere, there's no way to tell what happened without them telling you, or being there 24/7 with our eye on them constantly. It's hard, but accept it and let it go. Why waste energy trying to figure it out. (Spoken by someone who has huge problems 'letting it go' lol)

 

[Mary Anne]

But how polite is it if it's not backed up by actions? To me that crosses the line from polite to patronising. I think it was writer Martin Amis whose father Kingsley advised him to "always sleep with a woman at least twice" - in case she feels rejected if you sleep with her just once. How magnanimous of them! Never mind what it says about their own egos. I'd rather be rejected than patronised/ lied to. Someone has a quote on here about being patronised being just as bad as being insulted.

It is said that psychopaths are so powerful because they are focusing only on the present moment, whereas the rest of humanity is hobbled by focusing on the past and future as well, factoring in greater complexity. The impulse to smooth things over and make everyone happy in the present moment, only to chop and change later according to what is more profitable to the offerer, strikes me as psychopathic/narcissistic. How are some people able to disregard any previous connection or any expectations their utterances and omissions might have created? Does this not show a chilly self-centredness and lack of empathy? - what ASD individuals are so often accused of.

I think you really ought to read the DSM- 5 (USA) or the ICD-10 ( European), before you lightly throw the word “psychopathic” around. Why are you even discussing that in this thread? I work in the mental health field, and take offense. You cannot connect the woman the OP discusses and judge or label her as such. So why bring it up? Even the term “Narcissist” loses it’s true diagnostic meaning when overused in this manner.

 

[DesertRose]

I think you really ought to read the DSM- 5 (USA) or the ICD-10 ( European), before you lightly throw the word “psychopathic” around. Why are you even discussing that in this thread? I work in the mental health field, and take offense. You cannot connect the woman the OP discusses and judge or label her as such. So why bring it up? Even the term “Narcissist” loses it’s true diagnostic meaning when overused in this manner.

Exactly, though put in so much of a better way.

 

[DuckRabbit]

I think you really ought to read the DSM- 5 (USA) or the ICD-10 ( European), before you lightly throw the word “psychopathic” around. Why are you even discussing that in this thread? I work in the mental health field, and take offense. You cannot connect the woman the OP discusses and judge or label her as such. So why bring it up? Even the term “Narcissist” loses it’s true diagnostic meaning when overused in this manner.

How do you go from “both having a focus on the present moment” to “both are chainsaw murderers, foaming at the mouth”?

I prefer the more nuanced thinking of identifying all the commonalities between categories/labels, and all the differences - what NTs and Aspergers might have in common and where they differ; what I might have in common with a criminal and what I might have in common with Christ; where we are all narcissistic and where we diverge; the ways in which I'm disabled and the ways in which I am able. Only by making the contradictions and paradoxes conscious do we widen our circle of consciousness and transcend the source of conflict. As Carl Jung puts it:

p. 244-245 The tendency to separate the opposites as much as possible and to strive for singleness of meaning is absolutely necessary for clarity of consciousness, since discrimination is of its essence. But when the separation is carried so far that the complementary opposite is lost sight of, and the blackness of the whiteness, the evil of the good, the depth of the heights, and so on, is no longer seen, the result is one-sidedness, which is then compensated from the unconscious without our help.

p. 238 The meeting with ourselves is one of the more unpleasant things that may be avoided as long as we possess living symbolic figures into which everything unknown in ourselves is projected. The figure of the devil, in particular, is a most valuable possession and a great convenience, for as long as he goes about outside in the form of a roaring lion we know where the evil lurks: in that incarnate Old Harry where it has been in this or that form since primeval times. With the rise of consciousness since the Middle Ages he has been considerably reduced in stature, but in his stead there are human beings to whom we gratefully surrender our shadows. With what pleasure, for instance, we read newspaper reports of crime! A bona fide criminal becomes a popular figure because he unburdens in no small degree the conscience of his fellow men, for now they know once more where the evil is to be found.

On the dubious assumption that we always know exactly what evil is and what good is:

p. 245 On paper the moral code looks clear and neat enough; but the same document written on the “living tables of the heart” is often a sorry tatter, particularly in the mouths of those who talk the loudest. We are told on every side that evil is evil and there is can be no hesitation in condemning it, but that does not prevent evil from being the most problematical things in the individual’s life and the one which demands the deepest reflection. What above all deserves our keenest attention is question “Exactly who is the doer?” For the answer to this question ultimately decides the value of the deed. It is true that society attaches greater importance at first to what is done, because it is immediately obviously; but in the long run the right deed in the hands of the wrong man will also have a disastrous effect. No one who is far-sighted will allow himself to be hoodwinked by the right deed by the wrong man, any more than by the wrong deed of the right man.

p. 246 The primitive form of conscience is paradoxical: to burn a heretic is on the one hand a pious and meritorious act […] and on the other hand a brutal manifestation of ruthless and savage lust for revenge.

P.S. What I mean by "the rest of humanity is hobbled by focusing on the past and future as well, factoring in greater complexity" is the ethic of reciprocity that binds communities together and the risk of 'crying wolf' whereby people won't trust you again if you've promised or offered something without following through, once too often. I'm OK with people who are reliably unreliable - you know which category they fall into - but those who are unreliably reliable are harder work

Adding to @DesertRose's possible attributions: There could be something odd, difficult or non-suave in Aspergers which dissuades people from having more contact with them than is absolutely necessary, accounting for non-returned phone calls, one-off invitations etc.

 

[Mary Anne]

How do you go from “both having a focus on the present moment” to “both are chainsaw murderers, foaming at the mouth”?

I prefer the more nuanced thinking of identifying all the commonalities between categories/labels, and all the differences - what NTs and Aspergers might have in common and where they differ; what I might have in common with a criminal and what I might have in common with Christ; where we are all narcissistic and where we diverge; the ways in which I'm disabled and the ways in which I am able. Only by making the contradictions and paradoxes conscious do we widen our circle of consciousness and transcend the source of conflict. As Carl Jung puts it:

p. 244-245 The tendency to separate the opposites as much as possible and to strive for singleness of meaning is absolutely necessary for clarity of consciousness, since discrimination is of its essence. But when the separation is carried so far that the complementary opposite is lost sight of, and the blackness of the whiteness, the evil of the good, the depth of the heights, and so on, is no longer seen, the result is one-sidedness, which is then compensated from the unconscious without our help.

p. 238 The meeting with ourselves is one of the more unpleasant things that may be avoided as long as we possess living symbolic figures into which everything unknown in ourselves is projected. The figure of the devil, in particular, is a most valuable possession and a great convenience, for as long as he goes about outside in the form of a roaring lion we know where the evil lurks: in that incarnate Old Harry where it has been in this or that form since primeval times. With the rise of consciousness since the Middle Ages he has been considerably reduced in stature, but in his stead there are human beings to whom we gratefully surrender our shadows. With what pleasure, for instance, we read newspaper reports of crime! A bona fide criminal becomes a popular figure because he unburdens in no small degree the conscience of his fellow men, for now they know once more where the evil is to be found.

On the dubious assumption that we always know exactly what evil is and what good is:

p. 245 On paper the moral code looks clear and neat enough; but the same document written on the “living tables of the heart” is often a sorry tatter, particularly in the mouths of those who talk the loudest. We are told on every side that evil is evil and there is can be no hesitation in condemning it, but that does not prevent evil from being the most problematical things in the individual’s life and the one which demands the deepest reflection. What above all deserves our keenest attention is question “Exactly who is the doer?” For the answer to this question ultimately decides the value of the deed. It is true that society attaches greater importance at first to what is done, because it is immediately obviously; but in the long run the right deed in the hands of the wrong man will also have a disastrous effect. No one who is far-sighted will allow himself to be hoodwinked by the right deed by the wrong man, any more than by the wrong deed of the right man.

p. 246 The primitive form of conscience is paradoxical: to burn a heretic is on the one hand a pious and meritorious act […] and on the other hand a brutal manifestation of ruthless and savage lust for revenge.

P.S. What I mean by "the rest of humanity is hobbled by focusing on the past and future as well, factoring in greater complexity" is the ethic of reciprocity that binds communities together and the risk of 'crying wolf' whereby people won't trust you again if you've promised or offered something without following through, once too often. I'm OK with people who are reliably unreliable - you know which category they fall into - but those who are unreliably reliable are harder work

Adding to @DesertRose's possible attributions: There could be something odd, difficult or non-suave in Aspergers which dissuades people from having more contact with them than is absolutely necessary, accounting for non-returned phone calls, one-off invitations etc.

Totally lost me in your intellectualised, poetically mysterious mumbo jumbo (even if quoting Carl Jung). I will say it again, that it’s quite wrong to use that word so casually as you are doing. It has NOTHING to do with this thread, or the people posting or spoken about within.