"Bad" people

[DogwoodTree]

Are you able to tell if your feelings about someone are based on that person's character, or instead based on your own, possibly inaccurate perceptions of that person?

There are a few people I've come across in my life where I just can hardly stand to be around them. There's nothing wrong with them, they're not bad people, they're not mean to me, in fact most of these people actually seem to like me. Maybe it's even the very fact that they do like me that feels so repulsive about them, I don't know.

Watching these people around others, they're typically the kind of person who seems a little bit "off" somehow, but no one else seems to notice. Everyone else seems okay with them. But for me, I can hardly look at them. I read recently that autistics often can't look at the people they don't like and yet will look frequently at people they do like. So maybe this is partly an aspie thing, at least that part of it. But I have no idea if it's something I'm picking up about these people that no one else sees, or if it's just my own craziness interfering with what could otherwise be a perfectly good relationship.

Thoughts?

 

[DogwoodTree]

Trying to categorize what seems "off" about all of them...they all feel "needy" to me, like they need someone else to validate their existence, their value, their identity.

In contrast, the people I feel the most admiration toward, are those who seem more "self-assured", like they know who they are, they choose who they want to be, and they don't need anyone else to validate those choices for them. These are the people I've tried so hard to emulate.

I think part of my repulsion towards those needier people is that I see myself in them. I want to be validated, too. I need someone to substantiate my value, legitimize my identity.

Y'all, I'm so screwed up. I'm sure this is all about "daddy issues", right? I just don't have a clue how to fix that...

 

[Turk]

Are you able to tell if your feelings about someone are based on that person's character, or instead based on your own, possibly inaccurate perceptions of that person?

There are a few people I've come across in my life where I just can hardly stand to be around them. There's nothing wrong with them, they're not bad people, they're not mean to me, in fact most of these people actually seem to like me. Maybe it's even the very fact that they do like me that feels so repulsive about them, I don't know.

Watching these people around others, they're typically the kind of person who seems a little bit "off" somehow, but no one else seems to notice. Everyone else seems okay with them. But for me, I can hardly look at them. I read recently that autistics often can't look at the people they don't like and yet will look frequently at people they do like. So maybe this is partly an aspie thing, at least that part of it. But I have no idea if it's something I'm picking up about these people that no one else sees, or if it's just my own craziness interfering with what could otherwise be a perfectly good relationship.

Thoughts?

Ok this strikes a chord. I wasn't always self aware and I've judged alot of people, based on what I saw as bad. Ive had to revisit these people in my mind, with a new set of eyes, to revaluate whether my perceptions were accurate or just. The reality is most people are just living their lives, blissfully ignorant, and not purposefully offending our civil sensibilities. My judgements of good and bad people seems to stem from a strong sense of justice. I see wrong doing, in my eyes, and cast my judgement. No one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes, and under my system, I wouldn't qualify as good, either. My inability to have conversation, around a difference of opinion or conflict, have me internally building a case against them. There is no doubt there are bad people in the world, but it's all about perspective. I still have instinctive reactive responses to certain people, but I make sure I revisit my reasons for dislike, at a later date. It many cases it's me that's the problem, unfortunately

 

[icesyckel]

I feel this way about certain people sometimes. I used to question it. However, i've since learned to trust my instincts. Often they've proved to be right in time.

 

[DogwoodTree]

The reality is most people are just living their lives, blissfully ignorant, and not purposefully offending our civil sensibilities. My judgements of good and bad people seems to stem from a strong sense of justice. I see wrong doing, in my eyes, and cast my judgement. No one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes, and under my system, I wouldn't qualify as good, either. <snip> It many cases it's me that's the problem, unfortunately

Yes, most people are just living their lives. I'm not perfect, either. I know I have a high propensity to judge people and jump to conclusions, and I've been doing a lot of growing in that area this year as far as giving people--including me--a little grace, you know? The freedom to make mistakes and be "in process" and keep growing.

What I'm asking about here, though, is different, where there is absolutely nothing these people have actually done "wrong"...and maybe my thread title is misleading. I don't think these people are evil or anything at all. One of them is a team pastor at my church. They're good people. I just have a deep-seated dislike for them, with no real justification for it, and yet I can't seem to get around it in my head.

One girl in college...it was the way she scrunched her face when she talked or smiled, and how her smile just didn't seem genuine. A guy in college, same time frame...it was the way he walked, and this look on his face all the time of "I really hope you'll like me." But there are other people with that look that I don't mind at all, and even do like. My dad...well, there are a lot more issues there, I really think he's a sociopath or something. "Narcissist" would be a compliment. But he does have a lot of the traits that would lead me to dislike him even if he hadn't...well...screwed up my childhood so much. A lady at church now...it's the way she's always grinning and making light about tough things, like she's in denial that she's hurting, and yet that's all she talks about. Then there's one of my pastors...she's a very nice lady. She's put a lot of time in with me trying to help me process things. I didn't choose her--I had approached a different pastor for help, but he felt like she would be a better match for me. I just cringed every time I had to meet with her, though. I don't know what it is. She's nice, smart, caring, loving, attentive. Why don't I like her?? Even before I started seeing her for counseling, I didn't like her much. Something about her mannerisms, the way she talks, the way she teaches, the emphasis she puts on certain counseling methods or praying methods or whatever...I just can't get around it. But there's nothing she's done that's *wrong*.

Okay, silly question. Is it normal to just not "like" someone? ...someone who isn't "bad", just someone you don't particularly enjoy? I really think the problem is that they remind me of things about myself that I don't like. Maybe if I could learn to like myself better, I might like them better, too? Could it be that "simple"?

 

[DogwoodTree]

I feel this way about certain people sometimes. I used to question it. However, i've since learned to trust my instincts. Often they've proved to be right in time.

There are people I get that "red flag" feeling from. I've learned to pay more attention to those things, too. Although now sometimes I wonder if I haven't taken it too far in the other direction to where I'm paranoid about almost everyone, especially men. Men feel dangerous, women feel unapproachable and untrustworthy. Admittedly, though, a lot of this is C-PTSD issues and not really AS.

 

[Randomperson]

Existence is and of itself, invalid, it can not be validated, the entire universe as we know it is an illusion of our senses. Even matter is not real, it is merely an illusion of how stratified energy interacts and is felt by our senses.

Incidentally, I find most people just to be more "dumb animals" because they have no interest in understanding anything other than "eat/sh*t/sleep/f*ck/repeat", so yes I find most of the world repulsive, it feels good to get that off my chest so to speak.

 

[karla]

Are you able to tell if your feelings about someone are based on that person's character, or instead based on your own, possibly inaccurate perceptions of that person?

There are a few people I've come across in my life where I just can hardly stand to be around them. There's nothing wrong with them, they're not bad people, they're not mean to me, in fact most of these people actually seem to like me. Maybe it's even the very fact that they do like me that feels so repulsive about them, I don't know.

Watching these people around others, they're typically the kind of person who seems a little bit "off" somehow, but no one else seems to notice. Everyone else seems okay with them. But for me, I can hardly look at them. I read recently that autistics often can't look at the people they don't like and yet will look frequently at people they do like. So maybe this is partly an aspie thing, at least that part of it. But I have no idea if it's something I'm picking up about these people that no one else sees, or if it's just my own craziness interfering with what could otherwise be a perfectly good relationship.

Thoughts?

I´ve heard that being an autistic trait too. It also happens to me, being unable to look at people I dislike and can´t stop looking at people I feel atracted to. I think the reasons why you dislike those people are just personal things. If others don´t see that, I guess it´s just because they don´t have those feelings about the neediness, but that´s normal, there´s things that might annoy someone, which maybe you wouldn´t notice.

 

[DogwoodTree]

I think the reasons why you dislike those people are just personal things. If others don´t see that, I guess it´s just because they don´t have those feelings about the neediness, but that´s normal, there´s things that might annoy someone, which maybe you wouldn´t notice.

Yes, I just feel badly for rejecting them on such ridiculous standards that don't even make sense to me. They're nice people. Seems like I should be able to like them, right?

 

[Turk]

Observing interaction between NT's, we are not alone in this. We are all beings with differing senses, likes, and dislikes. I see and hear comments like, " I don't like him" without any real reason, fairly regularly. I think that sometimes we sense things, at a level, we don't quite understand. I've known people that are so different from one another, who are the best of friends. Yet at the opposite end, people who so similar, but can't stand each other. Could it be something at a biochemical level that we sense. Something at odds with our own chemical make up. With only 10% of the human brain utilised, who knows what other sensory equipment we have available to us.

 

[Wintertime]

Observing interaction between NT's, we are not alone in this. We are all beings with differing senses, likes, and dislikes. I see and hear comments like, " I don't like him" without any real reason, fairly regularly. I think that sometimes we sense things, at a level, we don't quite understand. I've known people that are so different from one another, who are the best of friends. Yet at the opposite end, people who so similar, but can't stand each other. Could it be something at a biochemical level that we sense. Something at odds with our own chemical make up. With only 10% of the human brain utilised, who knows what other sensory equipment we have available to us.

I have a very acute empathic sense, and I often will pick up the essence of a person with very little information. It's more a feeling. It's like, intuitive. Sometimes it can be interfered with insofar as 'is this legitimate intuition, or am I being silly, I should give this person the benefit of the doubt', but I have learned to differentiate between the two to a certain degree of accuracy and I trust my perception. Usually I can identify and articulate the reason but once in awhile it'll just be an incomprehensible feeling.

I have learned in my life to trust my judgment and it is extremely rare that I am wrong about my intuition. I have had a lot of practice, however. The times where I think to myself, 'wow, I've misjudged that person' are few and far between.

 

[Hidden]

For me it's my psychology teacher. There's something about her that makes my skin crawl. She's always "happy" but it never seems genuine. Never gets upset. If I misbehave in class she doesn't stop smiling or threaten detention; she comes up to you and leans over you and physically gets in your face. And says something like "we want to learn, don't we...?" It really scares me. I've asked others, and they think she's a bit eccentric but that's it. My friend thinks I'm a bit weird because I accidentally told her that I was really scared of her.

 

[Vanilla]

I used to have the exact opposite problem to OP, but not so much now that I'm older. When I was younger, I had such a hard time understanding people, that I would determine whether I liked a person on a different set of principles as most regular people would. For example, if a person was nice to me, then that was enough. If other people would normally shun that person, I wouldn't understand why, and would just see a person who was nice.

As I got older, I realised that there are certain traits that people use to judge others, outside of whether they're friendly to you. I've also had to teach myself to actively become more judgemental; firstly, because I needed to recognise the "bad traits", if they were in fact bad, and secondly, liking everyone for simply being nice doesn't always work in your best interest; especially since being nice can be easily faked. This apparently is a common problem for women with AS.

 

[Wintertime]

Vanilla, I was similar in my younger years and was quite naive. I learned hard through experience to listen to my intuition. To trust my 'spidey sense'. I agree with you that people can fake 'nice' (sociopaths are often charmers) and I have also read that for AS women, it is a particuarly tough element to deal with. That we possess a certain innocence to us. I had to learn too, to intellectualise how other people treated me by recognising patterns and extrapolating the likely intent behind or the behaviour that would result, because I didn't have that natural sense of evaluating social behaviour as is. It's hard to explain but it's different from my intuition. I didn't learn how to listen to and trust my intuition until the past year or two. It comes from a feeling, sensing place. Natural social skills are neither feeling nor intellectually based, to me. They are, I'd say, mundane in nature. Just everyday practical skill sets.

 

[Vanilla]

Vanilla, I was similar in my younger years and was quite naive. I learned hard through experience to listen to my intuition. To trust my 'spidey sense'. People can fake 'nice' and I have also read that for AS women, it is a particuarly tough element to deal with. We possess a certain innocence to us. I had to learn too, to intellectualise how other people treated me by recognising patterns and extrapolating the likely behaviour that would result, because I didn't have that natural sense of evaluating social behaviour as is. It's hard to explain but it's different from my intuition.

Ha, I know what you mean about that "spidey sense". I often feel like an innocent child, trying to pass myself off as one of the adults. It's even stranger as you get older, as even the adults who are younger than you somehow seem older

 

[Wintertime]

I feel the same quite often I've had some hard lessons so I can access a sort of social sophistication (in essence, 'mirroring' if not in theory to the letter, but in practice in at least, my own way) but it's entirely intellectual and is quite a strain to maintain for prolonged periods of time. I love my innocence and I never wish to lose that part of me, for it is precious.

Just have to be mindful of who sees it.

Oh, and my comments are in relation mostly to interactions with NTs. With other aspies, it's different. Not always, but often.

 

[icesyckel]

I usually find that, with time, the reasons for my instinctual dislike become apparent. It's not always clear at the time, but I am usually vindicated when I feel I have judged someone unfairly or on skimpy evidence. On a few occasions I have not, I always tried to make amends.

 

[Peace]

My experience is that people are not bad, they just act that way because of feelings or what they have been taught. I do not believe that anyone (call me naive) gets out of bed in the morning and wonders, How Can I Hurt Someone Today?.

 

[Vanilla]

My experience is that people are not bad, they just act that way because of feelings or what they have been taught. I do not believe that anyone (call me naive) gets out of bed in the morning and wonders, How Can I Hurt Someone Today?.

I do agree with you to a degree here Peace, though I do feel that while everyone is human, I do know for sure that there are those few individuals that do go out of their way to hurt others. We wouldn't have bullies otherwise. Even if their actions come from their own insecurities, they tend to feed off the misery of others. It's important to balance both; realising their humanity, while remembering to protect yourself from those who mean to harm us. I wouldn't call it naive so much, as inexperienced; which is a good thing. It suggests that you've been treated well, and are surrounded by good people

 

[hurtloam]

I have extreme reactions to some people as well. Thankfully it's only a handful of people. I just get the feeling that I should stay away from them because they will be trouble, or be manipulative. There's something I can't put my finger on and it upsets me a bit because I genuinely get on ok with most people.