Is Selfishness an N.T. trait?

[total-recoil]

I've always had this strange experience where one of the reasons I feel so disconnected is I find people to be selfish. It's one reason why I connect so much better with animals. I'm not sure if anyone can follow this but the impression I so often get is that the people I meet from day to day are sort of shallow and act out of personal gain.
Years ago I had this experience where a Russian friend asked me to phone a company in London to help him arrange some kind of sales contract for the company he was setting up. To help my friend out I made the phone calls and passed messages back and forth. Anyway, one day, my Russian friend comes up to me looking very upset and concerned and tells me he just heard this guy in London I'd been in contact with had fallen ill. I asked my friend to take it easy and suggested maybe we could send a get well card or something. "Don't you see?", my friend groaned. "We no longer have a connection to get a sales contact with the company in London!" I had just assumed my friend was concerned about this guy's health and felt an idiot when I realised the truth. Now, my initial reaction was simply sympathy for someone I'd spoken to by phone who fell ill so just assumed it had been about that.
Anyway, to get to the point I'm saying basically I have never felt comfortable choosing friends on the basis of what they may or may not have or any use they might be to me. That kind of selfishness and phony shallowness kind of catches me off guard everytime it comes my way. For example, a few months ago there was a girl who really started to flirt with me a lot so I just figured she was interested in me as a person and chatted to her a lot. However, when she asked me all these questions about marriage and my attitude to marriage, I answered honestly. Then she became really cold and even a bit hostile as the days passed by. Later I found out she'd been on the point of returning to her home country where an arranged marriage had been set up for her by her family. I finally twigged her interest in me was connected to this and, more than likely, she had been hoping to marry a willing party in order to be able to remain in the country.
I guess the reason I like animals so much is dogs, for example, love you for who you are and not what you appear to have.
Maybe a lot of the shallowness in society today is partly cultural and connected to materialist ideology but who said only aspies have empathy issues:
I Me Mine - The Beatles - YouTube

 

[Judge]

I can only say I've never thought of trying to cultivate any friendship based on personal gain. Always did so on a perceived thought of "clicking" with someone else on some specific level. Maybe in a world dominated by Neurotypicals it was just me being naive. I'm not really sure...but I'd think in general selfishness probably isn't confined to any one neurological state. I guess these are the sort of social dynamics I'm only now beginning to sort out in my own head.

 

[Ereth]

Selfishness is absolutely not restricted to the neurotypical realm---I have moments in which I am selfish, and so does everyone here, I'll bet. If it were really as simple as that, then we could act like demigods or something. But all that holier-than-thou business never sits right with me.

 

[Dario Visconti]

People on the spectrum usually don't have the early initiation that NTs have into these things like selfishness, exploitation, bullying, thinking of profit and personal gain. And that's because they have more or less difficulties in their social skills, most commonly when early of age. Or maybe the circumstances lead the spectrum people in not having them. I can tell you "from the inside" that having been raised as "one of them naturals except a few differences and whims" that they learn it early on. And the thing is that you get to learn it too, 'cause else the wolves might as well eat you when they'll learn that you're a sheep. All kinds of people exist everywhere, in every single category you might think, whether NTs, Aspergers, black, white etc. The question is what would you do about it. When you interact with many people, you see the chance that they can offer you something, especially if you feel superior to them. That's why the glasses boy will always be bullied, the loner guy will be the "loser", the naive guy will be the errand boy etc. Yes, that's something that most NTs learn since they're kids and carry it on all of their lives. And here's the thing: if you don't fit into those criteria they set, you end up earning a label. Doesn't matter whether it applies to you or not. They don't care. Of course, not all of them are like that. I know many proven NTs that aren't like that and yet, they have those labels. They think they know everything because someone just like them labelled them "normals" and all others "non-normals". Two last things: (1) Do you think that when they shake hands or gossip or chit chat with each other, they really feel close the way you feel close with someone else? If you don't know the answer, I'll give it to you: No. Most of the time, they do it 'cause they have something to earn from it and when they do, then they backstab them. And (2) They set the rules that I described in (1) and act according to them and then, *they*, call autistics "antisocial" and "dumb" or "weird"? It's plain logic! They're wrong. And that's why their "culture" fails and will continue to decline.

 

[Ereth]

I was never considered "normal" by my peers, and this was well before I found out I was autistic. The social atmosphere was dictated by the most popular kids in school. I was at the bottom of the pile, though my intelligence kind of forced a grudging respect out of most people.

It's not an "NT vs. ASD" thing at all. It's one of the cruel aspects of human nature to pick on things that are considered "different," or "unsuitable," or whatever. Take a look at any society throughout history and you'll find at least one equivalent to this behavior.

 

[Dario Visconti]

I know. That's why I said that that all kinds of people exist in every place and under whatever label, meaning that human nature doesn't stand for a group over another, whether it's aspies and nts or blacks and whites.

 

[Aspieistj]

Interesting scenario:
I was out to lunch with two NTs, both retired RNs like me. Both felt quite free to "remind" me whenever I committed a crime against them. Nurse 1 constantly has to pee and is very germ phobic, and ALWAYS rushes off to the bathroom immediately after ordering. Nurse 2 is diabetic, not germ phobic, and sometimes goes to the bathroom to inject insulin before she eats, and sometimes she injects right at the table if there is privacy. I am fairly germ phobic but I don't like to wander off the bathroom if I don't have to pee. Even though I may have washed my hands, I still have to exit the room without touching anything dirty. So--I was carrying a little baggy with what I thought was one last damp hand wipe. I sat there and pulled out the wipe and realized it was actually two wipes, joined together. I was already cleaning my hands when I noticed the second wipe. I figured Nurse 1 would soon rush off to the bathroom and since Nurse 2 had already injected herself I decided to offer her the second wipe. As I was just starting to clean my hands Nurse 1 loudly exclaimed, "SHARE!" and snatched the dangling second wipe. She wiped her hands and THEN offered the used wipe to Nurse 2. I do share whenever I have something that can be shared even though I may not want to because I realize it is rude not to do so. Both these nurses have been recipients of shared "goodies" from me so I see no reason to have made anyone angry. I am certain Nurse 1 would have declined to use an already used wipe. Who was the most socially unacceptable person at the table?

 

[Licorice]

Saying that selfishness is inherent to NTs would imply that non-NTs are inherently selfless... which has not been true in my experience. I've been treated very unkindly in the past by other Aspies, and have actually come to prefer NTs who seem more interested in me as a person to round out the negatives.

In the past I attracted quite a few unpleasant NTs, too. Sometimes it was people online who saw me as nothing more than an outlet for their personal problems with no feelings of my own, and sometimes it was people offline who saw someone different and thought that they could gain something from putting me down. I got better at detecting some basic signs of someone untrustworthy and stopped handing out trust so easily to people I couldn't honestly say I knew, and there have been fewer disappointments.

 

[total-recoil]

I think any perception outlined in my post of a connection between N.T's and selfishness may have been a bit tactless and perhaps I'd better explain in more detail.
To put minds at ease my post would have been a lot more comfortable had I just referred to "people" collectively.
Knowing animal behaviour as well as I do, I'm aware animals can be selfish too. For example, my dog pulls the hell out of me when I take him on a walk as his predominant interest is to sniff and scent whatever is around, sometimes almost pulling me to the floor. However, animal selfishness to me seems more spontaneous and evolutionary, not calculated. My own theory is the head wolf is a pack isn't the selfish wolf but the one that has the best ability physically and mentally to protect the pack. Experience tells me animals perceive strength and leadership through this ability to protect the collective pack. So, the opposite of selfishness is really a strength.
So back to my original point (or gripe). No matter how I dress it up, I dislike this whole notion of people using other people whether it be economically or emotionally. I perhaps should have pointed out I'm aware this doesn't apply to every single person and doesn't specifically relate to any neurological type or even social group. It may be more of a problem in some cultures than in others. I believe there is an economic connection as well I won't bother delving into here. Actually, despite the fact a lot of people called John Lennon a hypocrite, I think some of his music hints at the same kind of feeling I was trying to convey about the way society has developed. Apart from Imagine, one song I really relate to a lot is Watching The Wheels and the lyrics run:

"People say I'm crazy doing what I'm doing
Well they give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin
When I say that I'm o.k. well they look at me kind of strange
Surely you're not happy now you no longer play the game

People say I'm lazy dreaming my life away
Well they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me
When I tell them that I'm doing fine watching shadows on the wall
Don't you miss the big time boy you're no longer on the ball

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go

Ah, people asking questions lost in confusion
Well I tell them there's no problem, only solutions
Well they shake their heads and they look at me as if I've lost my mind
I tell them there's no hurry
I'm just sitting here doing time

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go
I just had to let it go"

Saying that selfishness is inherent to NTs would imply that non-NTs are inherently selfless... which has not been true in my experience. I've been treated very unkindly in the past by other Aspies, and have actually come to prefer NTs who seem more interested in me as a person to round out the negatives.

In the past I attracted quite a few unpleasant NTs, too. Sometimes it was people online who saw me as nothing more than an outlet for their personal problems with no feelings of my own, and sometimes it was people offline who saw someone different and thought that they could gain something from putting me down. I got better at detecting some basic signs of someone untrustworthy and stopped handing out trust so easily to people I couldn't honestly say I knew, and there have been fewer disappointments.