Theory of Mind: topic for thought

[WereBear]

I ran across this in another thread:

I have mixed feelings about that. I've been a step father for 3 years. The child was a Nt girl, 8 to 11 years old and it was like Hell on earth to me.
As a Nt she had little to no interest on anything except reality shows and gossip. She told me about about that guy who supposedly told that thing to that other girl that came to her and told her something else and she knew it wasn't the truth so she told another guy, blah blah. Boring. I can't stand that kind of thing, always makes me feel these people have too much spare time and don't do anything useful with it...
As she liked gossip she lied all the time, tried to manipulate me in any possible way, etc.
When she wanted something she was so nice to me, but when I gave her what she wanted, then she started treating me like sh#t.
To be true I'd prefer having Asperger's children. Won't be easy but at least I won't have to handle this.

and it occurred to me that this is how they do it.

I've heard Aspies described as "autism with no mental impairment" and I would agree. There is also "delayed social development" and I would agree... but perhaps this is why:

Because nothing was more boring to me as a child and teen as exactly what is described in the quote. All the girls around me wanted to chatter about the most boring ephemera imaginable and it drove me almost out of my mind.

I had one friend, pre-teen, who was bright and accepting of my quirks and we co-wrote stories about magic dolphins and shared a rich imaginary world of our own devising. Then she entered puberty, and became this boy-mad person who wanted to talk about how cute a certain teen boy was in this or that TV show, and how she could just shriek when some boy in her class would look at her, and to me they were all very immature (well, of course ) and I could not see the attraction and I certainly could not join her in this new world.

(Though I am a cis-woman who is straight, I liked adult men, and it was a while before my body caught up with my mind. So I don't think there was anything wrong with my social development in that area. I just didn't find my peers romantically interesting until early adulthood.)

But my point is that they think about this social minutia all the freakin' time. The same way we get into machines or computers or quantum physics or biology or whatever we find fascinating -- for years they do this with social mechanics.

Heck, if we did that for years, we'd be even better at it!

It looks instinctual, but I do wonder if it really is: perhaps it is only that they are wired to be as fascinated by tiny social wavelets as we are about our stuff.

 

[Liambruno]

And that's not considered a restricted or intense interest because it's common. Interesting thought; you might be on to something. Could it be that some aspies are undiagnosable because they develop an intense interest in social interaction (not NT, but doesn't give a crap about trains, dinosaurs, or science)?

 

[garnetflower13]

Because nothing was more boring to me as a child and teen as exactly what is described in the quote. All the girls around me wanted to chatter about the most boring ephemera imaginable and it drove me almost out of my mind.

Oh, yes I remember my middle school years. All the girls wanted to do was sit around chatting about male anatomy and giggling. I especially found this boring because my mother had sat me down and explained the facts of life to me with the use of a little booklet, so I didn't find it necessary to sit around using euphemisms about sex and anatomy and giggle about it. And these girls never wanted to talk about anything that I found remotely interesting; just the latest songs, fads, and boys.

(Though I am a cis-woman who is straight, I liked adult men, and it was a while before my body caught up with my mind.

Same here! I always had crushes on guys older than myself.

 

[clg114]

I ran across this in another thread:



and it occurred to me that this is how they do it.

I've heard Aspies described as "autism with no mental impairment" and I would agree. There is also "delayed social development" and I would agree... but perhaps this is why:

Because nothing was more boring to me as a child and teen as exactly what is described in the quote. All the girls around me wanted to chatter about the most boring ephemera imaginable and it drove me almost out of my mind.

I had one friend, pre-teen, who was bright and accepting of my quirks and we co-wrote stories about magic dolphins and shared a rich imaginary world of our own devising. Then she entered puberty, and became this boy-mad person who wanted to talk about how cute a certain teen boy was in this or that TV show, and how she could just shriek when some boy in her class would look at her, and to me they were all very immature (well, of course ) and I could not see the attraction and I certainly could not join her in this new world.

(Though I am a cis-woman who is straight, I liked adult men, and it was a while before my body caught up with my mind. So I don't think there was anything wrong with my social development in that area. I just didn't find my peers romantically interesting until early adulthood.)

But my point is that they think about this social minutia all the freakin' time. The same way we get into machines or computers or quantum physics or biology or whatever we find fascinating -- for years they do this with social mechanics.

Heck, if we did that for years, we'd be even better at it!

It looks instinctual, but I do wonder if it really is: perhaps it is only that they are wired to be as fascinated by tiny social wavelets as we are about our stuff.

You mentioned Aspies as being "autism with no mental impairment". I was diagnosed with the criteria in the DSM4. According to it, that is pretty much the case. By definition, the difference between classic autism and Asperger's Syndrome is that there is no cognitive or linguistic impairment in AS. The Aspie can have any of the other symptoms of autism. Of course, in the US, the diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome does not exist because of the DSM5.

Your pre-teen friend was probably a very smart NT. About the age that she started getting very social is about the age that we start getting singled out as being different, weird and not socially acceptable. For me there were several reasons for this. I had very specific interests that I wanted to know about. All the small talk & chit-chat that the other kids talked about did not tell me anything that I wanted to know. If I am going to have a conversation, I want to learn something useful. This just set me apart further. But I did not mind being alone most of the time (and still don't). I do not want to be like everybody else. Something else to set me apart.

I think that you are right about NTs. They do seem to have socially driven priorities. If you think about it this is not really unusual. The planet if full of social animals and human beings are one of them. In the wild this is a survival strategy and in the beginning it probably was for people too. Maybe they are the way that they are because of leftover instinct. One thing is for sure, most Aspies are not social animals. We are individuals, who do not want to be like anyone else. I do not know about learning to be a NT over time. I have been living in a NT world for 70 years. While I have learned to get by, I am very, very different than any NT that I have ever met.