What can I as a social anxious and reserved Aspie male do about accusatory women?

[tree]

No I wouldn’t no, there’d be no risk of a false acccusation.

Oh, I think that is a misconception.

Rape or theft, either sex could be subject to those.

 

[Raphael Outcast]

Oh, I think that is a misconception.

Rape or theft, either sex could be subject to those.

Have to say I am 100% with Frostee on this one. Teenaged girl in the dark, if you're an adult male, that's a very sensitive area. Teenaged boy in the dark, it'd be me that was frightened for myself!

 

[tree]

That was my implication.

That either sex could be subject to rape or theft.
And that the potential victim might be either person in the situation.
The one in the car or the one on the bike.

However, none of that happened during this incident.

 

[Judge]

That was my implication.

That either sex could be subject to rape or theft.
And that the potential victim might be either person in the situation.
The one in the car or the one on the bike.

However, none of that happened during this incident.

Yes. Exposure to people in just about any community bearing false or flawed witness is always a possibility.

An exposure one can't necessarily avoid.

Something of a similar nature happened to me a few months ago. An insurance adjuster filed a claim against me over an accident involving a car I didn't own, and in a city I haven't been to in over thirty years. It didn't involve law enforcement or due process, yet I still had to defend myself with the facts in a very slow-moving and at times, frustrating private sector bureaucracy.

It wasn't difficult for my insurance carrier's adjuster to prove that I wasn't at fault. When the claim was closed without payment, I was offered no apology at all by the other party. I'm guessing the adjuster probably moved on to blame yet another innocent party. Whatever it took to avoid indemnifying their own policyholder.

 

[Kalinychta]

If I had been the girl, I too would have become very frightened by a car pulling to the side of the road in the dark in front of me. One in six women are victims of an attempted or completed rape. It’s just a scary reality we have to live with.

A strategy women are taught is to face a potential perpetrator and loudly confront him. It puts would-be rapists off. If you display confidence and aggression rather than fear, there’s a good chance that they’ll think twice about attacking you.

That said, I completely 100% understand your feelings of hurt and humiliation. Especially as an autistic person. I would feel sick about it for weeks. But you didn’t do anything wrong, and neither did the girl. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s as simple as that. It might help you feel better if you understand her perspective. Don’t take it personally.

 

[Raphael Outcast]

A strategy women are taught is to face a potential perpetrator and loudly confront him. It puts would-be rapists off. If you display confidence and aggression rather than fear, there’s a good chance that they’ll think twice about attacking you.

Aha! Well, I don't know about Frostee, but I certainly was not aware of this. Hopefully this may help Frostee make more sense of the girl's verbal assault.

That said, I completely 100% understand your feelings of hurt and humiliation. Especially as an autistic person. I would feel sick about it for weeks. But you didn’t do anything wrong, and neither did the girl. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s as simple as that. It might help you feel better if you understand her perspective. Don’t take it personally.

Fully concur with all of this. Hopefully Frostee can begin to put the misfortunate episode in the past with a clear conscience.

 

[Judge]

The sad part of it all is not about "accusatory women" so much as it is how so many of us on the spectrum of autism can ruminate over any and all negative social encounters. Even brief ones.

Wondering what went wrong and whether or not we could have done better. It's just what many of us do.

 

[SDRSpark]

Aha! Well, I don't know about Frostee, but I certainly was not aware of this. Hopefully this may help Frostee make more sense of the girl's verbal assault.

Don't feel bad, I'm female and this is the first time I'm hearing of it too. I can't fathom thinking it's reasonable to verbally assault someone having no real evidence of their intentions. So what if they pulled off the road near me? People pull off the road all the time - especially in a place designated for doing so. Not everything everyone does has to do with me. It would be weird if they saw me, processed that I'm female, and specifically avoided an action that they were going to take regardless of my presence, for fear of offending me.

The sad part of it all is not about "accusatory women" so much as it is how so many of us on the spectrum of autism can ruminate over any and all negative social encounters. Even brief ones.

Wondering what went wrong and whether or not we could have done better. It's just what many of us do.

This, so much this. I'm still ruminating over things that happened almost a year ago.

 

[Judge]

This, so much this. I'm still ruminating over things that happened almost a year ago.

I understand. I do so over conversations I had decades ago.

But then in my case part of it lies in having discovered my autism in my mid-fifties.

 

[Raphael Outcast]

The sad part of it all is not about "accusatory women" so much as it is how so many of us on the spectrum of autism can ruminate over any and all negative social encounters. Even brief ones.

Wondering what went wrong and whether or not we could have done better. It's just what many of us do.

Yes, how horribly horribly true. I spend most of my waking moments replaying flashbacks of situations I messed up, especially my too-many waking moments in the night. Sometimes I'm actually so busy recalling a previous situation I messed up that it totally distracts me from a situation which is happening right now, so then I mess up that situation too, thereby adding to my video library of situations I messed up and giving myself more choice of messed-up situations to ruminate on in future...

 

[Judge]

It's what we do and who we are. Ruminating and overthinking past social encounters. And not necessarily coming to any resolve.

 

[SDRSpark]

I understand. I do so over conversations I had decades ago.

But then in my case part of it lies in having discovered my autism in my mid-fifties.

I only really learned about autism recently (I'll be 32 years old in a couple months). I always suspected, but I really dug my heels in and started learning about it because...of a situation that I messed up (at least in part. I wasn't the only one messing up there...)

 

[Judge]

I only really learned about autism recently (I'll be 32 years old in a couple months). I always suspected, but I really dug my heels in and started learning about it because...of a situation that I messed up (at least in part. I wasn't the only one messing up there...)

Yes. While we aren't likely to resolve such problems, at least we find out their proximate cause.

Finding out that we're on the spectrum. It's a big deal.

 

[Aspychata]

l totally side with Frostee because one time in LA, l waited four hours at fender bender , the guy that drove into my car from oncoming traffic lane, lied blatantly to police right in front of me. If l had not stayed, they would have shown up at my door and arrested me. Because he claimed l wouldn't give him my driver's license. This is after we exchanged info. You really never know and it's wise to be cautious in plublic spaces and cars. And especially if there are no witnesses around.

Alot of things happen to people around cars, think personal safety at all times.

 

[paloftoon]

Maybe she could've reacted angry rather than frightened because if she shows fear, then she might be an easier target for some people. Also, if she reacts angrily, other people in or who pass by in the vicinity might be able to hear.

 

[Frostee]

So are you saying that normal people don't think about past awkward social situations? I think they do.

 

[Fino]

I don't believe anyone said that, no.

 

[Raphael Outcast]

So are you saying that normal people don't think about past awkward social situations? I think they do.

Well, if you handed me a true-or-false questionnaire, then for the proposition "Normal people don't think about past awkward social situations", I'd have to tick True: not because they don't, but because they only do it a tiny tiny tiny amount, compared to us; a negligible amount, let's say.

My impression is quite a lot of normal people have practically no memory anyway! Certainly no memory for detail, and only a very hazy visual memory, and often very little sense of the drama or poignancy of a situation. This is of course a huge generalization: there are intelligent normal people (if that isn't a contradiction in terms, ha ha) who do possess these attributes, but even they don't tend to be haunted & tortured by them.

This may partly explain why anxiety is a typical feature of A.S.D. (do you think?): we picture scenarios so vividly & in such detail.

The autistic mind seems to have no Off switch, no Stop button. I believe normal people do have those controls, & often those controls even cut in automatically, without needing to be manually activated by the user. There must be a lot of reasons why many people on the Spectrum end up abusing drink or drugs (or both), but in my case one reason has definitely been that, in the absence of an Off switch or a Stop button, I just needed to pour sand into the works until the mechanism could no longer keep going.

I remember once building a Lego house, not to any printed plan. This would be circa 1980. The roof wouldn't fit, because 1970s Lego roof bricks were all either two studs or four studs wide, and I'd unwittingly built a house which was an odd number of studs in length. So the entire property had to be dismantled & rebuilt from the ground up. Then, for similar reasons, the ridge of the roof ended up being off-centre, & the eaves overhung further on one side than on the other. Well, obviously I couldn't have that!

Eventually it was bedtime. I cried & cried, & begged for extra time to get the pesky house right. Eventually this trick ceased working, so after using up several allowances of extra time I was dragged from the playroom & put firmly to bed. So I just lay there in the dark for what must have been at least four hours, waiting for my parents to go to bed & trying to redesign the house in my mind. Then I crept back to the playroom, closed the door very slowly (so it wouldn't creak), latched it very slowly (so it wouldn't clunk), switched on the light very slowly (so the switch wouldn't ping), & got on with dismantling & rebuilding my house for the zillionth time. About 7 o'clock the following morning my stepmother found me, blearily but successfully completing the house after a further zillion or so rebuilds.

And I think probably some of us, in the same way, struggle to let go of mistakes we've made or situations we've misjudged, and no, I don't think normal people think about past situations to this kind of extent at all.

 

[SDRSpark]

Well, if you handed me a true-or-false questionnaire, then for the proposition "Normal people don't think about past awkward social situations", I'd have to tick True: not because they don't, but because they only do it a tiny tiny tiny amount, compared to us; a negligible amount, let's say.

My impression is quite a lot of normal people have practically no memory anyway! Certainly no memory for detail, and only a very hazy visual memory, and often very little sense of the drama or poignancy of a situation. This is of course a huge generalization: there are intelligent normal people (if that isn't a contradiction in terms, ha ha) who do possess these attributes, but even they don't tend to be haunted & tortured by them.

This may partly explain why anxiety is a typical feature of A.S.D. (do you think?): we picture scenarios so vividly & in such detail.

The autistic mind seems to have no Off switch, no Stop button. I believe normal people do have those controls, & often those controls even cut in automatically, without needing to be manually activated by the user. There must be a lot of reasons why many people on the Spectrum end up abusing drink or drugs (or both), but in my case one reason has definitely been that, in the absence of an Off switch or a Stop button, I just needed to pour sand into the works until the mechanism could no longer keep going.

I remember once building a Lego house, not to any printed plan. This would be circa 1980. The roof wouldn't fit, because 1970s Lego roof bricks were all either two studs or four studs wide, and I'd unwittingly built a house which was an odd number of studs in length. So the entire property had to be dismantled & rebuilt from the ground up. Then, for similar reasons, the ridge of the roof ended up being off-centre, & the eaves overhung further on one side than on the other. Well, obviously I couldn't have that!

Eventually it was bedtime. I cried & cried, & begged for extra time to get the pesky house right. Eventually this trick ceased working, so after using up several allowances of extra time I was dragged from the playroom & put firmly to bed. So I just lay there in the dark for what must have been at least four hours, waiting for my parents to go to bed & trying to redesign the house in my mind. Then I crept back to the playroom, closed the door very slowly (so it wouldn't creak), latched it very slowly (so it wouldn't clunk), switched on the light very slowly (so the switch wouldn't ping), & got on with dismantling & rebuilding my house for the zillionth time. About 7 o'clock the following morning my stepmother found me, blearily but successfully completing the house after a further zillion or so rebuilds.

And I think probably some of us, in the same way, struggle to let go of mistakes we've made or situations we've misjudged, and no, I don't think normal people think about past situations to this kind of extent at all.

You hit the nail on the head. And I've had (assumed) "normal" people just "demand" that I stop thinking about something, think about something else etc. Seriously, if I had that ability I wouldn't have done it a long time ago because this isn't a lot of fun for me either.

 

[Raphael Outcast]

You hit the nail on the head.

Why, thank you!

On a good day, that has been known. It's among my superpowers, but I seem unable to command this power at will, alas.

The assumed normal people to whom you refer doubtless attended the same Normality Training College where they learned to say, "Cheer up!" when you're depressed. As if that were a viable option for a depressed person.

On reflection I probably just wanted to talk about Lego for a bit, to be honest. In which case, maybe it would have been more honest to just start a Lego thread.