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johnnydangerous
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28 Jul 2011, 4:13 pm

I was supposed to meet this woman to see a movie. We were going to meet up on my day off at 3:30 PM to catch the 4:30 PM show. About 3 AM (I go to sleep at this time due to my job hours) I texted her saying we should just meet at 4:00 PM because it only takes about 10 minutes to get there.

I really thought nothing of it. SO I get up, get ready, and check my phone. She had texted me about 10 AM saying "we should go another time because you sound tired". So I called her and she said I "contradicted myself" and how "action speak louder than words" and "what was I doing up at 3 AM".

Umm...I'm not sure exactly why she was reading so much into everything. I guess this is a neurotypical thing, because I didn't even think much about it at all.

This is why I can't deal with relationships. It seems to me that people just want to fight all the time over nonsense and little things. If I didn't want to go, I'd have said "I'd rather go another day".

But I guess because neurotypicals are used to "reading between the lines" she thought I was trying to brush her off? She lives right near me, what's the big deal? It's not like I totally changed plans! I just suggested we meet a bit later. I don't get it.

And the weird thing is, she's a really sweet girl. This took me by surprise. Can someone tell me...am I off base? Did I do anything really bad, or wrong? People always misunderstand my actions and it makes me sad. :(



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28 Jul 2011, 4:19 pm

She sounds like an idiot. So you changed you mind by changing the time. So what. And being up at 3AM, why is that a crime?

I would say you're better off without her and from how she acted, you are not allowed to change your mind or be up at night under her standards. Would you want to be with someone who doesn't allow you to change your mind or be up at night? I wouldn't. So look on the bright side. As my dad has always said, there are lot of stupid people in the world.


Or have you tried explaining yourself to her again about why you were up or why you changed your min? If she doesn't bother to listen or give you the chance to explain yourself, you're better off without her.



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28 Jul 2011, 4:31 pm

If that's how it went, then it doesn't sound like you did anything wrong. I'd be equally confused if someone reacted the way she did. Maybe she is too sensitive and reads into every action, or she's looking for a reason to get upset at you and stir things up. Perhaps she was looking forward to spending some time with you before the movie, and was feeling disappointed?
See how things go in the next few days, if things go back to normal...then it's good. If it's the kind of thing that seems to be happening all the time, then you have to wonder if perhaps she IS reading too much into things, and decide if that is the type of relationship you want.


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Roman
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28 Jul 2011, 5:05 pm

My guess is that she was probably mad because meeting her at 4 PM instead of 3 30 PM meant that you spent only half an hour with her instead of an hour. Basically, she wanted some time to talk to you. Since you can't talk in the movie, she really wanted to spend some time either before or after a movie. This should have been obvious from the fact that you live only 10 minues from her: if she ONLY wanted a movie, you guys would have probably agreed on 4 20 PM. So why 3 30? It should have been implicitly clear you wanted to spend some time doing other stuff.

Sometimes NT-s make an "official" purpose of something to be A (for example, a movie), while "unspoken puprose" to be B (for example, time before a movie). It is not just a relationship thing. For example, in my physics department people regularly meet for tea that lasts one hour. Now why should tea last one hour? It takes only 10 minutes to drink tea at the most? The reason is that people need one hour to communicate about physics and other stuff. But still in the schedule they don't say "communicate about physics". They simply say "tea". So, basically, "tea" is supposed to be an excuse to communicate about physics and everyone should implicitly know it from the fact that tea lasts an hour.

Likewise, in your case, a movie was supposed to be an excuse for you guys to talk BEFORE the movie. Again, this should have been implicitly clear from the fact that you two agreed to meet an HOUR before movie, despite being so close. Therefore, with this mindset, your saying "lets instead meet at 4" sounds like "no I don't want to spend an hour with you, I only want to spend half an hour with you". Now if she was really looking forward for that hour, it would be a kind of an insult.

Now, if you were to tell her "lets meet at 4 PM, but lets instead spend some time after the movie" then that would be a different story. In this case she would have seen that you DO want to spend some time with her; so whatever time you can't spend before the movie you are trying to re-schedule. In this case she might have said either yes or no (the most likely reason for "no" would be that she has some other plans) but she wouldn't be as upset at you.

However, I believe if you try to do the rescheduling now this would be a bit too late. Right now she would simply think that you are not really liking her, but you didn't like what she had to say either, so you are trying to "force" her to have better attitude by rescheduling the time. So the trick was to do it BEFORE she got mad, which you haven't done.

As far as your being up at 3 AM, it is a bit harder to judge. It can be any of these four things:

A. She was upset at you that you are trying to cancel your time together, so she simply wanted to hurt you. In order to hurt you, she wanted to "look for" some negatives to "pick at". Unfortunately she didn't see you drinking as of late nor did she see you speed driving; so going to bed at 3 AM was all she could think of.

B. She could have decided that the reason you wanted to meet her at 4 PM and not 3 30 PM is that you were tired. She then blamed your tiredness on going to bed at 3 AM. So then she felt like if you really liked her you would go to bed earlier so you won't be tired and would be able to spend a full hour with her.

C. She could have decided you were at 3 AM with other girls. Now from the sound of a post it doesn't sound you two are committed so she probably does not think you are cheating on her. But still, she could think along the lines "these other girls were important enough for him to stay up at 3 AM, but I am not important enough only spend one hour at something in the middle of a day"

D. Or she could have known you were by yourself doing your own thing. In this case, remove "other girls" in the above paragraph and insert "doing whatever he is doing". So she could have felt you can stay up till 3 AM reading some boring book, but you can't devote one hour to her in the middle of a day, so she means even less to you than the boring book you were reading at 3 AM.

I really don't know what actually went on though. These are only guesses from the little information that you gave me.



Last edited by Roman on 28 Jul 2011, 5:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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28 Jul 2011, 5:08 pm

The only thing that I can think of is that she may have been asleep when you texted and woke up because of it and/or didn't know that this was when you finished work. If she works a nine to five style job and you haven't talked about work with each other, she may think it's strange. I've noticed that many look at normal through the lens of their own life unless they've discussed it with someone very different.

I wouldn't say it's really wrong but generally I don't call anyone after ten pm unless I know they're awake because I get annoyed when people wake me up and I try to treat others as I would like to be treated.


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28 Jul 2011, 5:51 pm

I was going to say she sounds kinda weird. But then when people said the stuff about her being hurt that you don't want to spend time getting to know her, it kind of makes sense. I think she could have handled it a bit better, though.
Maybe tell her you didn't mean that? Or just let it go if it's a casual thing.



hartzofspace
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28 Jul 2011, 6:15 pm

johnnydangerous wrote:
I was supposed to meet this woman to see a movie. We were going to meet up on my day off at 3:30 PM to catch the 4:30 PM show.

What day of the week did you have off?
johnnydangerous wrote:
About 3 AM (I go to sleep at this time due to my job hours) I texted her saying we should just meet at 4:00 PM because it only takes about 10 minutes to get there.

If you didn't have plans for after the movie, she may have hoped to have some time beforehand, just to talk.

johnnydangerous wrote:
I really thought nothing of it. SO I get up, get ready, and check my phone. She had texted me about 10 AM saying "we should go another time because you sound tired". So I called her and she said I "contradicted myself" and how "action speak louder than words" and "what was I doing up at 3 AM".
Umm...I'm not sure exactly why she was reading so much into everything. I guess this is a neurotypical thing, because I didn't even think much about it at all. This is why I can't deal with relationships. It seems to me that people just want to fight all the time over nonsense and little things. If I didn't want to go, I'd have said "I'd rather go another day."
But I guess because neurotypicals are used to "reading between the lines" she thought I was trying to brush her off? She lives right near me, what's the big deal? It's not like I totally changed plans! I just suggested we meet a bit later. I don't get it.

My fiance's take on this, is that she probably thought that you thought so little of your planned time together that you would be out partying until 3:00 am, and be too tired for the date on the following day. And hence had to postpone it for another half hour. But don't get discouraged! Keep putting yourself out there! Maybe after this initial misunderstanding, things will get better!


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28 Jul 2011, 8:20 pm

You

1. Changed plans

2. At the last minute

3. So that you'd spend less time with her

4. and did it at 3am.


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28 Jul 2011, 8:40 pm

Who_Am_I wrote:
You

1. Changed plans

2. At the last minute

3. So that you'd spend less time with her

4. and did it at 3am.


Lots of good answers in the thread, but this one boils it down to the basics: four strikes. I hope you get another chance at bat.


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LornaDoone
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28 Jul 2011, 8:52 pm

She could be the one trying to get out of the date. So many things it could be. You did nothing wrong though if it's as it is. If she was too sensitive about whatever, then that's her problem. Not really yours.

I wouldn't necessarily let it go though. Give her a call and say, let's try this again. I'd really like to go to the movies. You say she seems like a nice girl, then try again and see what kind of vibe you get.

I'd also not text people at that time unless you know it's cool with them.


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Roman
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28 Jul 2011, 9:01 pm

I think by now we have a lot of good answers as to what YOU did wrong. Let us now switch gears and talk about HER.

So she was mad at you that you don't want to spend time with her. But, AT THE SAME TIME she was SO OVERLY-UNDERSTANDING that she wanted to be "even more accomodating" and cancel the date because YOU are tired. REMEMBER, IN HER RESPONSE TEXT, SHE NEVER SAID SHE DIDN'T WANT TO GO, SHE SAID IT WAS YOU WHO WAS TIRED!! ! WOW. She cares about you even more than you care about yourself. While you are fine spending half an hour with her, SHE feels it might be too much for you. And if she is so overly-caring about you, why is she refusing to meet you if you tell her that YOU would love to spend some time with her and how much YOU will be hurt by not doing it? After all, she cares about you so much that she doesn't want you to be tired! Well the emotional pain she subjects you is worse than being tired!! ! Also, if being "tired" is a good enough reason to CANCEL the date altogether (remember, she is canceling it FOR YOU just to "accomodate" your tiredness), then why is it so horrible to make the date shorter? So which one is it? Is half an hour "not enough" or is it "too much"? Are you OBLIGATED to seee her for the WHOLE hour, or are you FREE not to see her at all, not even half an hour?

Also, since she accused you of "contradicting yourself" point out to her that SHE contradicts herself. Why was she so overly nice at the text she sent at 10 AM worrying about your tiredness if she was going to slam you the next time you call her?

Now these are all rhetorical questions. The answer is basically that NT-s like to be polite and a "polite" way of hurting someone is to pretend that htey care about htem. So a polite way of saying "I don't want to meet you because I hate you" is saying "I don't want to meet you because YOU sound tired". But this is really pisses me off. Why can't she at least be honest so that you can confront her?

It is the same s**t that happened to be back when I was in graduate school. I would try to approach a professor in order to get a project from him but then when he will ask me what are my itnerests I would be going on and on talking about htem for 15 mintues. Then it would come across as if I don't really care about what he is doing that I only care about myself. So he would refuse working with me because he cares about me so much that he doesn't want to interfere in my pursue of my own interests. But if he cares about me that much, why doesn't he care at all about hte fact that I would be EXPELLED unless I find an advisor? The TRUE answer is that he had low opinion of me and probably he didn't mind seeing me expelled anyway. But no, he was too nice to say it. Instead, he was saying that he cares about me so much that he wants me to wor EXACTLY on what I am interested in and god forbid anyone would disract me with anything else. It was a sheer luck that someone agreed to take me last moment which kept me in school and earned me a degree!

I think the next time you will talk to her, you should tell her two things

1. You have Asperger Syndrome, so you didn't immediately realize why it was wrong to reschedule. Now you do realize why it is wrong (insert the explanations the members gave here) so you now want to make up for it

and if she refuses to let you make up for it then

2. Remind her that her reasons were that she really cares about you being tired. So which one is it? Is she caring about you too much or is she hating you? If she cares about you so much that you are tired, why the f**k can't she hear you if you say "I am not tired I am just fine seeing you for THREE Hours I don't care". And what right does she have to speak for you? Don't you know yourself better than she is, including whether or not you are tired?

Confront her explicity with these things and see what happens!



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29 Jul 2011, 12:46 am

I am impressed by everyone's interpretations.

All I could get was this:

You sent a text to her at 3 am. It probably woke her up and she was annoyed by this.

Really not good at imagining what other people are thinking and their reasons for doing things....


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29 Jul 2011, 7:23 am

hartzofspace wrote:
She probably thought that you thought so little of your planned time together that you would be out partying until 3:00 am, and be too tired for the date on the following day. And hence had to postpone it for another half hour. But don't get discouraged! Keep putting yourself out there! Maybe after this initial misunderstanding, things will get better!


This was exactly how I interpreted it too. NTs see a lot of value in 'quality time together' especially when they are dating, or seeing someone they are romantically interested in. Saying that you are moving the meeting time ahead by an hour could imply to her that you would like to spend less time with her (especially preceding a movie, where there's little interaction to begin with). onsidering you were awake at 3 am, it could appear as though you were indeed brushing her off. I could see her saying 'you sound tired' with an air of sarcasm, too...implying that she's trying to make you feel bad about supposedly partying at 3 am, which you weren't.

I don't think all NTs would see it this way though, but an overly sensitive NT might. Try to explain the reality of the situation to her, what element of it you missed and emphasise that you really do enjoy spending time with her and would like to keep things going.


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29 Jul 2011, 7:41 am

It could be a test. To see if you were delaying because you actually wanted to cancel the date. She might be both testing to see if you actually want to go and punishing you for making her worry.

The worst thing to do would be to give in and say "fine let's meet up at 3:30". I have no idea why. Try saying "I was working and tired, but I was hoping we could get a later start on the movie and then spend some time together afterwords."



David23
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29 Jul 2011, 9:53 am

I agree with the OP and above posters in that she read into the situation too much and assumed something much worse than was actually the case.

NTs do this because they are used to NTs. We (Aspies) take and express things literally, we pretty much say what we mean and mean what we say and there is usually not much more to it than that. And we are truthfully less likely to be doing the type of things that girls assume all guys do (see below)

But NTs are used to dealing with other NTs who work their way around the truth, and consequently, will do anything to cover up something they don't want their Sig. Other to know, including but not limited to: lying, cheating, deceiving, and other things. Because of this NTs are "trained" to read "in-between the lines" and will assume just about anything they can based on the simplest thing someone else does (or doesn't do)

For some NTs (and potentially, from the details given, this one) it's a sort of paranoia that everyone will do something like this to them. And in the case of NTs, it's quite possible.

I'm not saying that all NTs are like that (the same goes for Aspies) but it's the social norm and all I need as proof is 1 hour of Jerry Springer, or just the number of shows he has racked up over the years...

So what I'm trying to say is: She screwed up, not you.

EDIT: Sorry if I sound a little harsh here :oops: I didn't intend to come across as a jerk, just to get my point across.
And BTW I hope all works out, the two of you just had a misunderstanding :P lol Good Luck :D



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29 Jul 2011, 10:04 am

It really could be anything. You will NOT be doing yourself a favour by listening to anybody really. You need to go to her and ask. You should not assume anything. You are trying to read between the lines like the NTs do too much.


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