Poor handling of unplanned situations, too forthcoming

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I consider myself a fairly high-functioning Aspie, within the bounds I
have set for myself in life.

These bounds steadily expand, but only after I have carefully felt my
way around a new territory, and feel that I can anticipate and plan
for most eventualities.

When something unexpected happens, i.e., a situation I have not either
planned for, or experienced previously and learned from, I find I
flounder a bit... and may revert to less useful modes of behaviour
than usual.

For instance, not long ago a colleague of mine and I went our separate
ways professionally. I had not planned out any scenarios for our
"final goodbye" if indeed one occurred, and when it did I found myself
somewhat unprepared, to my disadvantage, I think.

I did not get along with this person, and they had demonstrated
previously that they were not to be trusted, and were given to acts of
snide pettiness (think of "The Office".)

I had successfully avoided dealing with the person except as
absolutely necessary. However, due to their position in the hierarchy
I think I had some obligation to show at least professional courtesy
on those occasions when we interacted.

During our brief discussion, this person was rather more polite than
usual, departing from their normal snide demeanour. Am I the only
person here who has found themselves responding to such a change by
being more talkative than they had originally intended?

This person is my enemy. Why should I have been any more cooly
professional with them than usual? Some primal puppydog urge to be
friends with people? An old impulse on my part to try to appease
those who have abused me, rather than keeping them at arm's length?
Bravado in not trying to be too obviously reticent?

Bottom line is, I told this person a few things that were none of
their business, really. Not too much... I had some control, and I'm
not sure if they even noticed anything, or thought they'd gotten more
out of me than I'd intended.

However, at the end of the conversation I felt something had been
taken from me. I'd fallen for the old ploy (intentional on their part
or not) of someone being nasty most of the time, then turning friendly
when they wanted something.

Making a mountain out of a microscopic grain of sand (or nothing),
perhaps. But I am troubled on principle.

I seem to improve my AS symptoms over time, yet when the unexpected
happens, it seems I may forget what I have learned, temporarily
abandoning good tools I have learned to use, and revert to old,
self-damaging behaviours, and/or do things that simply do not protect
my interests or those of my loved ones.

Such things happen to me much more rarely now than in the past, but if
I buckle like this at the wrong moment, in the wrong situation, I
might put much at risk.

When these things happen, I think "when will I ever learn" ?

...

When such things happen and keep me awake at night, I can usually
finally get to sleep by identifying something I can feel I've learned
from the experience.

I suppose in my case, what I have learned (or been reminded of) is not
to put off planning out scenarios for a situation I know is going to
occur, no matter how much I'd like to avoid thinking about it.

Seems elementary enough, but I suppose I need to keep the thought in
mind.

BOY that sounds familiar! Thanks for bringing it up. I really feel that being able to recognize a situation helps me to avoid it.

I was recently in a situation where I needed to keep quiet (an Italian police station), but the policeman was nice, and I couldn't help suggesting to him that he try rearranging his mousepad so that he wouldn't hurt his shoulder and elbow using it. (He agreed, btw!)

But yeah. I find that it's really hard to not fall for the "turnaround" in behavior, where suddenly they're acting friendly. It's like, well maybe they got better! or something. I dunno. I fall for it too. I want to give people the benefit of the doubt. I want to assume that they're honest and want to grow and learn. It's hard to avoid being too either/or on this: when I was younger, I would go in cycles where I was either way too cynical and didn't believe anybody's "good intentions" or gullible and believed everyone. I've gotten better. But yeah, it's hard.

I do that constantly and chronically. What sucks is that afterwards, when I'm beating myself up for it, I feel liek perhaps I was 'phony' becasue I had a lapse in my dislike of teh person. I think what it is though, is that I lack an ability to outright demonize someone and believe it forever and ever...if they act friendly I instantly seem to forget most of the nastiness, unless I have been hurt very, very deeply by them.