Which one is the Aspie in this video?

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Thank you, poopy.

I still see the Autie's behavior as the most normal. I mean, she's crying, her friends are all laughing and diminishing her pain, and he's the only one taking the issue seriously. They also portray him as more of an idiot than an Aspie, because it's obvious that if someone dated her for a while it's because they felt initially attracted - so an Aspie wouldn't make an illogical comment like that. Aspies are very logical. This is ignorant stereotyping at its best. Not to mention the other video, where they show him as unable to cope with an emergency (the bike accident) - that's NOT an Aspie trait. Horrendous.

Interesting. I saw this once before, and automatically assumed it was the man that they wanted us to see as autistic, because of the way he seems a little unsure of himself. (I assume they are both NT actors.) At the time, I thought the woman was just a bit testy. Also, at the very end, the captioning is over him, and he's saying, "What did I do?" or something like that. So it didn't occur to me that she might have been an aspie, because I wasn't looking at her with that in mind.

However, now that you mention it, I'm seeing it in a whole new light. I think she very well could have been an aspie. Absolutely. She just shows it differently than he does. Originally, when I saw this, I thought, "That woman should not be a receptionist."

She kind of reminds me of a woman with whom I worked in the Air Force, who I now, in retrospect, believe was an aspie.

The woman in the video is a bit autistic. It was obvious. It was not the man. The woman wore a low cut dress to work, a no-no. She was dressed inappropriately, and oblivious to the fact. She didn't introduce herself to the man. She ignored him when he asked her name. She was loud and came off as not listening or paying much attention to the customer.
She was distracted when he first appeared. She was confused when he was looking at her name tag, misintepretted why he looked in the first place. That scenario had the potential to end up a bad experience for the woman, might even get her reported for bad customer service.
She told him to see a receptionist, and she is the receptionist. She appeared abrasive and disinterested. That performance could hurt her job review by supervisors.

Completely disagree.

There are very many reasons for people to date, and not all of them include attraction. He could easily have been dating her for access to money or her friends (perhaps he likes one of them better), or perhaps she recently changed her appearance in a way that makes him no longer like her. In addition, he might have been dating her out of pity, or perhaps they were put together by a friend or family member and he felt obligated to continue the relationship for some time. There are multiple reasons that the statement of him not being attracted to her is a serious possibility.

As for the bike accident - it's completely on spot with how some people on the spectrum would react. Not only is it a serious change in routine - you don't have accidents happen next to you often, and certainly not on a schedule - but it's also combined with a whole host of new sensory issues. He has to figure out a whole host of new information and sort it to priorities. Have you ever heard someone say that people on the spectrum might not respond as quickly to a fire alarm because they have to sort through all of the other things happening (sounds of birds and footsteps and the smell of smoke and how everything looks around them)? It's a fairly common example from what I've seen. The fire alarm goes through to most people as the most important thing, but the person on the spectrum needs time to sort it out and doesn't recognize that it skips the list to be the most important. The same thing is happening here - he might be aware that someone's hurt, but there's so many things to sort through first - the look of the blood and the tires spinning and the sounds of the spokes and the car and everything else. Add into it the bystanders who are beginning to add to that list and don't understand that he needs time to sort through - they demand an answer now - and it's completely understandable why he ran. He was getting close to a meltdown, as evidenced by the fact that he ran and was rocking on the bus.

Would every person on the spectrum react like that? No. But some would, so the ad is completely valid.

I find it a pity when people refuse to see that there are those who have lower functioning skills than others. It's actually one of my major peeves, because I see it so often. There are people on the spectrum who would react like this. Just because you are higher functioning does not mean everyone else on the spectrum is.

Let's go through this video bit by bit. We'll ignore the switch to hearing and vision, because those are obvious indicators to us, as the viewers, but they wouldn't be obvious if this was happening in a real life scenario.

He approaches her in a busy building. He's looking for a place and is lost. Not unusual, so ASDfM - 0.

Is her dress a bit low cut? Yeah, I think so too, but it might be acceptable there. I'm not sure how appropriate it would be outside of the US, and these videos take place in the UK. That being said, it's not completely inappropriate either; I've seen people wear much worse. It's probably not meant to be important, just a prop for the later scene, so ASDfF - 0.

She's clearly doing something. I'm not sure if it's filing her nails and reading a magazine or something work related, but she's busy. When he asks his question, she begins to flip through the book in front of her, which makes me think it's a map of the building. This is indication that she's looking for the room he listed. ASDfF - 0.

He, on the other hand, repeats - word for word - what he just said. He says it twice within a few seconds, which is clearly abnormal behavior. ASDfM - 1.

She's a bit brisk when she offers to show him, but that makes sense. He couldn't wait for her to look it up - instead repeating the question - so she figures she has to show him to the room, least he continue repeating it. It's possible that she's concerned about leaving her post, or that she was busy and doesn't appreciate the interuption. Either way, it makes sense. ASDfF - 0.

She begins a conversation about how the place is a maze. It's conversational; partly to vent how she's feeling about having to show people around (something which she doesn't get paid for apparently, and thus isn't part of her assigned job). Still a bit brisk, but not that far out of the ordinary, certainly not enough to indicate AS or anything else. ASDfF - 0.

He's obviously been rehearsing a conversation, as Daniel pointed out. He doesn't wait for her to stop talking, doesn't say anything on subject - he just blurts it out in the middle of her speaking while he's a good deal behind her. Clearly, social interaction isn't his forte. ASDfM - 2.

She probably doesn't even hear him. It's been established that the building is loud (see the very beginning, especially how the voices echo a bit), and I doubt she expects him to just abruptly speak in the middle of her sentence. Normal. ASDfF - 0.

On the elevator, she's clearly more apologetic about how she behaved before (by saying that she still gets lost after three years (read: it's ok that he doesn't know where to go, it's normal) and offering him help if he gets lost again later). She's trying to make up for her being brisk before, but she's still being conversational. She's also trying to give him a bit of the ropes by saying that there are phones on every floor to call her (the receptionist). Normal. ASDfF - 0.

He's staring at her tag. We see that it's a genuine attempt to learn her name, but most people know better than to overtly state at someone, especially if that tag is right on the breast. (This is why I think she's wearing such a low cut dress - if it was higher, there'd be no reason for her nametag to be so low. In other words, it's intentional for the ad.) Even if he is trying to get her name, it's not polite to lean in like that. ASDfM - 3.

It's understandable that she wouldn't believe him when he said that he was trying to get her name. He doesn't make eye contact with her (won't even look at her), which is a classic sign of lying - yes, all of us here know it's a sign of being on the sprectrum, but she probably doesn't know that, and besides, even if she did, she wouldn't know he was on it. She's obviously a pretty lady, and because the dress is so low cut, it's likely that she has gotten male attention before that wasn't meant to get her name but really was just looking. Beyond that, he invaded her personal space, especially by being so close only to a private area. Her reaction is pretty much on cue. She's been trying to help him, and now she thinks he's staring at her bust (and invading her space while he's at it). ASDfF - 0.

In other words, he shows signs of an ASD 3 times just through his actions (not counting the vision and sound differences, or the way he walks/doesn't make eye contact, etc). She doesn't show them at all. He's clearly on the spectrum.

It's definitely the guy. The girl shows absolutely no signs of it - actually, she seems typically socially adept for someone who would work as a receptionist (which is a socially demanding job!) The only reason she's not too friendly is that she's peeved to have to show him around...

At first I thought it was the man, but then the woman started showing traits of it too. However, I must say that the man was most likely the Aspie in the video.

Interesting... What traits do you think she has? I honestly don't see any.

Me neither. The way she initially reacted to him just made her come off as a b*tch to me.

The way she reacted to him in the elevator didn't seem like typical behavior though. Even if she didn't know the guy was autistic he was obviously shy and awkward. It wasn't as though he was the type of guy to make lewd sexual advances and her misinterpretation of his actions as such didn't seem very believable to me. Not unless she had some issues herself.

I think that in a real life situation the woman would have simply backed away and given him an uncomfortable look to indicate that he was invading her personal space. Calling him a "perv" was totally uncalled for.

I don't see how you can say that about the girl. In fact, that girl is nothing like the typical receptionist. They are smiling, friendly, helpful. She acted really annoyed and distracted.

If you watch the video again, you'll notice that her attitude is bad even before he appears and stays that way when he does. She puts no coating of sugar or glossy veneer on it, like an NT would. It's because putting on this outer coat is the most difficult thing of all to Aspies. It's not our natural state. We wear ourselves on our sleeves.

The guy, on the other hand, looked and acted completely normal. Why would she just ignore him when he asked her name? That's not usual behaviour. Her attitude was completely bad and her dress was completely inappropriate. What receptionists wear lowcut blouses to work? Not many, unless they want to get fired. It's not workplace attire. Her choice of clothing is the first indication she may be eccentric. She is out of sync with the environment.

What about the way she ignores him when he first steps up to her desk. Again, that isn't normal, unless the receptionist is busy with someone else, which she was not. Her behaviour was out of sync with typical costumer service and public relations which stresses attentiveness, smiling, friendly, helpful manners. She wasn't putting on a "PR" face, which is hard for Aspies to do, fake their way through. It just looked like her normal mode and if you didn't like it, oh well. There wasn't much she could do about it. Typical Aspie situation. We are what we are.

The guy, on the other hand, just looked and acted like a customer trying to find his way around. Notice how he was sensitive about looking at her nametag because he was aware it was a social no-no to stare at her chest when she was wearing the low cut blouse? An Aspie wouldn't have thought twice about it because an Aspie wouldn't be aware it was a no-no in the first place. He kept asking her name because he didn't want to stare at her nametag because of it's location near her cleavage. It was so obvious. That guy isn't the Aspie. She is.

Last edited by ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo on 09 Dec 2009, 3:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't think the others were necessarily NOT taking her seriously, but attempting to lessen the seriousness of the situation-trying to cheer her up to some degree while acting like it isn't a big deal that it happened... kinda like "it happens to everyone" type of stuff.

I found what he said quite hilarious actually, and not really idiotic to be honest. I mean, after listening to her go on for that long, asking why and why over and over, not seeming to listen to anyone else's answers, I might would throw that out there too as an option as to WHY. It drives me nuts to hear people say that over and over about something of that sort, so I'd either throw out suggestions as to "why"... whether they were polite or not, they are options as to why and if she doesn't want ideas, don't ask... OR, I would just tell her to go ask him because there is no way I could possibly know.

Completely agree. I would be considered much higher functioning than some, but way lower than others here as well.

I was in a class once (on autism, ironically) and we had... well, it was sort of a tremor/earthquake, not sure which actually happened or where or any of that... but anyway, the whole building shook and we heard a loud bang. Everyone else in the room jumped up but I was still busy with our assignment at the time. I heard it all happen, and froze for a few minutes. Everyone else in the class was getting up and heading out, but no one had actually said to do so, or that it was anything to worry about, so I started doing my work again. They came along and shuffled me out of the room after the others had left(I brought the paper and pen with me outside to continue it actually, lol).

I still really don't know what I was thinking... I just had a conflict between something we were specifically told to do and getting that complete, vs. something that randomly happened and I couldn't decide whether or not it was serious, so I just kind of... discounted it as anything. I knew it had happened, was fully aware, just wasn't really keeping up with the seriousness of the situation and focused on the thing with the time limit over the "new and unknown" situation.

I assume that you didn't bother to read my post, where I addressed just about every issue you listed. I also assume it's kind of pointless to do it again, but these sentences caught my attention.

This is from the video. Not altered, not touched up, nothing. Taken at 1:05 if you want to watch the video again to confirm that it's there, right after there's an extended part of the nametag from his vision (also indicating that he's staring).


How is that being sensitive to looking at her nametag? He's clearly staring.

IRL it might be harder to tell because people don't always act "perfect", but on a commercial the people's lines are scripted to portray an idea with optimum efficiency, so it was clearly unusual and significant for him to repeat his lines like that. So yes, I could tell right away.

I agree. I was certain it was the woman in the beginning, for several reasons - her lost in a book on her desk and not registering that she had a customer, her overly fast paced chatter and lack of allowance for any reciprocacy, her over the top friendliness and shifting eye contact - which clearly stank of social masking; as a social masker myself, I know one when I see one.

From near the start of the video, it was clear to me however that the producers intended the man to be the aspie - by overly obvious acting and the perspective used (these videos have certain patterns they follow, and once you know the pattern the outcome is obvious). In my opinion, he didn't play the part well. In fact, neither of the actors played their parts well - as the woman was unnatural enough to appear aspie herself. Solution? Get better actors.

Hoooooboy! She had a pair!

ruveyn