"Girl"

Post Reply New Topic

This has been on my mind a lot lately. I remember I used to categorize people by their appearance - I had a tendency to confuse people who looked kind of similar with each other, and would group them sort of like that. I have had trouble with people who looked like someone I liked doing things I did not like or expect, although the last time I remember that happening and being a problem for me was my mid-20s.

Later I categorized people by the language they used - like words they said and how they used those words would signal things to me that didn't actually relate to their personalities, just a particular opinion that I might have guessed incorrectly.

Mostly, I have no idea. I like kfisherx' descriptions, although I often don't even really notice smart/stupid unless it's really apparent and friendly/unfriendly seems like it's a case by case basis with some people. I mean, I don't categorize people in these ways, just thoughts based on that.

These days I tend to categorize people ideologically, although that's also flawed and falling apart.

Wavefreak58, your statement of "I know you're trustworthy from experience, but I don't feel trust" about your friend resonates a lot with me.

Here is what Imma talking about... (someone tell me what is wrong with my code so I can fix it to display)



Otherwise here is URL for cut/paste

http://i447.photobucket.com/albums/qq19 ... 1306347916


BTW: can someone explain the TITLE of this thread? WTF does Girl have to do with any of this???

[img][800:769]http://i447.photobucket.com/albums/qq199/PDXpersonaltraining/RelationshipFilter.jpg[/img]
took out the numbers after .jpg.

"Girl" was the category I used to describe our front office staff during the conversation. When my friend asked me to categorize the people I worked with according to his model, I could only picture this particular group of people as this very general category, I could not parse them out into his model. They all fell into the Platonic Form "girl". What is really strange is that my perception of them as physical entities seems disconnected from them as sentient entities. When I think about one of them individually and in terms of their 'self', they each occupy a different space in my mind, but when I think of them in terms of their physical presence they all melt together into a single category.

It's really hard to explain. It seems to be a difference in processing visual stimuli over higher levels of cognition.

I do agree about the being unable to categorize people idea. I read someplace (well, on cracked.com) that people in general think about a person by one defining trait, except for themselves. I do not really do this. I had issues understanding it. I even have issues with films where a person is described in the way that you are supposed to use such an association, it always feels to me fake and I feel manipulated for it.

I pay more attention to peoples' personalities than I do their genders.

One day at work, I was walking down the hall when I saw a person I hadn't seen before. He was standing, looking at some people. I immediately went to my department and told everyone to be on their best behavior and look good, because there was a new guy around, and he looked very very very IMPORTANT. One of my coworkers went out and looked at the guy. He came back after a few seconds, and agreed, the guy looked very very important.

We later learned that he was the CEO of my company's biggest customer, and was taking a personal tour of the facility before renewing the contract.

One of the biggest give-away about Autistics, is that they tend to not pick-up on the personal characteristics of different people.


I heard it once on some radio program, and I think there is some truth to it:
Executives and people in position of high power, tend to wear dark clothing and drive black or silver cars, while people of lower positions tend to wear more flashy/bright color clothing like red. Look at the president, governors and other state officials, they almost always drive black cars and wear darker shades of clothing.

When you have power, you don't need to impress, you just need to know who did what, and how fast it will take to get rid of them!

I mentally categorize people as either "Good" or "Bad". I can usually categorize them after meeting/talking with them a handful of times, sometimes sooner depending on what they say or do. Some people have a permanent alignment in my mind, for example my mom is always "Good" regardless of what she says or does, while this one uncle of mine is always "Bad" regardless of what he says or does. Some people change alignments over time as I get to know more about them or their behavior and attitudes change.

I also categorize not only people, but fictional characters, TV shows/movies and concepts and beliefs as either Good or Bad, and I become defensive and upset if someone tries to sway my perception, for example if they try to tell me why a movie I labelled Good is actually Bad, or why a concept/belief I believe is Bad is actually Good.

I wonder... is this what you'd call "black-and-white" thinking?