Do you guard your privacy very carefully?

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Wow, I didn't know people did that in the US. That would make it a lot harder for me.

In British culture, meeting people for the first time in business is done via a handshake, exchange of names, a mumbled pleasantry (historically howdoyoudo with no spaces, and definitely no question mark!) though now mostly displaced by "nice to meet you" or similar followed by a smile if it was actually nice to meet them followed by immediately starting to discuss what you are there to discuss.

In a private introduction (friend introducing a friend not known to the other person) the person making the introduction is responsible for the introduction, and introduction should only be made between people likely to get along. They would say something like "Peter, this is John, he's been a friend since '98 when we were doing Y. John, this is Peter. Peter's the tech at work, he fixes the stuff we keep breaking" and you'd then just chat.

I think younger people are a bit more Americanised because the younger generation grew up watching (primarily American) TV, however I don't really know that much since I just dress a bit more formally and get lumped into the older group and social rules which suits me just fine since I can deal with that kind of socialising. I'm not expected to volunteer any personal information, at any time for any reason. Asking for information someone is obviously not interested in volunteering is generally considered to be grossly intrusive in any form of polite society.



I think this largely depends on your definition of "personal". If someone was repeatedly asking me questions about things I considered deeply personal then saying "I beg your pardon?" or "Excuse me?" coldly is a sign for them to apologise profusely, change subjects and never pursue the discussion again, ever. Saying "Mind your own dammed business!" sharply is perfectly acceptable if someone doesn't take a hint and is persisting in being particularly intrusive. It's kind of a nuclear option though, since it's a complete conversation killer and virtually always results in a room wide silence while everybody shoots disproving glares at the person who was being intrusive until they apologise and move away.



Not really, though from what people have said about the US I think our ideas of what "intrusive" means are probably somewhat different. (somewhat might be considered a classic British understatement, depending on your culture) Personally, I suspect that there if a study was done you'd find that there are very, very few diagnosed aspies in Japan etc since in a formal culture aspies are just considered "really polite, good citizens" rather than "weird".



Probably, if you accept most aspies have interests most people wouldn't find socially acceptable then I think not answering would be pretty natural.

I'm bad at protecting my own privacy. I just don't care whether people know my personal business or not. I wish I had more self-respect than that, though. Even taking into consideration that Americans are generally more open about themselves compared to other cultures, I have been told by my family that I give out way too much information about myself.

Unfortunately, by extension, I am also terrible at keeping secrets. Whenever someone tells me something in confidence, I have to be continually reminded throughout the conversation to not bring it up to anyone else or I will, at some point in the future, inevitably do just that.

I share a lot of things about myself. I'm a very open person.

I use vagueness to my advantage.

Remember to use these keywords whenever possible, instead of what the interrogator is actually looking for.
- sometime
- somewhere
- someplace
- someone
- something
- some reason

IE: "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to talk to a guy about a thing."

I could also never stand it when people were too interested in my private life. My boss used to ask me things like "so, how did you spend your week off" or "and what did you do on the weekend" at work, and I could never figure out why. He was probably just making conversation, or he simply liked to know a few things about his employees. Healthy lifestyle, normal social life, no drug addict, no axe murderer, that kind of thing. But I always felt like he was interrogating me, and that made me nervous and shortspoken. So I just mumbled something like "nothing much really" and left it at that, even though I had nothing to hide. Which must have driven the poor guy crazy with curiosity and suspicions of drug abuse, Satanic rituals, or wild gay BDSM orgies

I did the same thing when my co-workers asked me personal questions. I never liked their interest in my person, because I knew that they thought of me as some strange weirdo with abrasive manners and an unclear sexuality (people always suspect that I'm gay, probably because I look weirdly feminine). I thought they only wanted to poke around in my private life in order to gossip about me. It never occured to me that people, NTs anyway, simply want to know who they're dealing with on a daily basis. I guess they just need to know a few reassuringly normal details in order to feel secure around someone, especially someone as strange as me.

I for one had no interest in their lives whatsoever. I mean, I didn't obsess over what the photocopier or the fax machine might do after the lights were turned out and everyone went home, so why would I want to know what my co-workers did? I never understood why some of them started talking about their wives or kids out of the blue. It felt awkward, like they had started to undress in front of me. I mean, I had no social relationship with these people, we just worked together and I couldn't focus on my work as long as they were chatting at me. Had I known back then that I'm an aspie, I might have made the effort to be more like my neurotypical colleagues and tried to imitate their social behavior. But I thought I was a completely normal person and they were simply annoying and distracting. Oh well.

On the internet however, I have the urge to tell people everything about myself. I've lost many online friends that way

I'm kind of private. I don't like people knowing my name, and I don't like people knowing what I look like. Whenever I post a picture of myself online I always block my face out.

I don't like people being to nosy and if they ask personal things I go all vague.
If anyone asks me my age I say old enough as I think its rude of people to ask those sort of questions.

I have nothing worth hiding.

If it upsets me to mention it, then I'll usually just say such.

In the physical world, yes to an extreme degree.
However I have posted experiences, thoughts & feelings here that I have never said to anyone else ever.
This is why WP has been such a help in expressing things that previously had no words, but it won't change my automatic lockdown reaction in person.

Yeah, I don't have facebook, don't have twitter, rarely put pictures of myself on the web, always sign up to website using different nicknames, sometimes even fake the person I am so people can't catch me, lie about certain things that identify me, set everything to private, use different email-adresses, sometimes even use fake real names or fake birth dates, use safari for sites I'm logged into only and use internet explorer for anything anonymous and clean up it's cookies weekly. I personally also own different computers at different locations with different ISP's, heck I can go on...

Yup, I agree with that. There are quite a number of things my friends, and even my husband don't know about!
I guess I just like providing info on a need to know basis. It does annoy my friends and hubby at times though.

Me too, I can't stand that sort of thing. That's part of why I got into a job where I work on my own, and I rarely see or hear from my boss or co-workers. That way I can almost totally avoid those kinds of conversations. But when we have meetings, sometimes they want us to share something "personal" like what are hobbies are and it's even worse to have to tell a whole room of people at once.

I still get a lot of nosy questions from the customers I deal with. They ask about what I do on my days off, if I'm married or have children or have a second job. It's obvious that they find it strange or unacceptable that a woman my age would have any free time to spend just doing what she wants, not looking after a husband or kids or else working 2-3 jobs to stay busy.



Yeah I think that's a big part of it. They feel uncomfortable when they don't know anything about a person. For one thing most people feel the undeniable need to make conversation and they want to know something they can talk about or ask you about. But they have agendas too. They use the information to size people up and make judgements. I know even the most basic information I give can become ammunition later. One co-worker used to randomly say to me, "oh you wouldn't understand because you don't have kids." They use what they know to be dismissive to people.

And I assume whatever I say will be repeated because in my experience most people do pass it on and speculate further on it with other people. I used to be really surprised when something I told person Y would ask me about something I told person A two weeks earlier, and a lot of times I had no idea those two people even talked with each other. But now I understand anything I say to NT's might as well be printed in the newspaper. They have a network and information travels fast on it.

I was also slow to figure out, when men are asking me if I'm married or have a boyfriend, and they are acting a certain way about it, it means they're interested in me, and if not for themselves then on behalf of someone else. And through trial and error I figured out, if I said no I'm not with someone they automatically jumped to the assumption that I was saying that I am available or that I'm interested in them. So now I will cut that line of questioning off really quick.



Wow, I never thought about it that way before but yeah that's what it feels like, as if they are undressing. It's such a weird feeling. I feel trapped because once they start "sharing", I know I can't just cut off the conversation because they will get offended. But I do feel like they are imposing on me. And I have NO idea how to respond to what they tell me. I guess what they expect, is that I will share something similar in response and then when I don't do that, they feel weird and that's why they start asking the nosy questions.

But some of them will just go on talking excessively about themselves. It's very distracting, and not just in the moment, it can still distract me hours or days later. And like you said, I have no interest in it. I don't care in the least. I also can't work while someone is talking to me (or "at" me is usually what it feels like). So I feel like all I can do is just stand there and nod until the siege of information stops. I feel absolutely, utterly trapped. I always wonder, why can't they tell that I'm not interested? Why don't they realize how rude they are being to me? That they're holding me up from doing what I need to?

That's how NT's connect. Talking about their lives and sharing experiences. It's bonding to them. I do it too. I'll ask people what they did, where they went, if they had fun, etc. I don't mind talking about that kind of thing with people. It's really just them (and me) making light conversation to show interest in another person. You don't have to tell the truth either. If you sat around all weekend on the computer or spent the weekend on a special interest they would find strange, just say "Not much, did some stuff around the house, relaxed, the usual. What did you do?" and leave it at that.

Sometimes also, people will ask you what you did the past weekend or whenever, because they want to tell you what they did, and don't want to just go up to you and say "Guess what I did?" Your answer and attention and subsequent question of what did they do opens the door for them to tell you what they did. I don't see why they don't just tell you outright, I would if I was excited about something, but that's how they go about it.

For unimportant things like what you did, or did you see something on tv, or do you like something, etc, its really just a way to somewhat bond with you. NT's don't like to interact with others on a daily basis without some sort of bond. It makes them uncomfortable and many of them want coworkers to be pseudo-friends, even if your friendship is only limited to your work environment. Most of the time, even if you dish about your private lives to each other at work, it doesn't go beyond work. If you get invited to something you have no interest in going to, you just tell them you can't because you are busy, and look and act genuinly sorry that you can't go, thank them for asking you, and let it go. If you get many invitations of that sort, that means that they really want to be your friend outside of work. If you don't want to hang with them outside of work, then keep making excuses, they eventually get the message and don't get offended over it usually, unless you go places with others at work.

I'm extremely private in nature.