NT reaction vs. Your reaction

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Teacher introduces us to SPSS - a statistical analysis program for social scientists.

NT reaction: Oh, I guess I need to learn this to pass the class. Crap. Well, I'll muddle through it.

My reaction: Where have you been all my life? (Proceeds to find every chunk of data I can possibly find to analyze, including the surveys I ran years ago and never properly analyzed.)

So once, a NT friend was rambling on about her favorite drama... but she was talking about the show in Mandarin for some reason I'll never understand (it's not like she's a transfer student, so she's fluent in English) even though she knew very well that I don't speak Mandarin.

NT Friend: -talking excitedly in Mandarin-
Me (thinking): I don't understand her, so I'll just keep nodding until she's done.

When friend is done talking and we change topics:
Me: So a black hole is formed in the aftermath of a supernova, when a star collapses in on itself and punctures the fabric of space-time... (or something along those lines...)
NT Friend: -plugs her ears and walks away-
Me: What did you do that for?
NT Friend: I don't understand a WORD you're saying!

---
This happened while playing scrabble with some friends:

Andy: Man, what can we spell with these letters?
Alex: Hmmm...oh! I know! -spells out 'queef'-
Everyone at the table: -starts laughing-
Me: I don't get it. What's... "queef"?
Andy: -laughs even harder and falls off his chair and onto the floor-

Every day at work they speak the same language but to them Im speeking greek because they had the heads up there during school social conections over knowledge.

When there's a really cute animal on the telly, ie, a kitten.

My reaction: (practically says nothing, just in my mind ''how cute''.)
NT reaction: Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, look at that kitten! Look, aaaaaarrrrrrrrr, he's gorgeous!


When heavy snow is forecasted.

My reaction: OH NO I HATE SNOW WHY IS IT GOING TO SNOW I HATE SNOW I HATE IT I CAN'T DO WHAT I PLANNED TO DO NOW AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! (Starts screaming and crying)
NT reaction (an NT who also hates snow): Is it going to snow then? Oh, great, it better not snow, I got to go [place] tomorrow. If it is not too deep, I'll go. If not then I'll have to phone and say we will have to leave it this week. Aw, that'd be a shame though (tuts and sighs).

My reaction:

*My friend drops in unexpectedly*

NT reaction: Hey! How're you doing? Here take a seat, grab a beer.

Me: Hey, you alright mate? (In my head "Oh my god why didn't he at least ring to tell me he was coming over! Urghhh"

Don't know how well I expressed that. But my initial reaction to someone coming round unexpectedly is to be really annoyed. I can't help it and I feel bad about it but that's just the way it is!

Oh I HATE it when that happens. My parents' friends and their kids (so, I guess my friends too?) come over at the most unexpected times for no apparent reason but to sit around and talk. It irritates me to no end, I even threw a tantrum after they left once. People should really call first, it feels like an invasion of my privacy or they're interrupting what I was doing before.

Include asses in the above. A typical conversation while a friend and I are driving through town:
Him: 'Look at that ass!'
Me: 'Huh?'


A friend once thought he'd be clever and sneak up behind me while I was concentrating on something in my workshop. I jumped nearly high enough to put a dent in the ceiling then proceeded to start beating him up. Oddly, he's always careful to let me know he's coming over now...

Here's another one:

Biology Teacher: So I'm giving you guys an opportunity for extra credit by going to this lecture on stem cells.

NT reaction: I guess I'll just go. I need the extra credit anyway.

Me: Huh? What? Stem cells? OH MY GOD. STEM CELLS. STEM CELLS! -runs around the campus-

At the lecture:

NTs: -falling asleep-

Me: -frantically writing down notes even though it wasn't required-

---
During Biology class when we have to describe an object during a lab:

NTs: -jolts down two, three words-

Me: -lists every single detail of the object and being overly specific on its shade of color-

That reminds me of the time one of my coworkers got a haircut and I didnt think it looked special at all, it was just a plain, boring but. She got complimented. Its just another mindless NT ritual, complement hairstyle changes even if they dont look good.

Trust me, people the world over (but men in particular) are baffled by this - It's not a NT/Aspie thing, it's a "Hair doesn't excite me that much" thing..

I walk into the room and notice they have a new chair in there. I say nothing about it, an NT who sees it makes a comment about it. People just assume I did not notice the chair.

When it snowed here in Portland;

Me: Yay snow, I love snow. *jumps up and down*
NTs all over Portland: "Oh snow oh no oh no." and they all panic and go rushing around to stores to get prepared and they even freak out over a few inches of snow while to me it's nothing. (Actually I think this is more of a "I am not used to snow because I grew up without it so I am not used to it and don't know what I am supposed to do in it" than a AS/NT thing) It rarely snows here and when it does snow, it never stays no more than 24 hours and it's all melted by daytime. Rarely does it stick for even a day or two. But when it sticks and stays, people panic.

I don't like all this huggy stuff that seems to be the trend at the moment its so over done.

About straightening hair I would say "But you have nice naturally curly hair why ruin it I have to get mine permed to have it curly."

People rave on about how nice the weather is but to me I have to go out and water my garden when there isn't any rain.
The same people complain when there's a bit of cold weather and if we do get rain.

THIS.

I like probability, too. When I was studying C++ about ten years ago, that's what really made the math dance, because you literally did not know the answer ahead of time. So, I'd loop through it multiple times using random numbers and keep track of the results. Then I'd write a program to solve the problem algebraically (this typically was harder). And if the two results were largely the same, I felt pretty good about it. A simple problem might be this: If a basketball player shoots 47% from the field, what's the chance of him having a relative dry streak where he makes 0, 1, or 2 out of the next ten shots?

I've thought about branching out to statistics involving medical research. Okay, we're keeping track of some outcome and we have an experiment group and a control group. Now, there's going to be some variation within the control group even if we don't do anything. So, we measure that variation within the control group, then we extend the tails of the graph, what it might look like if we had a larger sample for a control group. So, if it's a skewed bell graph, it's still a skewed bell graph just with the tails extended. And if it's a nice, smooth, 'normal' bell-shaped graph, it's still a nice, smooth, 'normal' bell-shaped graph just with the tails extended. Then we duplicate the experiment, Oh, say, 100,000 times using random numbers (technically, they're pseudorandom numbers) and we see how often we get the difference we observed between the experimental and control groups.

It's because we are socially conditioned. It never hit home with me either. People just could never convince me that hairstyles mattered more than anything else. Or than my personal interests.


I have a lot of these "So what" moments. I just don't feel like commenting on something obvious. ^^ Only if it feels worth it.