List one NT thing you do not understand.

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You do have a point there CleverKitten, I sometimes want to scream with you along with what you have said on the second point and the third part especially.
What I don't understand about NT's is how they quickly judge an autistic person without even knowing them.... thats basically what happened to me and i got bullied for it, when they found out i could draw, they was really surprised.
Also what I don't understand about NT is they can learn things quicker than what we can do.

But the last part sounded like how my girlfriend would of said it... But I respect your point of view.

i will defend my life against any threat, and if it means that my attacker loses it's life, then that is how it must happen.
i was not saying that i will lay down and die because i do not want to interfere with nature. i also have a right to live, and if something wishes to try to invade my stock of life resources, i will defend my life resources to the point where ingressors may wind up not alive.
but i guess i may not pass my genes on.

i am not a biologically ideal unit to be here on earth because i have no inclination to support the continuation of my species. i just wound up "alive" and here i am, and when i die i will care similarly as to before i was born about what is happening. i did not care or fret about the bubonic plagues that beset my species hundreds of years before i was born. i will not care hundreds of years after i die whether the earth was wiped out by a planetoid impact.
in fact, i will not care the second after my death about anything.


i do not care for children as much as i should in order to be a parent, so i never wanted children.

i know if the world was like me, humans would be extinct in about 110 years.


yes i know that a species is the result of survival in the elements in which it was spawned due to it being the "fittest" (most apt) to procreate given the the available resources and environment and intensity of intention.

i am one in six billion people, so my genes are not required to spice an already gigantic gene pool up.
but i can contribute while i am alive to the facilitation of many things and i have my place of usefulness on the earth.

when i die, it is finished for my genetic lineage, and i do not care because i will not be there to lament it.


if i had a cockroach infestation, then i would exterminate them with a roach bomb because i am defending my territory from being overrun by others. but i would not kill just one cockroach because it had the misfortune to find itself in my gaze.

i am not a fanatic or anything like that. i do kill funnel web spiders when they come in here because they are venomous and aggressive. they can jump at you because they are cranky from 4 feet.
i still feel sad that i am extinguishing it's life, but i can not allow such dangerous spiders to stay in my house, and i am not going to catch them because i will have a high likelyhood of being bitten.
they are very aggressive.

i also have not decided to never have children.
tammy is not very fertile as she never has periods due to a hormonal problem i guess (she never has to shave her legs either etc).

if she became pregnant, i would not want the baby to be aborted, and i would provide safety and nurture for it without question. it is just that i never think of kids and i am not hoping i will have some, but if i do, then i will try to make them as happy as i can.

i have the money to provide them with security and comfort, and i am well tempered, but i could not give them proper advice because they would be more mature than me when they are only 14.
tammy could not advise them correctly either because she has the maturity of a child as well.

but i really am not wanting to cut into my free time with all those hassles and so i will live my life without procreating i guess.



i am not that holistic in my imagination. i just wanted to convey that i do not understand how people can mow down thousands of animals lives just to feed their greed (and make their children fat and happy).

like i saw a story recently about a rainforest in tasmania that was going to be logged to provide money for the families in that region.
there were protesters and they were mainly pot heads, but there were some people with knowledge also protesting, and they explained that more than 2 million animals would lose their homes and perish if it went ahead.

but the logging community said (when interviewed with a question as to whether they should remove the habitat of millions of animals) , things like "mate....are you serious?!?!? were talking about feeding our kids here!! !!". he had various teeth missing and tattoos, and he was trying to assert that his lively hood would be extinguished if the logging did not go ahead, and he inferred that his children were at stake.

"well", i thought "get off your f*cking backsides and go where you can earn a living on the mainland like we all do!! !". it will be harder for them to have to think and not just cut their salraies out of the forest, and they do not want to spend the effort to earn money unless they can just cut it out of the bush.

oh well i am not well in the head at all this evening so i will curtail my response here because i am blind as to whether i have said too much or whether any of it was pertinent.
i will look for another thread now.

I think it's really strange how people seek affirmation and approval from others, even when performing the simplest task. The other day, I was at the store and overheard a group of girls conversing. One of them asked the group, "Do I want to buy more bread? I'm all out." The others murmured a sort of affirmation, and they meandered over to the displayed loaves. As they stood in front of them, the first girl asked, "Should I buy the same kind that I had last time?"

I was totally baffled.

Actually, most of the the things people see fit to talk about really perplex me.

Why do NT's feel the need to tell you all about themselves. Sometimes you just don't care. And why do they feel the need to socialise so much? Isn't the company of a true friend better than a hundred aquantances you don't really know

Two main things I just don't get:

1. Greetings. Why do they ask you how you are when they don't really want an answer. I just use 'fine thanks how are you?' as my standard answer now but sometimes they don't even want that. They just walk off without carrying on the exchange.

2. Bullying. Why does it make them feel better? It would make me feel horrible.

I don't understand something similar, just IRL.

I don't understand how a person who knows about my AS diagnosis, still wonders when I don't understand her code-language-like hidden meanings and expects me to get the same thoughts as she has. (And ironically, I just read an article yesterday where it said that this kind of expectation was a sign of disordered empathy / lack of Theory of Mind!)
At the same time this person can be very, very empathetic with another person and vice versa, so this other one could tell me how the first person had thought in a situation where she was not even present, unlike me!! Almost spooky...

Maybe some NTs think like they have an empathy disorder when communicating with us?

She probably doesn't have the faintest idea that she is speaking with code-language-like hidden meanings. That thought never crossed my mind for 40 years of language use until I came to this site. It isn't as simple as thinking, "this person has autism so I had better stop using codes and speak literally and say what I mean". I never thought I used codes. I always thought I said what I meant. Most likely it's the same with her. What you call a "code" is just the way she has been speaking her entire life. When I post here I edit and edit and still sometimes wind up with posts that don't make sense to people. Hopefully I have figured out enough of the language rules that I didn't inspire the rant above but who knows?

Just as it's hard for you to understand her, it's hard for her to know what exactly she needs to do differently to make herself understood. And even then it would be exceedingly difficult for her to never, ever utter a sentence to you that didn't conform to this set of rules. I know it's hard for you and for everyone here. But it's hard to know what exactly is the right thing to say, too, and how to say it. I know people come on here speaking of the mental fatigue and horrible, costly effort of constantly trying to mesh with the NT majority. It's hard to go against your wiring. Most of the time it is flat out impossible which leads to much stress expressed here. Doesn't it make sense that it is just as hard for her to go against her wiring as it is for you to go against yours? Just as there are many posts from people saying "I thought I was doing it right but it turns out people still misunderstood me" she probably thinks she is communicating with you and just doesn't know what she is doing wrong. Going against her language wiring is just as hard for her as it is for you.

eye contact, an endless source of frustration for me

I think it's a habit. At work I am aware two people there are deaf and one man in blind but I can't stop talking to them and then I remember they can't hear me. I once told the blind man to watch what I;m doing and then I realized oh right, he can't see. It's a habit I have. I am so used to people who can see and hear so when I am with deaf people, I can't stop calling their name or talking to them without getting their attention first and then I realize they can't hear. With blind people, I can't stop saying "Look at this" and then I remember he can't see. So imagine being a none autistic and you meet someone who can't read you or understand double meanings and is very concrete, you have a horrible habit of not filling in the gaps as you speak and you keep expecting them to read you and then you remember oh right, she can't read me. Oh right, she is literal.

So it's a habit they have. I do recall one person saying here about her aspie husband she can't help it because its wired into her brain that she wants him to read her and she always has to remember he can't. It's a habit she says.

Overall the most highly encrypted thing that I notice about NT's overall, is the tendancy to steer conversation toward social status based conversation, once more than 2 people are present.
Once there are witnesses present, one person will start to joke about another person (humorously), the other person will then make up anything they can to grapple with the accuser.
I've got a great sence of humor and all but when I'm with a group of people I kind of get lost in how humor matters less than some sort of social coup.
I dont get it. No ones value changes in my eyes based on these exchanges.
Saying the right things to get compliments doesn't at all mean you deserve any praise at all, its just social skill.
I dont get how my value as a person is based on these things instead of what I do. Everyone has learned to come to me when they need help moving, and this is brutal work, but they still treat me like I'm of no concequential value because I dont win in these stupid word games that I cant even understand.

competition and the need to be better than someone else for any reason in general.

Janissy

I understand what you are saying. I think ASs and non-ASs are speaking a completely different vernacular of english at least here in the US. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vernacular I do not know about the rest of the world.

The problem is compounded further. What if their is no monolithic NT? NTs are different depending on what region they're from. My dad mentioned all of this. What if there really is no such thing as a NT?

You may have heard this saying: "The British and the Americans are two peoples divided by a common language"

When I first visited England I had no idea that their slang for cigarette was the same as my American slang for gay man. Imagine the confusion and miscommunication when an English man used this slang to ask me if I had any cigarettes with me that he could have.

I think the same thing is going on here. It sometimes seems that AS and NT are two peoples divided by a common language. Each thinks they are communicating with the other because theoretically they are using the same language but it doesn't work out that way.

This is probably true. I ask people to please be clear about things to me and not just leave me to assume or 'read between the lines', but to them, they are being clear. It's very difficult to express to them exactly how clear I need them to be. The way they are communicating is, to them, already so transparent and obvious, that they find it hard to believe that someone might not get the required message.

Why on earth can't they just be straight and direct with what they say instead of using some sort of code?
As an example, you are short of money and someone offers to buy you a meal and coffee with no expectation of repayment.
Yet, if you say yes, and ask where would be best to go, they seem shocked you took them up on the offer.
It is ridiculous. Why suggest something if you don't mean it? I have had things like this happen to me so often before. And then I end up wondering, was I expected to politely say no, or say thankyou, but I am okay, or vow to pay them back?

Yes! My husband (NT) and I had more fights because of this than anything else! I told him from day one that I don't play mind games and when I say something, I mean what I say and not something else. However, he does that NT thing I can't do, of reading into what I'd say. So, say our satellite TV would go out during a storm. I'd say, "Stupid satellite TV!" and he'd hear, "You're such an a**hole for switching us to satellite; only a moron like you would do that!" and yell at me in a fury. Or he'd ask me, "What's wrong?" and I'd tell him and he'd get mad, and I'd say, "Well, why did you ask if you didn't want to know?" (I still don't get that one...if I ask someone what's wrong, I want them to tell me!)

I've had the same problem at work, when I've been asked to do something, do it, and it turns out the person who told me to do what I did meant something else entirely. For example, when I was a student teacher, I was once told, "Just listen at this meeting, don't talk." Later, the same teacher told me that not talking made me seem snobbish, and that next time I should share my ideas. Um...but you told me not to talk! How can I share my ideas if I'm not supposed to talk?

I wish people would just say what they mean...I've also made the mistake of answering, "How are you?" honestly instead of with, "Fine, and you?" I finally figured out the only people who really mean that are my mom, my dad, and my therapist! It's as stupid a social nicety as shaking hands. Shaking hands makes me uncomfortable. I've taken to giving a little wave when I'm introduced to someone (my husband makes it easy by introducing both of us, and I wave when he says, "this is my wife, Rose,"). Sometimes people put out their hand anyway and then I take a deep breath and shake hands, but often they accept the wave as enough...but I have a feeling it would not be if I had to introduce myself to someone!

EDIT: I just wanted to say I love this site! As I go through the posts, I find myself saying, "OMG, yes!" I've never identified this well with others in my life.