09 May 2013, 6:29 pm
League_Girl wrote:
I was out on the patio talking to my mother while my son was playing in his new fort my husband and my dad and uncle built for him and it's still has yet to be finished. We were talking about my old neighborhood I grew up in up till 12 years of age before we moved. Mom was talking about these neighbors we had when we lived there and I sure learned something new about the parents. Mom told me she didn't like the guy that lived there and she thought he was mean and verbally abusive to his wife just by what he'd say about women and what he thought of them. She said she didn't like either of them but she still talked to the woman that lived there and I said to her I guess I did her and them a favor unintentionally, asking her right in front of her why she was talking to her and I thought she didn't like her. That family never spoke to my mother again and I said in the conversation today it was as if I was saying "stop pretending you are friends" and mom told me she wasn't pretending, she was just being a good neighbor by chatting with her and you can still chat with someone and not be their friend. She also told me you can still talk to someone even if you don't like them because it's part of being a good neighbor. To me it all seemed fake because if you don't like someone, why pretend so? But to her it's not fake. So I had learned NTs have their own concept on what fakeness is. We think it's fake when someone doesn't like us but act like they do by chatting with us and to them it's not fake.
It must be a social thing, part of the social rules.
It must be a social thing, part of the social rules.
It took me DECADES to realize that some people who talked to me in a very friendly manner smiling and saying lots of nice things actually disliked me. In fact, I only realized it a couple of years ago
and only because some other people informed me about that. I'm not sure I would ever discover it by myself.
I can't say I feel damaged because of that... I'm really not the kind of person everybody likes.
I can't say I blame them for their pretending; I know they don't have any bad intentions; it's really kind of social rule I don't quite understand.
But ever since I made this my little discovery, communication has become a much more complicated game to play. I mean, in addition to all those other things I have to control (my eyes, gestures, my weird humor, forcing myself to keep up the conversation when I'm starting to get bored, etc.), I now also have to think if the person I'm talking to is really friendly, or just pretending to be friendly.
To make it even more complicated: I suspect that sometimes people might not know themselves if they like me or not. For instance, they can convince themselves that they like me (because they're interested in my friendship for some reason; or because they generally want to be "kind") and still feel somewhat uncomfortable in my presence. So, the difference between sincere friendliness and faked friendliness can be very subtle.
As to me, I'm often not sure about what I feel. It takes a lot of really bad s**t to make me dislike a person; and if the really bad s**t happens, I just break up with them so there's no need to fake anything. Under normal conditions, I'm mostly neutral and feel nothing but curiosity (or boredom, in the worst case) and some strain caused by the fact of communication itself. Surely, I prefer being friendly in such cases. I don't know if it's faked, or to what extent it is faked. Actually, every time I open my mouth to say something, I feel that it's gonna be slightly faked. The only thing I can do is never tell lies intentionally.
09 May 2013, 7:12 pm
alakazaam wrote:
I agree with your concept 100%. NT's are fake in every possible way.
Oh I think this is way too generalized
NT's are several billion people, so I think if we did kind of statistical research we would find various behaviors among them.
As to my own limited statistics, I know one aspie who can fake anything... joyfulness, friendliness, enthusiasm.... at least as long as she's not emotionally overloaded. She says that learning to pretend belongs to adaptation. By the way, I heard that some actors were believed to have AS.
I also know a few NT people who are very honest. It's their ethics. They just think that when we're faking feelings or telling lies we're kind of betraying ourselves.
So, I don't think that the problem in this thread is AS or NT specific.
09 May 2013, 8:42 pm
richardbenson
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09 May 2013, 10:02 pm
10 May 2013, 4:55 am
marshall wrote:
I guess the issue is if you're not willing to make a large pool of "fake" friends (i.e. acquaintances) as a pool in which to find your true friends, you're totally f*ed and doomed to be a hermit all your life.
Seems to be right.
But somehow acquaintances are easier to lose than to keep. Sometimes you're too exhausted and need to be alone exactly when they're having a party and want you to join. Sometimes you're too exhausted even to write a letter on their birth day (this happened to me just a few days ago
). Sometimes you're too self-absorbed to pick up the phone when they're calling. Besides, you usually don't know them very well and can easily hurt them by saying something inappropriate, and they are not so attached to you as to just forgive it.
I'm (relatively) lucky in this regard: I've got two close friends, really very close, and all my acquaintances are actually their acquaintances. They are both very sociable, and I use them to meet people, to call people and make appointments, etc. They kind of keep me connected to the world, I'm really very grateful to them.
Last edited by FirstDay on 10 May 2013, 8:38 am, edited 2 times in total.
MsMarginalized
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10 May 2013, 8:19 am
PrncssAlay wrote:
I've irreversibly alienated several potential women friends because I can't help being up-front about the fact that I can't STAND rummage sales. 
What kind of a moron alienates someone based on their shopping habits? (I'm calling the NT's morons....NOT YOU!)
Wow, I've had all of the situations described here at least once...and the more I learn about NT's the more I want to tell them how moronic they're acting! edited to add in: MOST of those situations actually happened to me before my Aspergers dx, it's only been SINCE my dx that I want to tell them how moronic they are.
This one gal from my old church (I'll call her Mary) isn't so active. She only occassionally attends Sunday service, has never been to Sunday school in the whole time I was there) and she never 'got the memo' when I introduced myself to everyone as having Aspergers.
Had an AWFUL Aspie moment with her when we first met (she's elderly & recently retired) she had some Medicare questions (that I knew the answer to because I have Medicare!) but she could NOT fathom someone under 50 being knowledgeable about it...it was an awful conversation we had.
But on her facebook she's all going on about helping out Autistic kids (she's a special ed substitute/part time teacher!) I guess Mary's consideration for Auties goes as far as the end of her nose!
10 May 2013, 10:42 am
FirstDay wrote:
marshall wrote:
I guess the issue is if you're not willing to make a large pool of "fake" friends (i.e. acquaintances) as a pool in which to find your true friends, you're totally f*ed and doomed to be a hermit all your life.
Seems to be right.
But somehow acquaintances are easier to lose than to keep. Sometimes you're too exhausted and need to be alone exactly when they're having a party and want you to join. Sometimes you're too exhausted even to write a letter on their birth day (this happened to me just a few days ago
). Sometimes you're too self-absorbed to pick up the phone when they're calling. Besides, you usually don't know them very well and can easily hurt them by saying something inappropriate, and they are not so attached to you as to just forgive it. I'm (relatively) lucky in this regard: I've got two close friends, really very close, and all my acquaintances are actually their acquaintances. They are both very sociable, and I use them to meet people, to call people and make appointments, etc. They kind of keep me connected to the world, I'm really very grateful to them.
I can't maintain friends or acquaintances long distance. All my once close friends become acquaintances when they moved away, got married, got busy lives. Having to live different places at different times in your life because of a career path also cuts you off. The modern world is constructed for extroverts who can make new friends on a dime and feel "connected" when they chat on facebook and only do something big together once a year or so when they can find the time off from work, if that.
10 May 2013, 10:52 am
