NTs Keep Score

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First you have to value the person enough to care to get revenge. If you have no value for them, you wouldn't waste your energy. It's always amusing to me just how much power people give each other. The ultimate power is to care so little you just go about your business and don't let it affect you at all. That goes for bullies and anyone else who tries to psychologically harm you. A true position of power is when you always arrange it so you can just walk away if you so desire or stay if it suits you.


All this talk of revenge and crying. It is simple communication and you either want to participate or not. Same with the other person. The decision is an either/or. If you do, you work at it. If not, move along. If you want to and the other person does not, learn your lesson from it and walk away. Simple.

Deaf people stim too and they have their own culture. It has only been in recent years they have been looked upon as acceptable. Deaf people are urged to learn lip reading because it is more acceptable to NTs than sign.

People whose spouses develop chronic illnesses like MS often have feelings of anger and resentment, isolation and lonliness, just like the Cassandra wives. They just feel more guilty about it instead of writing the person off as unacceptable.

I managed an employee with MS who felt she had to divorce her husband rather than saddle him with being her caretaker and her fear that he would be stuck with medical bills. However, you are right, if he had been a Cassandra spouse, people would have villified him. The same happens to people who are in car accidents and become completely disabled. If the spouse leaves or whines about caring for them, they are villified.

By definition, being a victim is being unable to successfully defend oneself ... be it due to weakness, lack of foresight, or general ineffectuality.



If you're talking about changing a world's attitude about AS, it does indeed involve billions of people.

As concerns romantic relationships... initially, I must admit that when we first started dating, my fiance's ability to successfully discern my behavioral conditioning attempts was rather irritating. (He found the ease with which I recognized his behavioral conditioning attempts equally vexing, heh!) We don't have much by the way of nonverbal difficulties, silence issues, etc... we've far more of two people who both have several "Evil Overlord" tendencies. rofl.

But you know, I wouldn't have it any other way. He'd bore me to death otherwise.



Did I give you the impression I did not?



Friends and family who I cannot be myself around are friends and family I can well do without, or this is how I've always considered it. If you can't relax be yourself in your own home, then where can you?



I daresay it is made easier for me in that neither of us are, strictly speaking, "normal". Both of us are fairly good at putting up the pretense of it for others, but neither of us are normal per se. We are lucky in that many of our areas of nonnormality match.

We are even luckier in that each is willing to tolerate where the other does not match. lol

Ha! I wish I had led a sheltered life, just to see the other side of the coin, if nothing else. I was in Flint, Michigan when it went to hell... not too far from Detroit.

Barring drunkards, druggies, and people who are insane, I find that if you make someone genuinely uncertain as to whether or not they'll win the encounter (or even better, get them thinking they'll probably lose), and give them have a chance to retreat, they will. Self-interest gets the better of them... and it takes an insane amount of rage (or lacking that, a substance that takes away all inhibition, or in the case of religious fundamentalists, an unshakable belief that a glorious afterlife awaits them at death), to override that most fundamental impulse of the human organism.

Do you know how the Japanese were really beaten? They saw what we did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and realized that they couldn't win. Basic self-interest... "Ok, do we want them to bomb all our cities off the map? Maybe we better rethink this." ... took over, and they stood down.

And that's really what you have to do... make them understand that continued aggression on their part will result in a far higher price than they are willing to pay.

I suppose I've never felt victimized, or haven't done so in such a long time it ceases to be an issue. I usually analyze situations and leave the emotions out of it. I've learned from my encounters will unpleasant people to avoid future encounters in similar situations. I've never felt like a victim and haven't felt like getting even. I can only sustain anger for a very brief period and then I get distracted by something else and forget it.



It was never my intention in this thread. It was merely to point out how score-keeping can lead to false impressions about people with AS.

This is one hell of a good thread (even after it turned sour.) I think some of the responses were due to misunderstandings - like whether the quoted person was talking about how to relate to NTs in general, or significant others. Totally different, I think, in terms of expectations (SHOULD they read about Aspergers, open themselves to my quirks, change their attitudes?) And this:

But Hazelwudi's not. I think Hazel's talking about reacting effectively (as i have had much trouble doing) in the schoolyard and workplace, etc. If i react to being ridiculed, mocked, intentionally hurt, with (to me, perfectly understandable shock and hurt) the bullies and everyone else will see me as a fair-game victim, because i'm not playing the game effectively.

I suspect this is what i fear the most about going back to work; i can do the work, get by (I think) in many social situations, but when it comes to game-playing NTs mocking and playing practical jokes on me, i'm at a loss. I don't know how to calibrate the right response that will achieve a lasting truce.

There's a whole invisible realm called "office politics" or "group dynamics" or whatever, that is beyond me, and which I despise, hate and loath with a passion. But it's a game, and NTs keep score. It's how social hierarchies and much of business is done; who's on top is not decided by who deserves to manage people, who will be fair and decide what's best for all concerned. No, it's who plays the game and manipulates people best.

I suspect it's hard-wired group behavior, that cultures and societies understand (more or less) but which my AS couldn't understand and my fearful mother disrupted in me (don't fight back!) Now, as an adult, I don't know how to fight back effectively (and I really don't want to - I see through their stupid insecurities and groupthink games, I'd rather ignore the aggression and laugh along with the absurdity of it all, and wish they'd grow up and it would all go away.) But - and here's the kicker - if I don't react as they would (revenge? one-upmanship? punch in the face? I don't know!! and that's a huge problem!!) I'm set up to suffer forever in that group (workplace,) never advance, always be taken advantage of.

What kind of work do you do, Tomart? I don't see much of it in IT. We're all basically weird. Only the testing group seems to have any emotions.

I've had my days of office politics as a manager. It's irrelevent anyway. They play the game and the top players change or the company is sold and suddenly they are out. Or they go to the gulf course one day and fall over from a heart attack. I'd rather just work on projects than work with people. It makes me hate my job. That doesn't have much to do with them and their score keeping, it has to do with me. No matter how good my staff was, I hated dealing with people all day. It turned me into a person I did not like. Now I work writing projects, I'm left alone 99% of the time (the other one percent is phone conferences or web meetings) and I am happy. Money doesn't make me happy, but doing what suits me does. I can afford all the things I want so why move up into a job I hate? So it's my decision ulitmately.

Maybe you need to look at your type of work or that particular job in it and see if you really fit with that. Maybe it's time for a change?

Oh yeah, I went into computers a long time ago.
But in graphics/printing I've been in larger groups and don't do well at all. The most tolerable situation so far was a tiny print shop where it was just me and the owner. I can adjust to one person's rules and expectations, that clarifies it for me. (But when his wife came in some days, I had trouble...)

I grew up on a farm, so was working for my father from a young age, and internalized that paradigm: job security, loyalty, conscientiousness, identification with the business, clear expectations, stability.
Ever since, I've had trouble interviewing/selling myself, resentment at being cheated (underpaid, no benefits,) being told to do things management wouldn't do themselves, ostracized, and especially terminated.

I do QuarkXPress, Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop, typesetting, page layout, printing production/front end; I have a Webmaster certificate, and a wide creative streak. I've made maps for games, painted signs, drawn portraits.


Wow, that sounds wonderful. How do I get into something like that?

There are degrees in Technical Writing. You can also look into research jobs, library research, law research, etc. Also, I have an NT friend who works in Epidemiology where she does medical research for private companies and works from her home. I've had stay at home mom acquaintances who did Medical Transcription and worked at home. Many Technical Writers work from home and it is really not a good NT job because most NTs find it too lonely. Grant Writing has limited people contact and that is usually more of a course. Some colleges offer it outside degrees and some communities offer it in their public funded programs (because many charities and government programs write for grants and people need to learn how.

We need to start a thread of jobs that are Aspie friendly. I've been thinking about this before. My brother has always successfully worked because he is technically inclined and he works as a tech on machines. Maybe not the highest pay he could have with his IQ, but so what? He loves it and he's supported himself and six kids with it. He always messed around with machines when we were kids and I always wrote. We both ended up in something we love.

Do you have any kind of career counseling around you, Tom? I would go there and emphasize that you want to look at jobs where you spend much of your time on your own. List what you would like instead of what you would not like. They should be able to come up with a list and what the qualifications are to get into it. That is what they are there to do.

Career counseling... like the colleges i went to? Or are you referring to something like a private (pricey) service?

["medical research for private companies" Where to begin looking? Are there want ads for this?]

Thanks, uber-much - I need some direction like this; that's why I'm here (although many of the discussions are quite fascinating...

As a footnote, Hazelwudi: I get some of the same feelings reading your arguments that I did reading Ayn Rand... an Objectivist? kind of approach... But apparently unlike you, I've been singled out, victimized, bullied (partly because my mother was a teacher in the school?) and, at the risk of alienating some, I can agree with the human cesspool insights... I wish I could learn to manipulate people; but that's not right either, I HATE it and couldn't do it.

Knowing that there are more "alone" jobs out there than I could think of (and that some of them are nice and technical ) gives me more hope. Thanks again, ZanneMarie.

Hmm, perhaps this should go to a new thread, like in the Work and Finding a Job directory?
ZanneMarie, would you like to start it, or copy this over, or what? I haven't been her long enough to know how to handle it.

Last edited by tomart on 20 Apr 2007, 10:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

ive heard you all talk about people with NT what is it?

As I understand it, it means Neurologically Typical, in other words, people who don't have Asperger's.

Last edited by tomart on 26 Apr 2007, 2:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Most cities have career resource centers and many schools have them where adults can go in after regular school hours at least once a week. Usually the unemployment office has a list of them.

If you want to search on jobs, go to www.monster.com and type in medical research and see what it returns. They should list the qualifications out. If you need a degree, I would apply for financial aid if you aren't currently working. There are also technical training programs through many local colleges that are geared for people with disabilities. Go to a local college and get all of their program materials, especially continuing education. Talk to an advisor there if you can. You just need to get hooked in.

Virtually everyone manipulates people, it's the only way most people can satisfy their needs while remaining even vaguely civil. lol

tomart, I'm dealing with just such a place. Note that I am Canadian; it may be different in New Jersey:

I went to the local employment agency, told them I was having trouble maintaining gainful employment due to several due to disability, and they refered me to a career rehabilitation place. I went there and got to do lots of fun tests like intelligence tests, MBIT, some others. They also refered me to a psychologist(more fun tests!), where he picked up on me having AS, and commented on it with the second visit.

In my case, its all paid for by the state, as reduces load on unemployment/disability benefits(which I have never claimed), and promotes the economy by lessening the unemployment rate(which is not a problem here, but its still paid for).