First time in history!! !! The NT/AS open hotline ! !! !! !

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What kind of social encounter are you referring to? And what kind of satisfaction are you wishing to understand?

In a friend-friend encounter, it depends on the person and the relationship I have with them. Since each relationship is different, I may be very chatty with someone and it will satisfy my need to have a causal chat through that encounter. But with other people, I can sit there for hours and only say a few things here and there but have them be meaningful while the other person does the same, and it's equally as fulfilling, in a different area.

As for a mere acquaintance encounter, I tend to keep the chat limited to "light and fluffy" stuff if I intend to talk to them for any length of time.

Last edited by randomgirl on 16 May 2010, 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hi Monkey, thanks for asking. For me, intelligent conversations are one of the top ten best things in life.

Ah ok that makes some sense. The social encounter I mentioned was mostly to do with a friend or close acquaitence. And the satisfaction is mostly to do with the feeling that you got something meaningful out of the interaction. Like, I dunno how to explain it, like I mean is a load of words being swapped a satisfying social encounter or is it too, idk, wordy, is there not enough emotional meaning in it? The question made sense in my head anyway.

Because I've always been the kind of person who would talk about big subjects or deep things as if they were casual, I've met new acquaitences where in the second meeting or so we've, or I've, opened up and basically had us talking about our life story and things like religious debates or something similar. I guess that's why I've always got on well with aspies, because their isn't much light chit chat and we dive right into the intellectual stuff.

Long intelligent discussions are great, but it's never just words. There are always emotional undercurrents. If I know that the person I'm speaking with has AS or isn't very good at expressing feelings and might miscommunicate their feelings I'm comfortable asking them to verify the emotional content I'm picking up on. For instance, if we're talking about psychology but you seemed really angry about something, I might ask you "Are you feeling angry about something? Are you angry with me?" If the emotional undercurrants are very mild and don't seem important I might not ask such a question. I do gain satisfaction from the simple sharing of information and the emotional stuff isn't necessary to enjoy a conversation, but it's always there somewhwere.

Question for NTs.

It's my lunch break. A coworker started walking with me while I was en route to order a plate of food. She asked "what are you doing for lunch?" I said "getting a plate of rice and beans" as we kept walking. I'll get back to this in a second, because shortly thereafter I encountered another problem, which was: how do I get the attention of the short order cook? Does she know I'm there? While I pondered this, someone circumvented me to shout out an order to her, and I got really frustrated, but still couldn't figure out the rules.

Finally I managed to order my food, and noticed that my coworker had walked away some time prior. Maybe she had wanted someone to eat lunch with. Oops.

So I actually have three questions.

1. Does my coworker now think I'm rude because this didn't occur to me on time to respond?
2. If she wanted a response, why didn't she ask me a question?
3. Why isn't it rude to shout out a lunch order when someone else is waiting to order?

(all that in about five minutes ... )

Oops - I explained that badly. She did technically ask me a question. I meant why didn't she ask what she was implying (if I've interpreted that correctly .. ), namely, would I eat lunch with her?

No, I don't think she thinks that. You did respond, "rice and beans" but you didn't add, "want to join me?" so she went off and did her own thing. If she was absolutely determined to join you, she would have said so.

I don't think this was a situation where there was a presumption of eating together.


Because I've been posting on WP for a year and have read many "passed over in the lunch line" posts during that year, I had a sudden epiphany in the lunch line last week. I made eye contact with the server as I have unconsciously done 100,00 times before and I placed my order. Then the person behind me placed his. In that moment, it occured to me that I made eye contact with the server. I'd never noticed that before. I just did it. This time I noticed it because I've read this on WP so many times. The epiphany was that the server would have served the person behind me if I hadn't made eye contact and that if I had Asperger's Syndrome, I never would have done this (automatically made eye contact) and would have been passed over constantly and never known why.

Here's the lunch line protocol (also applies to delis, ice cream parlours or any place where people stand in a line as they wait to place food orders):
Getting to the front of the line often but not always means that a person is ready to order. Some people have not yet made up their minds what to get by the time they get to the front of the line and they are still deciding. Not making eye contact with the server is how he knows that the person at the front of the line needs more time to decide what to order. When you are ready to place the order, you make eye contact. The person behind you will see that you have not engaged the server even though you are at the front of the line. He will then yell out his order. If he is grumpy, he will later vent to his friends about people who get all the way to the front of the line and still haven't made up their minds. Because that is what is presumed by all if you don't make eye contact when you reach the front of the line.

Next time, make eye contact with the server as soon as you get to the front of the line. If this makes you uncomfortable, alternatively start saying your order literally the second you get to the front of the line. Doing that without making eye contact will annoy the server some, but it will prevent you from being passed over.

If you had asked this last month, I couldn't have answered properly. It occured to me earlier in the week in that moment right after I made eye contact with the server and then placed my order.

(all that in about five minutes ... )[/quote]

thank you. i was concerned i missed something implied, and may have accidentally implied something back, like "i have no interest in eating lunch with you" when i actually didn't mean anything at all. this sort of thing happens a lot, and when i think about it afterward i'm concerned i might hurt people's feelings or seem cold or antisocial.



ah!
every so often, i read something and the light bulb goes on and i think "hey! i know this one!"

i discovered a workaround for this. i just ask people near the front if they've already ordered (if i'm feeling up to it) and then determine if i'm first.

but in this case, it's a taco truck type thing, and the cook is taking orders. so she doesn't stop and acknowledge anyone - so i assume she's too busy cooking to take my order. then inevitably someone comes up and just yells out their order. meanwhile i'm standing there waiting, and wondering why she doesn't ask for my order (which she has done before). it must be one of those elusive timing things. i don't know the difference between assertive and rude. so i stand there paralyzed with indecision about when or if i should say something. most of the time i find it easier to just bring my own lunch. if i forget, i dread the process of ordering and waiting, and my lunch break is effectively ruined as i don't have any time left to relax and eat.

it must be nice not to have to think about this nonsense 24/7.

anyway, thank you very much, Janissy.

here's another puzzle:
when i'm sitting outside at a coffee shop, for instance, and someone sits next to me with a dog, i always pet the dog. i can't help it - i love animals, and they usually come to me. frequently the response of the pet owner is to apologize and yank the animal away.

what is that one all about???

1. Yes, but if you go to her and apologise then ask her to lunch she'd probably like that. "What are you doing for lunch" actually means "Will you have lunch with me?" Don't ask me why. It's like when people say "How are you?" but the last thing they want is an honest answer.

2. She did. She just didn't know that you didn't know what she meant. If you tell her that you're a very straight forward person and take everything at face value, so didn't realize right away that she meant she wanted to have lunch, and by the time you realized it she was gone, she'll probably understand. NTs do this sometimes even if they do know the code, so it's not way out there or anything. Like you said, it was only a five minute time span.

3. It is. That person was rude. Just because they are an NT doesn't mean they are behaving "properly", au contraire. They just don't have a medical excuse for needing extra work to learn the rules. It's also possible that they thought you already placed your order and were just waiting for your food, or couldn't make up your mind and needed more time to decide. They may have been accidentally rude, at best.

Wow Jannissy, I didn't realize that about the eye contact thing. You are completely right, though sometimes the server will ask the customer if they are ready just to confirm before moving on to the next customer, but that's usually in a more polite setting like in a more upscale supermarket/bakery/coffee shop/whatever. Often it's done with only body language. The server will pause, attempt eye contact, the next customer will also politely watch the attempt to make sure you've had your fair turn. It's really not a conspiracy, we don't even know we are doing it and have no way to know you're not playing by the same rules we are. If a person has an awkward gate or other outward signs of being different some people might realize that social cues may vary, but often there isn't something that noticable especially in a busy shop from behind a counter.

I must have engaged in this whole scenario hundreds, maybe thousands of times and didn't even realize it. This stuff just happens on auto pilot.

ach - dissenting NT opinions here. well, i guess you're not all the same ..

do i owe her an apology? or is it ok to just try to remember to answer differently next time?

i never figured that out about "how are you?" either until i read it here somewhere. someone said it was a way to figure out the other person's state of mind or level of optimism or something. i always say "tired" or whatever else (that is accurate) comes to mind. so now i have no idea how to appropriately answer that question. are you just supposed to say something meaningless and cheery? or is it rhetorical?

oh well .. the sad truth is i can't carry all this Q and A around with me and surreptitiously consult it as if it were a foreign language guide for a tourist. it's nonstop. eventually i'm going to just have to out myself, at the very least admit that i take things too literally.

KF wrote: do i owe her an apology? or is it ok to just try to remember to answer differently next time?

You didn't do anything majorly rude or anything, but you may have communicated a lack of interest in having lunch with her. If you would like to have lunch with her bring it up, casually. Maybe tell her that it didn't "click" for you that she might have wanted to eat with you until she'd walked off. NTs do this to each other all the time, especially if they have something on their mind. It's not something you should loose sleep over or anything.


KF wrote: i never figured that out about "how are you?" either until i read it here somewhere. someone said it was a way to figure out the other person's state of mind or level of optimism or something. i always say "tired" or whatever else (that is accurate) comes to mind. ....

Tired works. "Fine" is often the standard answer, but saying "tired" or "looking forward to the meeting this afternoon" if you are, is completely appropriate. I think you've got the right idea about giving a general answer about your state of mind or present situation. What they don't want is your life history or deepest feelings. I didn't mean to make it more complicated than it is.


KF wrote: oh well .. the sad truth is i can't carry all this Q and A around with me and surreptitiously consult it as if it were a foreign language guide for a tourist. it's nonstop. eventually i'm going to just have to out myself, at the very least admit that i take things too literally.[/quote]

I think you're doing just fine. The situations you're describing don't involve huge mistakes, just those little social flubs that everybody makes regardless of ASD status.

phew .. thanks.

maybe i can relax a little bit. still trying to get a gauge for how normal i appear to others, though in truth it probably isn't very important anyway.

I growned around NTs and always when I asked them something they used to say thing like
Just play with your friends, etc

I think it could only dont cause too much damage if the NTs were very well selected by aspies ..but i really dont see big utility about that because nts in general havent ability to express their useless social strange complications to us and they would need to know all the context of a situation, which is almost impossible to explain, the nts should have an high IQ, be completely aware of what is autism and the difficulties it brings, otherwise it would cause a lot of damages.
And even in that situation they can say idiot advices like invite her do lunch without knowing all the context......I think we should work 2 deal with those NTs mainly through books and experiences of other aspies but avoid the more we can to deal with them. I really think NTs in general are really useless and they really dont have anything to teach us.

Other thing and this is just emotional: I didnt like the title The NTs/Aspies open hotline...I would prefer Aspies/NTs open hotline but, as I said, this is just emotional.

I didnt like also the caps lock....it seems u are giving entonation to your words...we can express ourselves through words...dont need caps....if the meaning of the words is good, it will work.

And sorry to tell you, you dont seem an aspie, you seem a mother of an aspie that only wants to help but, in the majority of times NTs want to help they only cause big troubles to us. Indeed, the only problem to us in this life are the NTs.

Anybody worth knowing isn't going to need you to be "normal" all the time to want to be your friend or to work well with you in a business setting. Nobody is really "normal" anyway and NTs feel just as weird as Aspies do at least most of them do. Relaxing is probably the best thing you can do. Just keep working out the social stuff but don't stress about it. I call my mom all the time to talk about things that happen at work if I'm not sure I did the right thing, or if somebody is acting like they are offended and I don't know what I did. Nobody gets it right all the time and everybody has to work on that stuff. Welcome to the human race!

I'm sorry you've had such bad experiences. I hope you find some NTs who will treat you well and change your opinion. I have no reason to want to seem like an Aspie, it's all I can do to be myself. I do have two Aspie children and another one who's a bit of an enigma but not an NT so I get a lot of practice trying to connect with Aspies who want to be connected with.

You make a good point. NTs don't realize all the stuff they do that shuts Aspies out. It's not intentional anymore than stimming or hand flapping is for some Aspies. I find it very helpful to hear about NT behavior from Aspies who are articulate and interested in helping because it helps me see things I might be doing that are alienating to Aspies. I'm glad that many of the Aspies at WP are interested in working toward mutual understanding. It's the only way I know of to make things better all around.

When anybody writes off other people for being different they loose out on all the good things that those people have to offer. That works both ways. If Aspies write off NTs they loose out. If NTs write off Aspies they loose out.