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

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My guess is TheHaywire was hurting and just lashed out. It isn't the first time someone's done that and it won't be the last. So it goes.

Interesting years and years topic

I have had one special interest for over 42 years.

Related question topic ( @ sartresue)

I would like to know: For those on the spectrum, can/do you have some control over a "new" special interest? For example, in a work environment, lets say a manager asks if you can tackle a new problem that you may not ordinarily be interested in, but could you force yourself to focus on it because it may be helpful to your employer and possibly earn you some recognition? Here's an example, lets say a manager asks if you can develop some guidelines to reduce paper waste in the office in order to boost profits. Pretty mundane question, not particularly interesting or even challenging, but could you force yourself to take that on as a temporary special interest?

All you can do is study. In that case, I do think I could apply Intense Aspie Focus Mode, but that sounds like a neat problem to me. I can't force the gears to engage, but I can choose to allocate time to studying the problem, which is a necessary prerequisite. I have issues even thinking about something boring at all, though.

If I were between special interests (a lost stage where I don't know what to do with myself), I might easily be able to engage with that problem, but I might become the resident expert on paper, recycling, reuse, etc.

It doesn't need to become a full-fledged special interest for me to have fun tackling it. Most probably, I would treat it like a game and spend an afternoon on it. From there, the topic itself might become a longer-term special interest if other conditions were met (free mental space, interest, available material on the subject), but probably not.

Under different circumstances, I can sometimes make a deliberate choice to take actions that I intend to result in the development of (or a revisiting of) a certain special interest. The success rate is comparable to the mortality rate of variola major. The actions that I might take could include buying a book on the subject, reading about it online, asking people for information, gaining access to a physical object connected to the subject or any combination thereof.

I might also take steps to prolong a special interest, which could include the above. This could also (in some cases) include sharing it to get another perspective.

No I was asking an honest question. A lot of people think that bullying will rehabilitate people because it shows them the error of their ways through group disapproval. This actually works for many NT's. They get bullied for doing something socially unacceptable and realize that the bullying was a result of them being unacceptable in community. So they change their actions to avoid getting bullied again and are thus "rehabilitated" by not repeating the same social mistakes.

i actually know what you're saying ..
i have a feeling that what to us constitutes bullying sometimes is totally normal teasing / social banter to them. it's like some kind of weird group psychology hazing. (???)

but i don't know if this is really an accurate observation ...

but i've heard (maybe i read it on this thread???) that a lot of socializing is done to establish a pecking order, which would never in a million years be a thought in my mind. i hate hierarchy of any sort but i'm starting to recognize that some people actually like it / need it for some reason.

NTs feel free to jump in and explain why this is .. the only reason i can think of is so people can sort of take comfort in the assurance they're better than others so maybe i can let go of that negative belief if someone explains. i try to give people the benefit of the doubt but on some things i'm so in the dark i jump to negative conclusions and generalizations.

i can't seem to force anything, but i have had jobs that became special interests (win / win!!) and i have developed smallish special interests that sprung out of jobs (for ex. i worked in an art supply store in the paper department and was content to spend the whole day examining and collecting samples of all the different papers).

in other words, i'm always happy to acquire a fascination with something new, but i can't apply much focus on anything on purpose if it doesn't grab me on its own.

First of all: Haywire, sorry for misunderstanding you. You might have a point, but I still don't think a lot of bullies are conscious of their reason. I've actually been on the attacking side of bullying "teams" or "cliques" a few times and I think the closest feeling I experienced was the thought that someone needed to be "put in their place". So it's not like you're really trying to be kind. I guess sometimes bullies say that.. Like "I'm gonna do you a favor" right before they beat you up, but emotionally it's still pretty negative towards the person being bullied. (Or else they'd probably just try to explain nicely.)

It would kind of have to have at least a loose tie-in of some sort to one of my main special interests. Then yeah, I would probably be able to get way into it. For me, there are really just a couple core things that have greatly interested me for my entire life, and all my "special interests" are tied to those.
Like, my main ones are art/design, anatomy/macrobiology, (as in, you know, the biology you can see without a microscope) and organization. And my current obsession is realistically sculpted dolls with accurate moving joints. (Making them, customizing them and learning about their engineering.) It ties right in to art/design and anatomy. My other current interest is gardening and yardwork. That ties into organization and macrobiology. But I could use much looser ties to excite at least a mild "special interest" kind of state if I had to. :3 The deeper you get into something, the more you WANT to get into it because you start learning new things and seeing new subtleties and it's kind of like a game, trying to unravel it and figure it out and come up with a technique, if it's something active that requires a technique, like a job you have to do.
But if it's totally, TOTALLY unrelated, probably not. Some things just numb my mind immediately, like I can't even think anymore.

I think the process works in more of the opposite way, you cannot force a special interest in a work topic, but you can try and fit the work requirements to the interests that you have.

In the example that you gave, it is like saying "I have only created a couple of guidelines to limit paper use, But I have found a great and inanely complicated automated paperless invoicing system. Let me explain how it works ...".

If you force yourself to work on a mundane topic long enough, you can sometimes find an aspect of the problem which can fit this. Once this happens though the solution to the problem becomes lopsided, because you spend endless time and focus on the part that is interesting and virtually ignore the rest.

I would have to say too that once a special interest shows up at my job, its not about getting recognition from a superior, you quickly loose sight of that and it becomes much more about solving the problem itself. They may start out impressed, but it usually leads to frustration once it is time to move on to a new project and you keep on coming back to this one swearing its not finished yet. (ultrasonic metal joining is really cool )

I personally think it's a combination of insecurity and not caring how many bodies they step on to get to the top. The fact that so many in a "top" social position engage in that kind of behavior makes me think that the higher you go, the more precarious your position might seem and the more likely that all but the most principled are going to engage in dirty tactics to KEEP that position.

Establishing a pecking order isn't always about insecurity, but it can be. Sometimes the pecking order is about how is best suited to make group decisions and has the best leadership skills. That can be healthy and beneficial. Some people have mental health issues and have an unhealthy need to make other people feel less competent/important/skilled/whatever than they are. Those groups are best to steer clear of when you can, IMO.

Bullying as a way to enforce group values...plausible. That's something that Anthropologists study. It can be tied to insecurity about survival. If someone is doing something "wrong" it can make the group feel threatened, and can be very primal. In that kind of situation it wouldn't be one guy doing the bullying, but the group. For instance, if you've got a guy in a neighborhood who doesn't take good care of their lawn, the neighbors may start calling the police or taking similar measures to get him to fix up his yard. They aren't picking on him to pick on him, but are trying to defend their own property value which is affected by how the neighbors properties look.

One on one bullying, which is what I first thought of when this topic came up, is more likely to be about the bully's lack of mental health and need to feel better than others. It's not about helping the target, it's about the bully feeling better about themselves. It's not an effective method, but a lot of people do it anyway.

Mmmm, I find I can't trick myself into getting interested into something. Although one way of doing that might be to find some sort of linking attribute between an existing interest and a new one. That tends to be how I obtain newer interests; finding a common thread.

This question suggests, to me, that people on the spectrum need rehab. Rehab from what exactly?

People who have a problem/habit/behaviour which inflicts negative results on their life need rehab. People on the Autism Spectrum are born with a diff-ability and learn to live with it.

Bullies have a problem with people who are different because they feel threatened by our differences. This is a negative behaviour which requires rehab.

True Story: A teacher told me that my son was being bullied because of his long, bushy hair. Then she suggested that he gets a haircut like the other boys (The bullies) to make the bullying stop. What!?
I respond (with an amused expression): "So he gets a hair cut... and the next thing they choose to pick on is...let's see...the shape of his nose...would you then be so ridiculous to suggest cosmetic surgery? Where would it end?"

I guess she thought he needed her twisted idea of help to rehabilitate him. This also suggested that she agreed with the bullying. He still wears his hair long, bushy & proudly.

If you bow down to the bullies, the bullying will never end. You don't have the problem, the bullies do. Bullies behave in a manner which will backfire & inflict negative results on their life...people with AS might need to think of some strategies to rehabilitate the bullies.

Indeed. If I could trick myself into being interested in anything it'd be easy to interact with just about anyone. I think that's a pretty fundamental difference between people with and without AS.

On a side note:I love developing guidelines, that task sounds like a lot of fun to me.

I don't think NTs are necessarily able to trick themselves into being interested in things, Darkword, but some of us are probably good at feigning interest in order to be polite or forcing ourselves to do tasks that we're not interested in. Then again, I'm sure that many people with ASDs often have to do that too, otherwise a lot of stuff would never get done. I can't even pretend to be interested in cleaning, for example, but I still make myself do it because it's better than living in a mess.

actually that sounds fun to me too. creating a list of rules is a perfect aspie task. i do things like this without being asked. but then i get extremely bent out of shape when people don't follow the rules. and if someone wanted to edit them i would probably be irritated as well.