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

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Question to NTs:

What is it about an Aspie that makes people not like them / reject them / ignore them? I'm very curious because I've been cut all contact with by new friends who had not long before told me what a kind heart I had and how very interesting I was to converse with.

When I'm on a roll with my special interest, almost nothing can make me interrupt my activity and go do something else. But if it's important, like my cats needing to be fed or going to work, I'll be late but I'll do it, of course. And if it's a job interview, I won't be late of course. Standing someone up is out of the question; I'll probably arrive a bit late and not all that dressed up for the occasion, but there's no such thing as not showing up or forgetting the time. If I had a bf and we had made plans, I wouldn't cancel or forget, of course. Does this answer your question?

No.

Question for NTs:

Do you ever have problems with eye contact?

Question for NTs:

Do you deconstruct and analyse your social interactions in order to understand them?

E.g. If I go home from a social gathering at 10pm, I'll be awake 'til at least midnight analysing the day's interactions. I'll consider, for example: How were the things I said received by others? Was my behaviour appropriate in the context? What would be good to remember for next time?

If you do not deconstruct and analyse, then by what method do you understand your social interactions?

I frequently deconstruct and analyze social interactions, especially after meeting new people or after "emotional" or intense interactions (e.g., arguments, important business meetings, etc.). Depending on the level of intensity of the interaction, I can think about it and deconstruct for weeks. During this process I think about things like word choice, tone of voice, body language, eye contact. Sometimes I'll go over these conversations in my mind over and over again looking for clues.

Hope this helps!

Ah cool. Thanks. It sounds as though the deconstruction and analysis of social interactions is not an exclusively AS occurence.

I wondered if is was because the people I know without AS seem to hop from social interaction to social interaction without exhaustion, whereas I need time to analyse and defrag. I thought perhaps they had a more efficient means of understanding, 'digesting' and moving on.

Question for NTs

I notice that NTs often lovingly tease their friends or family members for fun. . . but NTs can also tease and bully people they don't like. How can you tell the difference between loving teasing and hateful bullying teasing. How are they different? I mean, I get the more extreme circumstances of bullying, it's just the vaguer manifestations that seem a little harder for me to figure out.

My pleasure. One more thing: socializing for me also takes quite a bit of energy, and it can wear me down over the course of a day. At the extreme end, sometimes I have to attend all-day conferences and seminars as part of my job, and at the end of the day I have to retreat to a quiet dark place such as a hotel room. I suspect that socializing requires energy to a greater or lesser extent for all people.

I think it comes down to intent: teasing is a "game" with no harmful intent. Bullying is, of course, done with harmful intent. So if you are on the receiving end, you must "guess" at the intent of the other, and this is where clues such as eye contact, body language, tone of voice, sarcasm, etc. can be used to guess at intent. It is therefore much easier to interpret teasing with people you already know, and why strangers rarely tease each other. Conversely, if you want to do some teasing, one suggestion would be to try to make it easy for the other person to guess your intent. Best of luck

Definitely.
And sometimes I think about a situation later and realise what I said didn't reflect the meaning I was intending to impart. I self observe too in situations. Its a good thing to do, like anything you practice you become better at it with time which makes social situations easier as it becomes intuitive.

My definition of teasing is the person being teased is not unhappy about it. Bullying they are unhappy.

Thanks, Nostromo.

Thank you nostromo and denver dave.

Question for NTs

I've noticed that some Aspies, including me have trouble with one sided friendships. We'll put effort into a one sided friendship that perhaps was good in the past. Then as things go on and it becomes more and more evident that they don't care much or aren't really interested in spending time with us, we feel we are being treated unfairly and we blow up on them. This seems really unhealthy and it doesn't seem like I've seen many NTs in this situation.

I was wondering how NTs deal with a situation like this. Do you start to forget them and move on when it looks like a friendship is becoming one sided? Do you keep at it? Do you put them on a back burner? Do you confront them? Is there a certain number or qualitiative nature of declined invites, or social cues before you decide a friendship is becoming one sided? Do you find it hurtful and hard to let go of friends even when a friendship is becoming one sided.

Question for NTs:

How do you guys know when enough is enough? How do you guys know when somebody is mad at you?
I'm mostly talking about certaub signs in text, since I don't have a lot of trouble with identifying emotions 'in real life'.