Maintaining "The Pose".

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Indeed that "conversation" sounds like a total waste of time and breath to me! NTs like to say the most obvious things like "it's sunny today", well thanks for the breakthrough, I noticed... And even if I do know that now, I still can't get myself through that process. I always have to think for at least a minute before I can come up with these obviousnesses, and by then it's too late....

TheDoctor82, I wish I had your strength! I would love to just be myself but it has always bitten me in the a--. So yes i try to play this ridiculous society game in order to be even remotely accepted. People make fun of me but at least they don't hate me, well, not openly anyway. Seeing how they play nicest friends when someone's there but bash them the minute they're gone, there's no doubt they do it with me too.

I've found "the pose" simply isn't an option for me. I have "scripts", but all they do is tell me how social interactions work; if my core personality can't accommodate the requirements of that "script", then I can't bend it or apply a "mask" to make the script happen. Any attempt to do so is seen through immediately by pretty much everyone and generally makes the situation worse. Reflective listening, when I apply it, either stops the conversation dead or turns the other party hostile. Oh, and the slightest attempt at faking generally leaves me with a splitting headache for my trouble.

The concept of using social masks for me, to extend the metaphor begun by Janissy, is like trying to get into a period costume that's about 10 sizes too small, having first been required to put on "make-up" consisting entirely of blancmange and having the voice coaching consist of "Speak all your lines with a biscuit in your mouth". Nobody cares whether it looks like the right era or not because the sheer absurdity is too overwhelming.

I can and frequently do blend into social situations to an extent, but the only way I can do that is if I have the space to be completely me without pretence. This can be awkward because the majority of NTs do not appear to realise how much pretence they do in order to comply with the social situations they create. Some find my lack of mask refreshing. Others are downright confused. A certain number appear to hate me for not pretending to bow to their conventions.

And yet people respond to it... if, as you say, you can come up with it fast enough. That part's murder. I haven't practiced much on adults and it's a lot easier with a toddler. You can be blatantly obvious and they have no clue because they're blatantly obvious. But I never had a huge problem talking to toddlers most of the time, anyway.

But in all honesty, even though I feel more confident now that I have a method for shoveling the crap should it ever be necessary, I seldom am interested in doing it. There's one lady in particular who has no malice about her and yet grates my nerves so that I can't bring myself to encourage her conversation. She's one I've mentioned in other posts, a lady who was so confident in the wondrous taste of her revolting spud recipe that she assured me she would provide me with the recipe (after she brought it up in conversation and I discouraged her from wasting her time) and then brought a dish of them for the sole purpose of having me taste them and see how nummy they were. Well, she creeped me out with the potato stalking and now when she starts a conversation, all I can think of to say is, "Oh." Of course, this is also because she has a way of stating a nonsequitur and expecting people to pick up and just start talking about it. So you see how encouraging her is not appealing.

I figure I'll stick with my little formula or say nothing at all... It beats the old pattern. You could make a pie chart of the different responses I used to get, the percentages of people who would respond in a given way, and there would be sections for:

avoid conversation after the first one
try again expecting you to turn out to be "nice" (just like them, in other words)
figure that they're nice people for tolerating you (they're the ones who also give themselves permission to cast people aside for petty failings)
think you're hilarious and approach you every time they see you with a big smile because they're waiting for you to say something funny
condescending people who think you'll come around if they give you time and patience (this includes the motherly ones who think you're a terribly flawed creature that needs their encouragement)

and the smallest slivers which include:

enough like you to see where you're coming from
truly figure people are entitled to be themselves
the rare few, the people who like just about everyone.

Somewhere in there would be a spot for people who seem to take everything about you personally.

It's all I can take sometimes. Striking a pose.

Big effort to try to maintain an outward effect that's pleasant for NT's in social situations. Usually mess it up and just look weirder for it probably. I guess I don't do a very steady job either as I'm often looked upon as sullen or aloof.

It's not a problem with close family.

I have to fake constantly, because I DON'T CARE about most of the things that people want to talk to me about. Unless they got a promotion, big raise or were fired, I have zero interest in hearing anything about their work. I have zero interest in the doings of people I don't know well, whether or not the person speaking to me loves or is related to them. I have zero interest in hearing about the lunch they had, the repairs to their car, or anything else that is part of daily activities or trivial hassles. ZERO. But if you can't convince them that you DO care, you'll have no friends and your family will be constantly upset with you.

I'm EXTREMELY blunt by nature, and it's exhausting to have to fake endless mealy-mouthed responses to their nonsense while praying for ONE thing of interest to eventually come up in the conversation. I don't bore THEM with trivial stuff, so why do I have to endure all theirs?

Last edited by S-P-M-E on 26 Apr 2010, 2:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

Overstatement perhaps, as it was a generalization based on experience. Fallacy, no,
as it is clearly true over the range of cases I was discussing. But I don't and won't maintain that is speaks lack of any core personality, but rather that the personae constructed lack a clear connection to that personality, as rudimentary as that may be.

As for the rest of your post, not sure if there was a dominant theme I can address there. Wasn't able to extract it from the text.

Generally ,it's a defense reaction to the environment, giving what is needed at the current moment ; greasing that squeaky wheel .
Otherwise no food ,shelter, or goals etc....
It allows you to move to your interest , which isn't people, per say.


Generally ,the world of human interaction is at my periphery , and I am distracted by it.

This should be called " Not maintaining the prose"

edit :grammar

Last edited by Mdyar on 26 Apr 2010, 7:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

i tried to mask it, imitate the normal when I was at junior high, at age 12. I found that the more normal I tried to be, the more inappropriate and strange my speech became. I had a talent for being offensive which I just could not hide. I really screwed up lookng normal. I gave up, realising some people could never look normal.

omg that is SO me! When people talk to me, i'm so bored that it takes all my focus for me to try and listen to them. Most of the time i just fake listening because i'm eventually zoning out in Lola-land... I just make hmm hmm sounds whenever they seem to be finished, laugh here and there when they appear to be laughing, and try to smile. Luckily they never ask questions!

LOL!! I prefer to socialize over the phone, so that I can keep working on my computer with the occasional "uh-huh" until they run out of updates on their aunt's allergies and their neighbor's dog's flu and I can say something about MY life or some more interesting topic. You're right, they're so sure that they're utterly fascinating and thus that we're listening with bated breath that they never ask questions.

I "play the role" of mad scientist non-stop, which is convenient, because I'm actually something of a mad scientist anyways.

Excited, eager to share knowledge, easily amused with life, but usually quite inappropriate in social situations.


Ever had something happen to someone else, where if it happened in a sitcom, they would have played a trumpet "wah-waaahhhh"?

Ever made the sound effect yourself? Found yourself unable to resist the urge to finish jokes of that form?

When I try to use situational fronts, it doesn't work, so I decided it wasn't important.