NT's fake looking "normal" too.

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As I see it, most NT's "fake it." They are constantly worried about presenting themselves in a way that the rest of the world will see them as normal. Males are worried about not looking effeminate, for example. They want to like the things (team sports for example) that the majority like. Female NT's will wear clothes that they are uncomfortable in so as to look fashionable as another example. I could go on.

Any other examples?

Yeah but they could carry on a conversation. And not all NT's are like that. Most of my guy friends are effeminate and the girls can dress tom boyish, though not as tom boyish as me.
I also think they don't worry about how the dress or how they act as much as we do.

You are not the Mask you Wear. Nobody is. The mask is only what you externalize, the true you is internal and if you even knew who the true you was, that would immediately cease to be the true you as you would have transcended from the previous you to a new you. One cannot contain One until One is Two.

When you put on the Mask you Wear in a sincere fashion, it is simply the externalized aspect of the true you. When you put on the Mask you Wear in a deceptive fashion, it is a mock up of something you want people to believe to accomplish an end. The Dao explains this as the difference between Trying and Being. Trying to mask yourself as something you are not versus Being an Aspect of Self with less intensity than ones True Self. The difference between trying not to stim and being somebody who stimulates in a less obvious and off putting to others manner that is hard to identify as stimming.

The more of the True Self that must always remain hidden, the more you are exposed to hostility towards these hidden Aspects of Self, the more disillusioned one is like to become. The more disenfranchised from community and peers one is like to become. Whether these be autistic traits, non stereotyped gender identity, homosexuality, fashion tastes, music tastes, food tastes.... the list goes on and on and it all comes down to discouragement from Being. Your culture saying that you are wrong to Be You. Saying you must Try it like them. If you Let them Tell you that, you Live without Sincerity in the Mask and it will break you.

Wow, nice post Crassus.

"Hoo-Ho-Ha - You are correct, Sir!"

-Ed McMahon

Of course they're faking it. That's because there is no such thing as 'normal' in the real world, but everybody feels compelled to live up to the 'normality' myth. As I just mentioned to someone in another thread, there really is no such thing as what we often refer to as NT. Everybody has some parts of their brain that click and spark a little differently than everyone else's. It just so happens that we here all have ended up with a nearly identical subset of alternate circuits, thus that subset has been given a specific name (Thanks, Hans). Those alternate circuits still affect each of us slightly differently, because all the other circuits interact in patterns unique to the individual. And yet our experiences and reactions are similar enough that we enjoy having a place like this to gather and commiserate.

Humans not only often obsess over clothing fashions to try to fit in to whatever group they want to be a part of, they'll even adopt accents, slang, eat food and listen to music they don't like just to be part of what the local herd deems acceptable at the moment. Does anybody really like Sushi? Tofu? Yeah, right. Dat s**t is whack, knowwhum' sayin'?

What if you remove the mask and its just air beneath it? What if there is no "true you" and the mask is all that there's ever been? For what is the "true self", in practice? I have come to the conclussion that the only mental healthy people are those in a comma, as long as you are behaving, you are acting, there's always a mask, humans have the ability to learn, everytime we learn something, it builds up the mask. To remove the mask would be like pretending to forget all the lessons you ever learned and you would end up still all the time except when your physical needs arise. There is no real self, whatever acting you do right now, appeared for a reason and if you stop that acting you are gonna rediscover that reason and begin acting again. The mask is your adaptation to your environment, only way to remove it would be living in a black empty universe, and then, like i said, you would be pretty much in a comma.

I so agree (and I'm NT). To go with your examples, I tried sushi (while in a restaurant with a group) and really liked it and often eat it when nobody is watching.

But as to your other example? Once upon a time I was a hippie in college. In order to fit into that group, a love of tofu was mandatory. So I faked it. But I always hated tofu. It tasted like a "food" from a dystopian future. If soylent green were real, it would taste like tofu. But I surely did fake liking tofu just to fit into the hippie group. And as soon as I syopped being a hippie, I dropped tofu like a bad egg and embraced red, red, red meat.

It may look nuts to an Aspie to fake something like food preference just to be in a group but it's really a cost/benefit analysis. You ask yourself- what will it cost me to be in this group? Is the benefit of group membership worth it? In the case of my faking liking tofu, I decided that pretending to like tofu was a very low cost for the benefit of being in a group whose other traits meshed with me quite well at the time. AS people similarly do a cost/benefit analyisis when deciding (per various threads) which things to supress or enhance in public. I think everybody who is cognitively able will do this sort of cost/benefit analysis.

Really, the only people who DON'T (as opposed to "can't") have to alter something about their public persona in order to "fit in" are despots who literally make the rules. Nobody got to tell Saddam Hussein how to decorate his home. Nobody gets to tell Kim Jong Il that maybe he shouldn't be drinking Hennessy while his citizens starve. But everybody else makes adjustments. Probably nobody on this board has faked a love of tofu to fit in with hippies (but I'd be tickled pink to be wrong about that) but there are a lot of threads about other adjustments made. Including a thread elsewheres on WP where somebody vents about feeling a pressure to love such things as anime or certain movies or videogames.

Hey! I'm normally a picky eater but I don't find anything wrong with sushi taste-wise. I find the type that doesn't contain any raw fish quite good.

For me it might be the other way around. I've been culturally conditioned to think "raw fish = eww" and this prevents me from enjoying all kinds of sushi.

I agree on the tofu though. I'll objectively declare that tofu is an inferior food and anyone who likes it has been seriously brainwashed.

{Quick off topic}

I happen to like both sushi and tofu! There is a Japanese dish that includes tofu with dried fish mixed in that is delicious with soy sauce. The tofu is just there to balance the other strong flavors.

You do have a point that many foods are an acquired taste. Does anyone like beer from the first taste?

{Back on topic}

I haven't been one to try to be part of large groups, but a small group of close friends. My wife got me to try sushi. We have never been very social. Maybe her motivation to try exotic food was to be part of a group, but I doubt it. I took up smoking as in high school to try to fit in with my only friend and his girlfriend.

Interesting point about despots. The same is true about the rich and famous. O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson and Howard Hughes come to mind. There is more than one reason for eccentric behavior, but being financially independent is a contributing factor. THey often surroud themselves with "yes men."

It's my favorite food. I make it and eat it every week. See my threads about it.

I personally love sushi, especially the raw fish stuff. I like the taste and texture, and the heat of wasabi. Plus my family's from Southeast Asia so seafood was very frequently on the table. When you grow up with it, it doesn't seem so odd and weird when you try it later on.

Anyway back on topic... I think a lot of people strive for a sense of "normal" because it provides a sense of order and stability, to try to reduce conflict between individuals by achieving sameness. The immense drawback to this is that without any change, there is no growth, so problems in the stable normal culture linger and fester, since change is not allowed and it's precisely change that is going to fix those problems.

fernando: If there is nothing but air, who chose to put on the Mask? Who took off one and put on another, then switched back to that first one? Who built up the masks? The Mask you Wear is your externally projected Self. Your actions. Those inner thoughts you never expressed, those calculations you did in your head to choose how to act, those temptations nobody knows tempt you are the things coming from the True Self.

There is a popular technique whereby one takes off the Mask one Wears and stalls the reflex to put on a new one. It is known as Meditation. You don't put on one of your many Masks, you stop yourself from doing active thinking because active thinking is the gateway between the inner True Self and the Outer World. Turn off the layer of self that orients outwards and allow your Self to be Alone, walk the inner halls of your own mind and get to know You. Go on your Dream Quest. It is a right of passage that is a powerful tool for a full development of Self Awareness. Invert your gateway and walk through it backwards and Wear the Mask of He Who Met Himself. Break on Through (To the Other Side).

If you are interested in a more in depth understanding then I can attempt to impart via a single forum post, I might suggest you start by reading some books based on the work of Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell is a strong voice in this area I feel, Hero With a Thousand Faces and The Masks of God in particular. If you are interested in actually undertaking some applied meditation I suggest starting with a good translation of the Tao Te Ching(assuming you don't speak chinese) and taking up the practice of Yoga.

Or just assume Jewel in the Lotus position(sit on your butt with your legs crossed, feet under knees(half or "closed" lotus) or feet on top of knees(full or "open" lotus) palms together in front of chest(the Jewel)) and slowly try to relax each muscle in your body one at a time. Focus on that black empty universe, in the center of it there is a flame burning. Focus on the flame. Don't strain. Relax. Make your breathing as slow as you comfortably can make it. Continue slowly relaxing muscles individually. Recite these words to yourself in a slow but steady rhythm along with your slow steady calm breathing: "Om Mani Padme Hum". Inhale as slowly as you comfortably can, pause slightly, then as you exhale as slowly as you comfortably can you chant ohmmmm maaaaa naaaaay peeeeehmmmaaay haaahm and then there is another slight pause. Repeat. Over time as you continue this practice you will meet your True Self.

As you become more adept at centering your Self in this manner, you move on to more advanced practices starting with doing it in other positions. If the Lotus position is uncomfortable for you, you can just sit in a comfortable chair. Feel silly chanting the mantra? You don't necessarily have to vocalize it. Maybe you have a different preferred mantra already and don't like fire. "I Am a Reed in the Wind" chanted focusing on a single reed growing in the void, imagine all the sensory stimulus you are experiencing at the moment is a wind blowing across the reed, no matter how the wind changes, the reed simply flexes supply with it and continues being reedy. Inhale. Relax. Exhale. I Am a Reed in the Wind. Focus. Repeat. Be.

The lower layer did, the biology. We are a system of willpower and feelings created by the biological body we live within. Every behavior we will, is a mask we are placing over the animal behavior of that biological body. I see nothing that could correlate to your "True Self" other than this animal within, he is all that remains if we stop acting. And yes, getting in touch with your animal side is healthy for your body but he wouldn't be welcomed by modern society. We can't be without a mask.


Ewwwwww twentieth century psychology!


I am working on silencing my thoughts and an extremely simplified version of yoga. I'm quite happy with doing my own stuff rather than trying ideas from books. This way i am more likely to invent something new. So i'd like other people to do the bridging between my views and ancient oriental views. Because it is important indeed. There was so much knowledge about the human being that western civilization just decided to ignore.

I don't know anymore. Until recently I had always been convinced everyone was totally faking social interaction for some reason and my problem was that I couldn't fake as well as everyone else expected me to. Then someone pointed out that I was only assuming everyone else fakes appearing normal and the 'dance' of social interaction and small talk because that's what I had to do. They said others don't fake. They like it, it comes naturally. It's real. I was shocked because I hadn't even considered that. I had assumed. Now I just don't know.

i still believe they somewhat fake sadness though. and pain. or at least they amplify it ...there is no way one can feel an emotion strongly AND be able to run around saying how it hurts on all possible octaves. If they DO feel as much as they say then it's just really awkward and immodest and embarrassing to show it like that.
wait , where was my point again?
i don't know , i have no reason to believe they lie when they say they feel things so strongly , but i get that "awkward"feeling , that tells me they're overdoing it. to what purpose? i have no idea! to appear even more emotional than they already are?
now i need help to stop being so judgemental. i really do.