Social Mimicry

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Does anyone else do this? A lot of times when I talk to people I will have an image of a person I've known or seen pop into my head and they will perform a specific action and speak with a specific tone of voice and way of talking and I will imitate that in the conversation, adding in my own words. I have a very positive feeling when I do that.

I think everyone does it, I tend to over fixate on it though.

I've never done that, but I will repeat part of what people say when given a choice.

Of course, it's not quite like that, but you get the picture.

I do that. I, too, have a very positive feeling when I do that but sometimes the phrases that are stuck in my mind and come out are not the best choices for the other person to hear. The phrase "poor you" from the Sopranos tv show is stuck in my head and when I have a problem, I say it to myself in my thoughts. Unfortunately, I said it to someone who was venting to me and I think they took it as a put down.

I do that as well.

I rarely or never mimic humans (can't remember any incidences of it), but I do mimic animals. That includes dogs, cats, horses, cattle, owls, donkeys, pigs, sheep, coyotes, and peacocks.

Last night there was a very loud owl hooting near the back door so I went out and hooted back at it.

xD yep.

Seems like people with AS very much do not do this or do it VERY well and often.

l've always been some sort of Tv character. A fusion of several lol.

One thing l do sometimes that is really weird but that l love is trying to turn everyday conversations into "Seinfeld conversations" and seeing who picks up on it.

Seinfeld conversations?

Seinfeld conversations.

l've gotten a couple very astute friends to ask "are we in an episode of Seinfeld?" and it is amazing.

lmao

It's actually hard for aspies to do this properly. When I was younger, most of my friends were girls, so I unconsciously imitated their mannerisms and expressions and then got called gay a lot.

So be careful WHOM you imitate.

I tend to emulate peoples accents, if I am spending time with an Irish person, I will take on an accent after an hour or so.. In my mine of work I used to have many people come and go and I would often be their training partner, oddly enough I was deemed to have the best social skills... says alot about gardeners and groundsman !
So I owuld meet lots a varied people and I would warn them that I wasn't taking the micky out of them but emulating them subconsciously.. no one ever took offence.. some liked it..

Stu

I use book situations. I read about 10,000 novels over the course of 12 years and use context and conversations from the books for everyday interactions. 90% of what I say is paraphrased directly from pages in the books. An eidetic memory gets the credit.

Now and then I get called out as the context is not even close and I do not realize the implications of what I am saying. Sometimes I get smacked in the face for wildly outrageous comments that I thought were fine.

All in all it is way better than when I was younger and totally ignorant. I don't read three books a day anymore, although my daughter will leave her books around and I will read them, two or three a week instead of every day.

All the time.

Mimicry is the possibly pathological coping mechanism that gets me through social situations of all kinds.

My parenting style, as far as I can tell, is a cross of Roseanne, Grace Kelley (Brett Butler's character on Grace Under Fire, not to be confused the the famous aristocrat), Colonel Potter and/or BJ Hunnicutt (M*A*S*H), and Sergeant Slaughter (the GI Joe cartoon version from the mid-to-late '80's).

Well, at least they all loved their kids and/or defended their teammates.

I'm afraid to watch Parenthood. Doesn't one of the characters have an Aspie kid??

The unconscious mimicry of voices was a real PITA when my boss was a Vietnamese war bride. She was a total b***h with a really good heart. I might have feared and despised her, but I also admired and respected her, and the closest I could get to not mimicking her very thick accent was to keep my mouth shut.

I spent a lot of time working her shift, because she went through cashiers and prep line workers like a buzzsaw. She once walked three-plus miles, over the ridge, through three-foot snowdrifts when even the city plow trucks weren't bothering with the roads, just to open the restaurant. And didn't think she'd done anything special. Was she just a Vietnamese peasant, an undiagnosed Aspie, or both?

I still think of her, and hope she is well.

I once deliberately annoyed the crap out of a high-school English teacherwho was uppity enough to tell me I was "too smart to talk like an ignorant hick" after I accidentally used a double negative in her class by reading The Grapes of Wrath multiple times over a long weekend and coming back to school talking exactly like Ma Joad.

Last edited by BuyerBeware on 13 Feb 2013, 1:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I also pick up other accents waaaay too easily. This has mostly been bad as people see me as fake or they think I'm intentionally imitating and being condescending. When I took spanish I was complimented repeatedly on how good my accent was. Probelm was I didn't kno what I was saying.

When I was growing up I used to emulate and imitate different people. I also took on many different personas and hung out with several different subcultures. Always trying to fit in somewhere. I feel like I finally dropped this in my 30s, but then I could move into another phase of my life and look back at this time and see myself as imitating someone.

I almost got thrown out of a Chinese takeout joint for the accent thing once...

...by the liberal white-guilt-ridden new delivery driver. The Chinese owner came out of the kitchen to b***h him out, in hobbling English, about the fact that I'd been eating there for years, was an excellent customer and good tipper, didn't mean anything by it, and he needed to adjust his attitude.

I turned 15 shades of red and slunk out crying. I still eat there, actually as often as I can, although I suffer from selective mutism whenever I'm in the restaurant. When I order there now, I do it by circling things on the menu and grinning like some kind of dog with a cleft lip. They give me free fried noodles, and I make sure to tip at least 30%.

I don't know if my encounter had anything to do with it or if he had a shit-liberal attitude across the board, but I note that I never saw that delivery driver working there again.

s**t. I do that, too. Both the using book dialogue, and the picking up DD11's books and burning through them. I have a special weakness for the Dear America and American Girl books. City of Ember is great. Recently rediscovered Scott O'Dell and Jean Craighead George thanks to the 5th grade English teacher, the Battle of the Books, and the school librarian.

I also tend to spend too much money taking the kids to the book fair. Everybody-- including Mommy-- has a $30 limit that ends up getting bent beyond recognition. Thankfully it only happens once a year. I have to give her cash and wait in the car if she goes to Barnes and Noble or the used book store.

Read Mockingbird: (mok ing' burd). It is about a 12-year-old Aspergirl. You will either cry, be offended, or laugh your ass off.

I laughed like a fiend.

I'm one of those rare (it seems) females who don't mimic others.