Can people with aspergers manipulative others?

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Is this manipulation?

In my last year of high school I discovered my naivety kept me protected from bullies and peoples agendas. I discovered I was being sexually harassed by these girls in my choir and they were trying to disgust me and one day I was handed a note that this girl wanted me to lick her boobies and I told them no thanks and to ask someone else if she wants it and I was all calm about it. I thought it was all gross but didn't see the need to react to it so I handled it calmly. I told my mom about these girls in my class who had been talking to me and one of them even invited me to do something gross, that was when Mom told me they were being cruel and mean and trying to get me all upset and it was all inappropriate what they were doing. I just thought if I stayed the way I am and just pretend I don't know what they are doing, things will stay okay between us and they did an they eventually left me alone and quit talking to me. Mom told me it was because I wasn't giving them a reaction they wanted.


Another time at a bus stop this year I wore my rubber gloves as I was looking at a paper so I wouldn't get ink on my hands. Some woman there asked me why I had on gloves and I told her so I wouldn't get ink on them and she seemed to make a big deal out of it. I wasn't sure if she was bullying me or just giving me a hard time or if I was being paranoid. I just ignored it and kept looking at the paper and she left me alone. I would have rather pretend I didn't know what was going on so I didn't say anything to her. I just find if I pretend to be ignorant what other people are doing, they will leave me alone and back off and it works. That was something I discovered in high school.


I don't think this is bad manipulation if it is manipulation. It's called protecting yourself from being a victim and being preyed on. If you have them think you are not aware of what they are doing or have them think you are oblivious, they leave you be.

Or what about when someone is picking on you so you pretend to not care and don't show you do care so you ignore it and show no reaction, is this manipulation? You are trying to get the person to think you don't give a darn so they will leave you be and you just have them think you're dumb because if they think you're too stupid to even know you are being insulted or teased, they leave you be because it's a waste of their time and they don't see the point.



I have also led someone on with their story because I would pretend I believe them because I would keep asking them about it as they were telling me about it and I knew it was probably a lie because it sounds so crazy and a story. I just wanted to keep hearing their tall tale so I would just let them talk and I ask them more questions about it so I can hear more and I am letting them think I am buying it. is this manipulation? I don't think it's a bad thing either if it is. I have an online friend who has all these friends and they work for the government and CIA and stuff and he seems to have power because he can easily do things to people through his friends who works for them and he is always talking about having someone go after a person and show up on their door step or how he could get his brother in law behind bars because he has a warrant and how he black mailed one of his doctors and now he can get his sister in a mental hospital if he wanted to but he never does any of these things he always talks about. I think they are his fantasies because he never follows through with them. Now he is going to go on some navy ship and I just listen to all his stories because they are interesting. Could he be lying or telling the truth, I don't know. We have been online friends for nine years. I also had a neighbor who lied too and I knew he was making up his dreams he claimed he had at night and I just liked hearing them so I would keep egging him for his stories by asking him "What Benny & Joon dream did you have this time?" and they got crazier and crazier and mom told me "Beth you do know he is making it all up don't you?" Because I was obsessed with the movie, I wanted to hear stories about it so I used him as my story teller and then when he ran out of good ones and they were turning into movie scenes from TV shows he has watched like Rugrats or Kim Possible or The Proud Family, I didn't want to hear anymore and we stayed friends so I didn't truly use him. Is this be manipulation too because I didn't tell them I know they're lying and making it up or I know they are possibly making it up? But my online friend somehow knows I am skeptical about his stories because he has told me 'I know you think this isn't all true but it is" or telling me he knows I am skeptical. But he doesn't seem to let it bother him if his won friends don't believe him or not. Maybe it is all tall tales if he doesn't let it bother him and remains friends.

I think you're overestimating your dog.

Let me ask you a question - when you come home at the normal time, do you let her out so she can pee outside?

If so, most likely she's just trying to hold it until you come, and if you take too long she can't hold it anymore.

Well, actually, she can wait very long. I don't let her run around alone because we have heavy traffic here; I have to go out with her. But I work online, and sometimes I'm just too busy with some urgent work to do, so she has to wait some 3 or 4 extra hours. When I'm at home, she waits patiently and it's no problem at all.
But she's used to having me at home round the clock, so whenever I go out for too long (especially at nights) she seems to become nervous, or depressed, or I don't know what. Sometimes, she doesn't even come out to greet me, and when I try to take her out, she pees on the floor. So I think it's rather an emotional process with her (than physiological).

I am far too honest to be willing to attempt any form of manipulation. When I was younger I was probably someone who could be easily manipulated likely as I was very naive. However ,now I am extremely skilled at spotting any form of manipulation and quick to respond.

Correct.

X = set of all people.

A = set of manipulative people.

B = set of people with an ASD.


A and B are subsets of X.

Intersection between sets A and B = People with ASDs that are manipulative.


It's correct that the intersection can be non-empty, i.e. People with ASDs can be manipulative. I suppose the probability of such an outcome is not far from 0, i.e. P( A intersect B ) close to 0, but not exactly 0.

But that does not logically follow. Both cats and dogs are subsets of animals, but an animal can't be both a cat and dog.

Just because two things are both subsets of a common group does not mean they have to intersect. They may or may not intersect. Assuming they do because they are subsets of the same group is a logical fallacy.

Look at this picture:

[img][800:844]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-n5sIQhIIFEs/Tm0zzsaX0HI/AAAAAAAACcM/0KTcgb4n2WU/s1600/rrs+venn+diagram+color.jpg[/img]

Obstructions can be boats, or they can be continuing obstructions, but they can't be both boats and continuing obstructions. So the group 'obstructions' has two subsets - boat obstructions and continuing obstructions - that do not intersect.

If all B are A, and all C are A, you have no way of knowing from that whether any B are C.

Everything I read states two sides. That Aspies are sweet innocent angels who are incapable of manipulation, or that we are as the devil's spawn and lie constantly. Both of these are compete bull. Especially because lying is not the thing that makes you manipulative as everyone seems to think.

Now, I would love to think of myself as the sweet little angel I portray, but I know how to get what I want. One of my common displays of light manipulation is at the store. While others will ask or bargain for treats, I have a simple phrase. "Doesn't that look good?" I don't do anything else. Just gently place ideas in people's heads.

My problem with this is internal. I've struck a nice balance to get stuff without jeopardizing my reputation, but it's knowing that I have manipulated someone. I have changed something they could have done to work in my favour. It almost scares me. I manipulate every day, but always under the radar. l

You could easily rephrase the syllogism to have in the first premise "all people" as you do have the modal auxiliary of "can", which demonstrates possibility and probability. Thus, your syllogism becomes:

1. All people can be manipulative.
2. Autistic people are people.
3. Therefore, autistic people can be manipulative.

Whether or not the statement is true is not reliant upon it still being logically sound with the generalization being balanced with the modality in the first premise...

Also, I am not sure if I am manipulative or not. I am capable of making threats and have often in the past made threats-- threats to tell on someone or threats to hurt or kill myself to get my way (I did this a lot when I was younger-- and I am decent at making people feel guilty. I did not intend to make someone feel guilty, but intentions, even my intentions, do not really matter as much as the results. I said something during a fight about my experiences, about how I was feeling, and this made the other person feel guilty. So yes, I have some inkling of theory of mind abilities-- I am decent at figuring out what characters are going to do in books and movies and this makes me question my autism sometimes-- and, thus, I can manipulate in basic forms. I am not very good at being passive aggressive and am usually either passive or just aggressive (I do not know how to combine the extremes). I would not be able to construct an entire false reality and cruelly thrust it upon someone else as what happens with gaslighting (I have been gaslighted so many times throughout my life and, as I already constantly question my own experiences with no involvement of others, it is not very difficult). I could not imagine doing this to someone, being so cruel. I am, however, often worried that I have these powers of manipulation stored somewhere-- like I was recently called, during a fight with my (now former) best friend who is also autistic (she was my longest and most successful female friendship) self infantilizing and so now I am constantly terrified that I am infantilizing myself...

I am anxious now as I am not sure if this post has come off as manipulative. Also, is me worrying about being manipulative being manipulative? Also, I have recently come aware to my frequent need for reassurance on specific things? Is searching for reassurance by asking frequent anxious questions manipulative?

This also describes me. I feel people's emotions quite strongly, but I often don't know what to do with that, and I sometimes go very wrong.

Typically not. Most often, people with ASDs are the ones being manipulated, particularly the more gullible and impressionable ones. I am more wary and paranoid than most, but I have been manipulated at times, too.

Is this manipulation?

I clearly remember one time when I was about 4 or 5 I was in the classroom and we all had to draw a picture of the front of our house on a piece of paper. I started to draw my house and I was already drawing two squares for the upstairs windows, but the teacher said that I had drawn my house too small and that the idea was to fill up the whole piece of paper. I had drawn the house as a smallish rectangle shape in the middle of the page but I didn't want to start over again so I said, "no, that's my front door, it has two windows" (being so it did look enough like a door). The teacher believed me and walked away again. Obviously I had to accept that my drawing of my house had to become the front door and I had to draw my whole house around it but that was better than starting all over on another piece of paper (which I knew the teacher would have made me do if I had been honest about my mistake).

Does that sound like manipulation and is it too young for an Aspie to use a white lie?

^that’s the “avoid trouble” setting, its not manipulative in the negative sense the word is generally used: to be honest I would almost be minded to class it under masking, because it’s essentially avoiding the development of a potential high-anxiety maybe meltdown situation by keeping your teacher happy.
You weren’t out to use her for you’re own agenda or anything like that.

It's still a white lie though, being so I knew my front door never had any windows at all but I knew my teacher didn't know that, and I was only a small child.

True, but we’ve got to allow ourselves the occasional, judicious usage of the fallback “NT-management” tactic when all else fails.

Yes I’ve seen some. But most of them use only a certain method of manipulation and after a short period of time they become predictable and recognized.