I finally really get why NTs might not like us

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This has been a mystery to me.

How come people you have done nothing could possibly dislike you so much the way I have experienced it?

The reason is that not socialising can be very offensive to a NT person.

The whole purpose of socialisation is cooperation. When you do not socialise you indicate to a NT that you might not be willing to help him when in need. This is extremely scary to a NT (and to us as well I believe - being all alone when in trouble, you know!).

So when we back out of socialising because someone is offensive to us it tells those NTs it does not take much for us to back out of the group - they generalize this to that it would not take that much for you to not be willing to help a NT in need.

But we often do want to socialise as long as we are treated well. But that is possibly not enough to a NT. They want to be sure that you would be willing to help even when treated poorly.


And there the hate for AS people arise. (another aspect is that people with AS have low social status, which means NTs often do not think highly of us, to say it mildly!)

I think you're close, but not quite correct.

They are naturaly social people, they like to share experiences, stories and stuff.

It seems to serve two main purposes. It's comforting to them that someone else has similar challanges in life to their own. And it allows them to position themselves in a pecking-order, or social status.

Remember, communication is 10% or 20% (depending on what you read) verbal, the rest is emotional communication. Personaly, I can only read about 5% of whatever emtotions they are transfering non-verbaly.

I take their words and accept that is what they are saying. But in reality they may be saying a lot more, or something quite different. They could be talking about walking their dog, but transfering "I like you" emotions. All I hear is dog this, and dog that. They are confused that I'm not understanding what they are realy saying. And confusion often equals scary, unknown, unpredictable, not quite right. This puts them in a defensive mode. It all goes down hill from there.

I think they don't like us for every reason we sometimes don't like NT people. We are way different from one another and it gets frustrating that we can't understand each other. But that's just one theory from my personal experiences.

That is not true most of the time. That study has been disproven. http://www.spring.org.uk/2007/05/bustin ... ion-is.php

I agree with to this theory. I also think there is some merit to the Uncanny valley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley theory. I think Uncanny Valley theory explains why charities that promote helping the most severely affected children rake in big money while organizations for Adults with Aspergers or Autism Spectrum Disorder Level 1 can barely scrap by or are not around anymore.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 29 Jan 2014, 5:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think you're grossly oversimplifying.

I, for one, am capable of offending other people unintentionally in so many ways, I can't begin to count them all. It isn't just about not socializing, I step on toes even when I think I'm socializing just fine.

FTW.

Where's that damned Apocalypse we've been hearing about for so long? I'm sick of waiting.

I've never really had a bad experience with an NT, so I can't really say much. Even after I've mentioned that I have Asperger's, they haven't looked at me any differently.

I agree with the uncanny valley theory. I usually avoid the uncanny valley by acting like a hipster. If I try to act "preppy" or "super normal" I would probably have problems with the uncanny valley.

there are a lot of NTs out there who are open minded,kind and not instantly judgemental of autists,and have also known many judgemental high functioning autists-
including being the victim of bullying from some,whilst others across the autistic community use terms like ret*d to insult an NT doing something unfunny and stupid [the actual insult is on those of us with ID],who target groups with bias or hate;
just look on the self diagnosis threads for a quick example...who bully victims because theyre different in some way.

the fact of the matter is,much of the autistic community are no different to NTs in many ways and can be just as bad in giving into peer pressure,and wanting to fit in at the price of individuality.
how a nice a person is does not depend on their neurotype,its their individual personality plus how theyre brought up and their life experiences.

Are you hoping for zombies? I keep hearing about the much awaited zombie apocalypse.

@ qawer

They don't like rejection...not being social = rejection to them.

Their self worth and sense of self seems to based on what others think of them, and how the group sees them. They need to feel wanted, or liked by others in order to like themselves. There are probably many other reasons as well including cooperation etc, although not being social does not make a person uncooperative as such. I don't always chit chat but am polite and helpful when I do try to be socialise.

Ego plays a role as well...humans are too driven by their egos (for my tastes anyway..so much unnecessary suffering caused by ego alone, both inflict on the self or by others. I am driven more by passion than ego and can't be arsed to play egos wars with the rest of the planet anymore. Life is too short and I don't have enough time to experience and learn about all the things I want to experience and learn about as it is..)

They also seem to just enjoy bullying..I am not sure it's all power play though. We forget humans are part of the animal kingdom, that we are primates and that we can, by nature, be predatory. There is of course variation but I do think some humans just enjoy hurting others. I don't think there is any other excuse sometimes really. Lately I have been reading about sylvia marie likens....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/House-Evil-Indi ... re+slaying

The house of Evil...the indiana torture slaying

The poor girl was tortured to death by an adult and a group of children. The adult encouraged the children and she was bullied relentlessly. Eventually the abuse became so extreme she was beaten, kicked, burned with cigarettes, kept in the basement, starved, given scalding hot baths to the point that her skin was severely damaged and was peeling away (patches were missing), left with open wounds some of which went down to the bone, pushed repeatedly down the stairs, made to consume feces, branded with the words "I am a prostitute and proud of it" and the number "3" (which was supposed to have been an S but which the children did incorrectly) and eventually died at age 16 from a head injury, malnutrition and shock.

All that by a group of children under the direction of one adult...Gertrude Baniszewski.

There is a website dedicate to the girl who died here: Silvia Marie Likens and I think cases like her's should be remembered so they don't happen again.

As much as humans want to believe otherwise, not all humans are kind, good or caring souls...

Some just like to hurt because well they just like to hurt.

I think Bumble has it right...NTs for the most part take it personally and feel rejected when you do not socialize in the way they expect. And even if you think you are being friendly and kind, or at least polite, they have subtle, unspoken expectations that we don't pick up on.

One day a man said "good morning" to me and I didn't respond. I probably would have, but it caught me off guard. I was walking out the door of a store as he was coming in, and I was concentrating on remembering something I needed to do when I got to my car. He was just there all of a sudden as I came out, and I didn't have any time to prepare myself to speak. So I just kept going on my way to the car.

Before I got out of earshot I heard him say, "WELL GOOD MORNING TO YOU TOO" in a disgusted tone of voice. People like that really scare me because they get offended at the slightest thing and it's hard to predict what they will do. I understand that he just wanted me to respond "good morning" or "how are you" or something like that. I just couldn't get the words out of my mouth in time.

I didn't know this guy and as far as I am aware I had never seen him before in my life. But imagine if this was someone I actually had to work with or see every day. It would only have to happen once or twice for someone with a personality like that to turn against me, and start turning other people against me too. It made me think back to when I have worked in places with a lot of different people, some I didn't know very well or likely didn't recognize every time I saw them. I probably didn't respond every time they spoke to me either.

That guy just sounds like a jerk.

I'll agree that that person is a goon.

For all he knew, you might have been deaf, might have been unable to speak, whatever.

Egocentric.

You likely didn't have to be autistic to get on that man's wrong side. Any person that didn't please his whim of the moment would likely have gotten that type of abuse.

Cause they probably don't know what it is, whenever I explain Asperger's to people and say it's a syndrome/disorder they immediately back away from me as if I'm a psychopath .

What about the Aspies who like social contact and show a lot of interest in people?

I have realized in the latest years that most NTs don't hate me at all. Most of them just are neutral towards me or even like me.
I understood that my elementary school teachers and the people who bullied me in middle school were just jerks who didn't understand/liked to pick on disabled people. After I got out of middle school I found out that most people are not like that and that those people had problems, I don't mean disabilities, I mean just mental problems that caused them to act like d***s.
None of the people I know at the moment seem to be bothered by my lack of socialization or any other symptom, even when I unintentionally offend them they just end up having a good laugh about it. I think that the people I have troubles with in this area are those that get easily offended and luckily I don't know any of them at the moment.
So yeah pretty much all the NTs I know now either have a neutral attitude towards me or like me, and about the people who have bullied me in the past, it was not only because of my problems, but because they had problems (again, I don't mean disabilities here) as well.