Cliquey aspies

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So I realized today that people with autism can be just cliquey as NTs. Which honestly makes me sad. I go to this game night for autistic people every month, and there were some new people there today. In particular, there was one person who seemed kind of different, but I'm guessing didn't realize how he was coming across. I noticed some of the people were kind of smiling at each other when he spoke up, like they were mocking him or something. Even whispering to each other. And when he went to the bathroom, this one girl said to the rest of us playing the game "He's not invited to our group" (some of us group text and meet up outside of game night). Then she proceeded to talk about how "out there" he was.

Once he got back, he told us that he was going to start playing the other game instead (there were two games going on at the same time). When he said this, it immediately occurred to me that he may have overheard what the girl was saying, which made him not want to play with us anymore. I don't know this for sure though. I hope he didn't hear.

But even after he went to play the other game, the girl started whispering about how she wanted to leave early to go for ice cream. She was whispering, obviously, because she didn't want him to go with us. It seemed to me that she wanted to leave early purely to leave him out.

I just don't get it honestly. I think most of us with autism have been the "outsider" before, the one who's left out of things. We know how it feels to be the one who doesn't quite fit in. So I don't understand why someone with autism would try to exclude others. I mean it's not like the guy there was mean to us or anything.

Has anyone else here experienced aspies being cliquish? How did it make you feel and how did you deal with it?

That's just horrible.

I remember that during my teenage years I would sometimes copy really bad behavior because I thought that was how teenagers were supposed to act - with no thought behind it at all - but you guys are a bit older, right?

Is it possible for you to say, if it happens again, that this kind of talk makes you very uncomfortable? How do others feel about this? As for the guy, he may have just wanted to play the other game, but if he overheard he may be thinking that you all agree.

Damn! Awful behavior. I would have told her on the spot to not be such a mean b . I would be sitting next to the guy and playing the other game with him. Can't stand behavior like that. Disgusting! He is not invited? Pfft!

I hate bullying.

This sounds like a very mean behavior. I think there was group pressure involved. Unfortunatly, most people aren‘t immune against it.

Maybe some of these aspies are really NTs with BS diagnoses or they are trying to imitate NT behavior.

My sister has autistic friends, but some of them are friends with NTs or married to NTs. Her friends do that clique stuff when the NTs are in the mix and my sister gets left out. I think it's a possibility that your group was infiltrated by some NTs or the aspies are trying to act like NTs.

Unfortunately, we autistic people can be as cliquey as anyone else. The bottom line is we would rather interact with some people more than others. Autism cannot change that. There are people on this website that I wanted to interact with, but who dismissed me. There could also be people that wanted to interact with me, that I have dismissed. There's just only so many people you can interact with.

Elaine could be right. They are imitating NT behavior.

We aren't obligated to like everyone however rudeness is never called for.

That is pretty rude. Perhaps the guy was more off due to anxiety & being unsure of himself in a group situation with new people. I know I would be. I seem pretty off sometimes even on this forum with other Aspies. I haven't dealt with many Aspies offline, only time I'm ever been with more than one at a time that I knew about is when me & my girlfriend go to a holiday celebration & her brother is there cuz they're both on the spectrum but everyone is immediate family so there really is no clickish stuff going on. Unfortunately I have seen Aspies being clicky on this forum. Especially in the L&D section. I won't point at anyone but L&D goes through phases & I have seen it a lot worse than it is now with the bickering between members.

Well, I've never interacted with other Aspies in real life, but I imagine maybe those that are higher functioning might discriminate against those that are lower functioning and fail to mask as well (although I, personally, don't understand why)? Either that or, like ladyelaine said, they could be imitating the mean behavior they have witnessed throughout their lives, which is saddening, but what can you do.

You've had the same opportunity as me being around a bunch of autistics to see that things like cliques and shunning are not exclusively NT.

Honestly, the behavior described by the OP doesn't surprise me at all. It's simple math. There's a limit to how many people you can interact with especially if your autistic, so you have to choose carefully. Furthermore we autistic people often fail to understand social norms, so we're much more likely to be rude about it.

If anything I would expect more cliquey behavior from autistic people, not because we're mean, but because of math.

The OP doesn't know either the girl doing the ostracizing nor the guy being ostracized.

The guy being ostracized (as someone pointed out above) might be low functioning and be unable to mask be so obnoxious that the OP himself might be at least tempted to ostracize him (and or tempted to beat him with a baseball bat as well) himself if he had to deal with him.

Cliquey behavior isn't necessarily confined to NTs.

The opposite behavior: tolerance and inclusiveness often involves diplomatic skills that NTs are better at than are autistics.

I know both of them. Just met the new guy at the last game night, but I've known the girl for a while and I regularly hang out with her and some other people. The weird thing is I've always seen her as a really nice person (friendly, fun to be around, etc.). But I've talked more with the people at the game night about the situation, and apparently some of them felt extremely uncomfortable around this guy. I think what I interpreted as mocking was more just them not knowing how to deal with feeling uncomfortable.

Also, thanks for all the responses. You all definitely gave me some things to think about. I might reply more individually to your responses later.

Like others have mentioned, I don’t think it is a case of whether you have autism or a disability or not. It’s mainly just a case of whether you are a bully or not, which doesn’t have much to do with any diagnosis. I feel bad for him; he doesn’t deserve to be shunned or excluded like that. That’s horrible.