the advice "Don't ever let someone disrespect you"?

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Jayo
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Joined: 31 Jan 2011
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,202

26 Sep 2018, 6:25 am

This is one of those areas where I couldn't always tell if they meant it black-or-white. It was tough during the more "volatile" years of being a young male in that 17-24 age bracket. The dilemma was / is, as you know many of our actions reek of a lack of self-respect according to (NT) observers, albeit unintentionally, i.e. we don't mean to disrespect ourselves but sometimes we unwittingly engage in odd behaviour that mistakenly tells others we lack self-respect, when objectively it could be the complete opposite, i.e. stepping outside our comfort zone, so relative to an ASD/HFA individual we have high self confidence and respect, but unfortunately we're gauged against a "one size fits all" NT barometer for esteem and confidence and whatnot.

You may have occasionally still dealt with a bully at this age range, and peers may have had the reaction to "not let him disrespect you like that, bro" even if said assailant is like 6'4" and 260 lbs. IN that case, if it gets to threats or assault, I have no problem calling the police on him, that to me is not a sign of lack of respect (after all, real life is not a Steven Seagal movie!!) but a greater showing of restraint and character while sending a message that you don't condone this asshat's actions. They could call me any name in the book like that p-word meaning a woman's vagina or wimpy or homophobic slurs or spazz or whatever, makes no difference, I wouldn't be the one facing legal consequences. I know some NTs will trot out the old line "oh but the way so-and-so was behaving, he brought it upon himself, he doesn't respect himself bla bla bla..." which is all BS. Someone should hand them a copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, those ancient Chinese could still teach us all a thing or two. :D