Being talked about in 3rd person (in front of you)?
Has anyone encountered a situation at work or with peers or whatever where someone referenced you in the third person? Like, typically something surly (yet exasperated) like turning to a peer and saying "he doesn't get it" or "(chuckle) he thinks that he was supposed to / that I meant (insert misunderstanding here).
Most of the time I kept quiet and gave an indignant look to let them know that I felt their reaction was inappropriate, but I wished I'd stood up for myself more and said "You know, talking about somebody in the third person right in front of them is very passive aggressive." It's a risk that they might openly feel ashamed and apologize, but they could also "double down" and respond in an overtly hostile manner (e.g " well I wouldn't HAVE TO react that way if you'd just listen / get your act together / be normal."
Your only salvaging response then would be something like "well it's not due to having a flippant attitude or any lack of effort." You could follow it up with "people just have different thresholds of ambiguity, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that."
Maybe you're admitting that you lack emotional intelligence - but you're also conveying that the other person lacks emotional MATURITY. Yet you're not doing it in a narcissistic manner, i.e. gaslighting the other person, or completely deflecting responsibility from self, etc.
DemophobicKlingon
Deinonychus

Joined: 19 Jun 2016
Age: 29
Gender: Female
Posts: 388
Location: A place within a place in the Universe
I dislike it when people talk in the third person in front of me. It's like they assume I'm immature, or don't have the capacity to understand that they are talking about me. It's happened a lot though. In the workplace, or dealing with people who don't know me as well this has come up often.
A situation that came that is similar but different was when I went to a party of a friendly acquaintance who is also on the spectrum. There were some others too, but she also had her neurotypical friends there too, and she apologized for the NTs that there were people with ASD at her party.
This was the moment when I decided I didn't want to get closer to her and get to know her. Being that there were a lot of people I didn't know at the party, but that comment just screwed everything up. I guess it was her way of giving everyone a headsup/explanation if anyone acts different or unexpected that's why but I don't appreciate being apologized for.
One situation that comes up was when I was trying to film something at my dance class and another girl kept on being bossy with the camera, and she stopped the video from rolling, and it didn't film, then she told the dance teacher "she didn't know what she was doing" about me. I wanted to say "I had it perfectly under control, but you were the one who had the bright idea to turn off the film mode." I just kept quiet because I didn't want to make it worse.
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All glory to the hypnotoad.
INTP 9w1-5w4-2w3 sp/so
My family is so good for this that one time I had a situation where I was involved with a guy online that was posing as my boyfriend who also did this and people had to tell me that doing so was very inappropriate. I still don't often pick up on it at times and am still pretty used to it which is probably why ...
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