NTs DO THINGS with conversation...

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I'm puzzled too. Maybe they really believe that me gaining more knowledge is bad; or maybe they have less altruistic motives and want me to stop learning because it makes them feel bad or suits their purpose in some way. Since they refuse to be explicit, I'll never know.




That could be a factor, but if someone has difficulties with social communication then, even in relatively safe relationships, harm and misunderstanding are more likely to result. Even the "nice" people are more likely to take advantage of someone who is socially naive (even if only in small ways). Thus, you are more likely to accumulate bad experiences. Indeed, it may be that the experiences of getting close to people, even relatively nice ones, are what makes one realise how dangerous it can be, rather than not getting close enough to others.

Being unable to read subtext, context etc. means that even benevolent forms of communicative manipulation (like people lying when they say they prefer hair grey to avoid upsetting someone) result in misunderstanding and confusion. You must constantly second guess other people's meanings because most of what's communicated is implicit. If someone cannot distinguish well between the more benevolent forms of lying/manipulation and the malevolent forms, they're more likely to generally mistrust people.


[Another point: Expressing honest opinions in a close relationship can also be problematic when your communication style is blunt honesty (eg, me yesterday refusing to lie: "No I don't think you will follow your new diet. I think you will continue your trend of gaining weight." I got away with it that time, but such honesty's always a risk.)]




There could be two possible scenarios in this:


1. Social communication difficulties + ability to stomach truth

AS is associated with pragmatic communication difficulties. Therefore, someone could be deliberately trying to offend an AS person, but they do not get hurt simply because they don't pick up on it, even if they happen to be a very sensitive and easily hurt person. The real intention of the color comment is revealed in tone of voice, context, and shared assumptions of social appropriateness. The AS person could easily assume the other is simply stating a fact or opinion, and only if they learnt the other really intended malevolence, would it result in hurt feelings, since they are able to stomach the truth well, but not others' malevolence.

2. Social communication difficulties + inability to stomach truth

The same scenario as above could occur, with the same pragmatic difficulties, but this time the AS person is not the type who can stomach the truth well. They'd therefore get offended simply by hearing the others' opinion, whatever its underlying intent.


Also, in 1., the AS person could mistakenly assume others would read their intentions, if they happened to make the color comment to someone, to be neutral information exchange. They may or may not fail to take account of their own feelings if on the receiving end, but do fail to take account of other viewpoints.

In 2., say the AS person happened to be the one making the color comment (and let's assume they have no ill intent). They would do so even though it would've hurt them to hear it, because they definitely fail to take account of their own feelings if on the receiving end, as well as account of other viewpoints.

That all does makes sense,Bloop.I think there are various degrees of diplomacy that are used,depending on the context.If a relationship has already been established it's probably safe to say things like 'I hated that film' without causing offence.On the other hand if it's only a potential friend you're speaking to or someone you're still trying to make a connection with,then strong words like 'hate' can set alarm bells ringing.Unless the statement is backed up with some indication of showing interest in exploring why you have opposing views,then a blunt answer will come across as rather abrupt and dismissive.
(It can be quite complicated,this trying to communicate effectively when it's not something
you're born to do subconsciously ! )

here's my opinion:

Nts are the old way of humans.

Aspies are the new way.

We're just so much more intelligent and on another level.

Mwhahahahaa, I'm not stroking my Aspie EGO. I am viewing this objectively

Out with the old in with the new.....

Greentea, you have enlightened me a lot by your posts and I thank you. You should write a doctoral thesis about the NT mind.

Greentea, how are NTs able to function in such a fast paced manner including cleaning? I want to be slow and methodical about it so it gets done right instead of fast and sloppy. Everytime I am around most NTs I feel so rushed all the time. They never have time to talk deeply about anything? Why do they set themselves up this way?

I remember you said that they mainly talk to get you to do something. I've been thinking about that. You're right. They don't ever want to discuss the why and how it came to be done this way. They just do it because that's what they've done all of their lives. They never question the things they do.

Their main goal is to get things done. They don't care about the philosophy behind it the activity or the reason why for the activity.

What my goal is is to gain information and share information so I can improve the way I do things and help others to improve the way they do things. NTs it seems like do not.

Finally, I just love to learn for the sake of learning.

You should be an anthropologist and study the NT culture like they do ancient cultures and primitive cultures of today. I think it would be fascinating and only if you wanted too. You could write a book about what you find too if you wanted.

I've been trying to gather all my insights in a book. I find it terribly boring, though. I'm only motivated to write my """""pearls of wisdom"""" when I'm angry and venting, or when someone is in need of them... I love to write, but only shmaltzy love fantasies...

(the rest of the answers are inserted in the text quoted from you here above)

Have you noticed, as well, that if you do try to get them to join you in examining these things, they absolutely refuse to engage in the discussion? Will do anything to try and drop the subject, and if you persist with it, become almost angry. Something about analyzing their own behavior seems to make them very uncomfortable. I'm the opposite, personally - I find it very interesting to consider why I myself do things and the subconscious thinking that might be behind it.

Hovis, ditto to every word!

Once I was giving advice to a close friend, about looking inside herself and searching for what might be causing her (a highly attractive, successful, intelligent, interesting, etc. etc.) woman, to fail so bitterly in her romantic life for so many years in spite of her amazing efforts. She suddenly burst in tears and exclaimed: "You're advising me to kill myself!" I was in shock. I asked why. She answered that if she looked inside she'd get so depressed at what she'd find that she'd kill herself. Most NTs claim this. They believe our inner world is the very representation of hell, with sulphur bubbling, fire tongues, and all. Never ever suggest/recommend/ask/expect an NT to look inside themselves. They'll see you as a dangerous person trying to get them into hell.

Might be appropriate here to take a step back and look at the situation from a distance.

What's with this NT's and aspies stuff, anyway? Like we're a serious alternative or something? I've known a couple of people in my life that were probably aspies, but we're just a tiny abberent minority.

Talking about "NT" behavior is just talking about human behavior, a characteristic of a species, like skunks being black and white.

So what's going on with this species, the humans? Why do they act the way they do?

There's been a strange phenomenon happening on earth in the last few thousand years. The humans, a primate species, have developed something they call "civilization." It involves the cooperation of large groups of individuals, and they specialize, with different individuals performing different tasks, all performed to function in the context of the group, the civilization.

Civilization happened independently in many parts of the world, so it must reflect something inherent in the nature of the organism.

It isn't something new on the planet. A number of insect species do exactly the same thing. Ants, bees and termites come right to mind. What's unusual is that in this case it's happening in a vertebrate, a mammal, a primate.

Some of the insects are even more extreme than we are. There are termite species that build nests with interior climate control, and the individual termites are incapable of physical survival outside the climate controlled nest.

Animals living in groups is nothing unusual. It happens all the time. Depending on the species, they call these groups herds, packs, troops, schools, flocks, pods, and a bunch of other things. These groups can get very large. Early accounts from the great plains of North America report buffalo herds turning the horizon black.

What makes human civilizations and social insect groups unusual is their complexity. These complex groups are also very successful. This is true by definition. If they weren't successful, they wouldn't exist.

Is any comparison between human civilizations and social insects worth bothering with? Can't hurt to consider the possibility.

Ideas go in and out of fashion in science just like in most things. When I was young, mentioning continental drift was like talking about astrology. Now continental drift is universally accepted as fact.

For the last few decades, the fashion in biology has been reductionism. This has given us all the amazing gee-whiz technology of the molecular biologists, but also led to the notion that tracking down a few sequences of nucleic acids on some chromosome or other constitutes an understanding of aspergers and autism.

Likewise, all other biological phenomena have had be explained exclusively in terms of their constituent parts, first in terms of the individual organism, then in terms of the individual genes.

Individual humans have little in common with individual ants, but human cities are an awful lot like anthills.

Since civilization is so commonplace among humans, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that humans, in the pre-civilization prehistory that constitutes the vast majority of the human past, became preadapted to living in complex specialized societies.

Civilizations would not exist if humans were concerned about much besides their status among other humans. Not saying I like civilization. I don't. It holds nothing for me except supplying physical needs for pointless physical survival.

The nature of NT conversations are merely a characteristic of a species, like deer having antlers.

This is very interesting. This makes me wonder if we could peek into their inner world, what would we see?

Some are very extreme too extreme for even most NTs. They're labeled with Borderline Personality Disorder and and Histronic personality disorder. Both love attention and fear abandonment. In fact, being alone like that would eventually destroy them.

You know, most NTs do not like to be alone for any extended period of time. Here is my question. Here is my question. How do they get to pursue exactly what they want individually if they're around others all the time.

Greentea, I have been using this philosophy most of my life. This philosophy says that I know nothing,I know that I know nothing, and that I am ignornant. I didn't know how to put this into words until a couple of weeks ago but I actually discovered this long before I googled Socrates 2 weeks ago and the greatest wisdom comes from knowing nothing. It seems very paradoxial does it not? He lived by the same idea. Socrates was forced to take Hemlock for his ideas in Ancient Athens. Basically, all it means is that I cannot know anything with absolute certainty. I always have to be prepared to be wrong and to self-correct.

Perhaps it's true that those "too extreme" people are labeled with Borderline Personality Disorder, but it's not true that people with Borderline Personality Disorder love attention. Oh, some do. But some don't. It's not a required part of the syndrome. What people with Borderline Personality Disorder seek is not attention, but validation.

I understand what you're saying and you're correct. My reasoning though was couldn't validation kind of be used as a form of an attention seeking device. If I am wrong then I will accept that I am wrong and I will stand corrected.

What NTs want seems to be a combination of three things:

a) what they actually want, as an individual,

b) what is acceptable in their social group to want,

c) what society and the media tells them they should want.

I'm not sure that many (not all, but many) of them can actually tell anymore which is which.

I can give no better example of this than fashion. A particular style of clothing seen on someone one year, when it's not 'fashionable', can produce cries of, "Oh, my God!" from other people and shrieks of laughter about how vile it is. Yet when, several years later, the same style of clothing is deemed 'fashionable', their opinion will completely change and they will enthusiastically buy and wear virtually identical items, apparently with no memory of how they reacted to it when it was unfashionable. Although an unimportant part of life in itself, this is allowing oneself to be influenced by others - brainwashed, in fact - to a degree that frightens me.

I don't think it's so simple. NTs do THINGS with clothes, same as they do things with conversation. Wearing a fashionable item is making a very precise statement about oneself, whether the item is pretty or ugly. While wearing the same item without the fashion and the statement, leaves the item to be what it is: funny/ridiculous/ pretty/ whatever.

This is something which, I think, will always be utterly confusing to me. I can't for the life of me understand how an item that not only held no interest, but was actually something to be ridiculed, can now become totally acceptable and desirable just because the circumstances have changed.

Something suddenly grabbing your attention that you just never really noticed before and had no opinion about one way or another - yes, of course, I can understand that quite easily. But moving from one extreme of opinion to the other, simply because you're told that the item's now fashionable? That's bizarre, frankly.

*shrugs* I like the things I like. If they happen to be 'cool' or fashionable as well, that's all well and good. If they're not - it doesn't stop me liking them.

That's the way YOU are, but can't you see the logic in the way that others are? Can't you see why an object can suddenly become desirable to someone for what it represents at a certain point in time?