You don't need to make much effort when making friends
"Simply put, the theory of the double empathy problem suggests that when people with very different experiences of the world interact with one another, they will struggle to empathise with each other. This is likely to be exacerbated through differences in language use and comprehension. I first started to publish theoretical accounts of this issue in the early 2010s, yet similar ideas can be found in the work of Luke Beardon regarding ‘cross-neurological theory of mind’ and in that of the philosopher Ian Hacking.
More recently research by Elizabeth Sheppard and team at the University of Nottingham, Brett Heasman at the London School of Economics, and Noah Sasson at the University of Texas at Dallas, have shown that in experimental conditions, non-autistic people struggled to read the emotions of autistic participants, or form negative first impressions of autistic people. Such evidence would suggest that the dominant psychological theories of autism are partial explanations at best.
According to the theory of the ‘double empathy problem’, these issues are not due to autistic cognition alone, but a breakdown in reciprocity and mutual understanding that can happen between people with very differing ways of experiencing the world. If one has ever experienced a conversation with someone who one does not share a first language with, or even an interest in the topic of a conversation, one may experience something similar (albeit probably briefly).
This theory would also suggest that those with similar experiences are more likely to form connections and a level of understanding, which has ramifications in regard to autistic people being able to meet one another."
https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-gu ... le-empathy
Exactly right, empathy is impeded by vast difference in experience based on one's inherent characteristics.
Just like a heterosexual person can't readily empathize with the anxiety that a gay person might feel about being the victim of a violent crime when they go out in public, or a non-black person can't empathize with a Black person who's being followed by a police car.
I've always thought the double empathy issue is a critical point when it comes to forming relationships. I'm pretty good at telling the extent to which I can connect with a person based on first contact, even if it's brief. A really strong click is considerably more likely to happen if the other person is autistic.
Autism wasn't even on my radar until I was 35, so I've got the benefit of a large sample that's unbiased by perception of my own autism. I didn't realize my best friend was autistic until after I learned I was. We'd never discussed it before; he was surprised I /didn't/ know I was. Apparently I'm "not exactly a well-hidden case" lol.
I still don't click with even the vast majority of autistic people, but that's to be expected. In the ~14 months since I started hanging out in autistic spaces, I've met more people I have that distinctive click with than I had in the decade before that point.
I still have close relationships with NT people; that's definitely possible despite the double empathy problem. It's rarer, but there are way more NTs than there are of us. So at least for me, there are still a good number of NTs who I could be good friends with. The problem has always been finding them. It takes much more effort and time to find one NT I fit with than to find one autistic person, because I have to sort through - to make numbers up - 1,000 NTs but only 100 autistic people before it happens.
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- Unless you feel the same way, tell other people to "stop whining" whenever they confide in you about their problems
- Don't bother helping out for charities unless you want to make friends, not for the charity, and if you find any money on the ground nobody will care if you keep it
- Just look out for yourself, if you want to make someone's life unhappy then it's perfectly acceptable, as long as they're weaker than you socially (because they don't matter)
- Don't bend over backwards for other people
- Be a hypocrite - demand respect from other people but don't give them respect
- Be rude and entitled - it'll make you look tougher
- Be tactless, tell someone who's a little bit different from you that they're weird without considering their feelings
- Gossip about people, badmouth them behind their backs, enjoy it. It wins you friends and respect
- Throw yourself at people - give them your number when you first meet them, text them, arrange a get-together, look willing and confident and they'll come to you.
You're welcome.
So the real message here is "be a contagious toxic person"?
Well, kinda, yeah. The points in the first list are often demanded on to us to be the way to make friends, but I try all of those and still don't get anywhere. I know a lot of NT people who do the points in the second list and they seem so popular and likeable it's unbelievable.
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Female
Here's what I think instead;
It's not simply about being toxic, but being resonating to others even if it meant being a bit toxic.
This coincides with the double empathy problem -- either one party should 'level' to accommodate another.
NTs generally refuses to bridge the gap themselves and expects NDs to accommodate them -- mostly because, it's an NT's space.
So one's in a place where being nice is cast upon suspicion and dissonance -- then turn the niceness down a bit.
If one's being too nice yourself, then someone may feel like they're obligated to follow the same courtesy, which made them a bit less comfortable, or worse -- either to avoid guilt, or read this one as someone desperate to be picked by not being not appearing authentic enough.
If one's being blunt themselves, then someone is will likely follow the trend.
There's a good chance a person would be comfortable because there's little to no 'obligation' to return 'niceness'.
Of course it had to be done in moderation and authentically.
At least those are the basics, I think, usually in a suspicious or in a competitive culture or spaces.
One had to know when and where to apply said message.
And to know where and when -- one would figure how to read the room first.
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Well, kinda, yeah. The points in the first list are often demanded on to us to be the way to make friends, but I try all of those and still don't get anywhere. I know a lot of NT people who do the points in the second list and they seem so popular and likeable it's unbelievable.
This like the incontrovertible equivalent of turning us into the Nazgul!
Believe me, people tend to think I'm very ABRASIVE when I try to do the things said on the "second list".....
....and I do NOT blame them!
Believe me, people tend to think I'm very ABRASIVE when I try to do the things said on the "second list".....
....and I do NOT blame them!
So when NTs do it it's OK but when an Aspie does it it's not.
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Female
I think the bulk of the items on the "second list" are Cluster-B personality traits (i.e. narcissism, psychopathy, histrionic personality, etc.) - yeah, either that, or a Hitler-like hardcore authoritarian personality with Machiavellian leanings.
Like I said earlier: the "goal", such as it is, is calibrating your presentation to others between the two list extremes.
You can't have porous boundaries in being overly nice to others, a form of over-compensating for our social screw-ups in not intuiting proper response or "reading between the lines". Because some people, regrettably, will exploit that sense of guilt and shame - ask you for occasional favours and then pretend you don't exist, no reciprocity
I think what kind of "weirds NTs out" is when we exhibit mild "second list" behaviours, but being unaware that these behaviours are offensive. Whereas some "popular" NTs knowingly exhibit more intensive "second list" behaviours, and it shows that they are aware of them and hence "in control" - and folks think that this is someone who's got social and resource options if they behave like this, so hey, they must be allright in my book!! !
So, yeah, when I think back on that lame advice some well-wishers offered to "do everything on the 'first list' and you'll have lots of friends", that was using hyperbole and something we (or I) tended to take at face value. This banal advice was brought to you by the same amorphous entity that told you to reason with bullies or tell them firmly you don't like what they're doing (heaven forbid they should advise you to ambush them with physical force), or the morons who said that when a young woman is looking for a "nice guy", then you should be that nice guy to a tee and she'll be all yours
We may not be fully in a Hobbesian "state of nature", but humankind still retains some dark vestiges of its evolutionary past.
Clutching the old purse and moving away was certainly something from the old days. NT women who are alone these days have something called a mobile phone. 99.99% of women catching public transport in Australia are staring at their mobile phone. They do not lift their attention. If a male was say something as comment (as in your situation) they would simply not lift their attention gaze. They don't acknowledge or give eye contact.
On the rare occasion they get a pointed question (like what time is the bus) they will very quickly dart a look and say "I don't know" and then return to their phone.
Like I said earlier: the "goal", such as it is, is calibrating your presentation to others between the two list extremes.
You can't have porous boundaries in being overly nice to others, a form of over-compensating for our social screw-ups in not intuiting proper response or "reading between the lines". Because some people, regrettably, will exploit that sense of guilt and shame - ask you for occasional favours and then pretend you don't exist, no reciprocity
I think what kind of "weirds NTs out" is when we exhibit mild "second list" behaviours, but being unaware that these behaviours are offensive. Whereas some "popular" NTs knowingly exhibit more intensive "second list" behaviours, and it shows that they are aware of them and hence "in control" - and folks think that this is someone who's got social and resource options if they behave like this, so hey, they must be allright in my book!! !
So, yeah, when I think back on that lame advice some well-wishers offered to "do everything on the 'first list' and you'll have lots of friends", that was using hyperbole and something we (or I) tended to take at face value. This banal advice was brought to you by the same amorphous entity that told you to reason with bullies or tell them firmly you don't like what they're doing (heaven forbid they should advise you to ambush them with physical force), or the morons who said that when a young woman is looking for a "nice guy", then you should be that nice guy to a tee and she'll be all yours
We may not be fully in a Hobbesian "state of nature", but humankind still retains some dark vestiges of its evolutionary past.
I am aware of when I'm being horrible - and I'm hardly ever horrible of course but when I am it's because I intend to be, not because I'm unaware of it. But even so, if I do decide to be horrible it always backfires and then I end up feeling very guilty. I hate being seen as a horrible person, it fills me with guilt and shame to greater degrees. I don't know how bullies get through life making other people's lives miserable and not feeling guilty or shameful because of it.
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Female
I always find that sharing sweets helps to make friends.
No matter how old I get its always worked for me. I just always think it's a friendly thing to do. Plus when people are chewing or sucking on a sweet you don't really need to say much.
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We have existence
Like I said earlier: the "goal", such as it is, is calibrating your presentation to others between the two list extremes.
You can't have porous boundaries in being overly nice to others, a form of over-compensating for our social screw-ups in not intuiting proper response or "reading between the lines". Because some people, regrettably, will exploit that sense of guilt and shame - ask you for occasional favours and then pretend you don't exist, no reciprocity
I think what kind of "weirds NTs out" is when we exhibit mild "second list" behaviours, but being unaware that these behaviours are offensive. Whereas some "popular" NTs knowingly exhibit more intensive "second list" behaviours, and it shows that they are aware of them and hence "in control" - and folks think that this is someone who's got social and resource options if they behave like this, so hey, they must be allright in my book!! !
So, yeah, when I think back on that lame advice some well-wishers offered to "do everything on the 'first list' and you'll have lots of friends", that was using hyperbole and something we (or I) tended to take at face value. This banal advice was brought to you by the same amorphous entity that told you to reason with bullies or tell them firmly you don't like what they're doing (heaven forbid they should advise you to ambush them with physical force), or the morons who said that when a young woman is looking for a "nice guy", then you should be that nice guy to a tee and she'll be all yours
We may not be fully in a Hobbesian "state of nature", but humankind still retains some dark vestiges of its evolutionary past.
I am aware of when I'm being horrible - and I'm hardly ever horrible of course but when I am it's because I intend to be, not because I'm unaware of it. But even so, if I do decide to be horrible it always backfires and then I end up feeling very guilty. I hate being seen as a horrible person, it fills me with guilt and shame to greater degrees. I don't know how bullies get through life making other people's lives miserable and not feeling guilty or shameful because of it.
True that!! Because there are so many times that we unintentionally offend others, that we can ill-afford to intentionally upset them. NTs have that "luxury" where we don't...so they are then perceived as more socially competent and "in control". Of course, if they do this TOO often without any base of support or influence, then others will eventually turn on them or be skeptical of anything they say.
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