Getting along better with other cultures?

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QFT
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20 Sep 2022, 11:49 am

DuckHairback wrote:
This is interesting. I don't know anything about the Philippines. Do you think the culture there is perhaps more community-minded, whereas maybe the West has become overly individualistic and competitive? It seems to me that difference would be valued more in societies where the success of the community was emphasised over the success of the individual.


Well, if "individualistic" were to translate to "everyone is isolated", then I won't be complaining: the focus of my complaints is "everyone has friends but me". So, clearly, being individualistic doesn't keep them from having friends. I guess you could say they are superficial friends. But, again, the focus of my complaints is "why don't I have what they have". So if they are superficial friends, that is all I want. Yet I don't have that either. So you can't say "I am isolated because all westerners are": thats just not true.

Or are you, instead, saying that the emphasize is on "competitive" in your quote? As in, in the western culture, I "lost the competition", so I have to suffer the consequences. But in eastern culture I haven't lost any competition since they don't have competition to begin with?

Or in other words are you saying that Western culture is individualistic not in a sense that each person cares about themselves as individual but more in a sense that each person judges their friends as individuals. But eastern culture is not individualistic, hence nobody is being judged as an individual: instead, they judge me as a Russian or a Jew (both signifying the community I am from), but certainly not as a weirdo (which would have been an individual aspect but they are not individualistic so they don't care)?

Or here is yet another theory. Could it be that in the West, friendship is optional while in the East it is obligation. So, yes, Westerners make friends, but they make them only because they want to, not because they have to. But Easterners feel like they have to, so even if they don't particularly like me, they would still feel obligated to befriend me. And with marriage same thing: even if they don't exactly have an arranged marriage, they might still feel obligated to match me up with someone if they see I struggle. Is that what you meant?



Edna3362
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20 Sep 2022, 5:44 pm

I can very much imagine myself to be in real life.

Got a lot of online foreign friends back when I quit school for a few years. Online Filipino friends are just easier because they like to gather one another and therefore I'm also being pulled into it.


As for Filipinos in general? Sure, even as a native, they're nice. At least in my region -- namely outside and not near the capital region.
Children are still mean, adults are still ignorant.
That ignorance can translate into very accepting or accepting superstition, or rigid denial and presumptions.

And the tolerance because I can be passed for someone who came from another region (or culture even as a child), or because my parents are great socializers and I'm a novelty apparently.

But something is just (and still is) missing.
And I'm sure that's what most autistics feel about NTs, with or without the hostility factor as a generalized experience -- so I still don't feel home, even I'm loved, just familiar. That, and on top of other aspects of my identity as well.

I just don't have and not experienced a lot of those hostility factors, and I don't have a means to contrast that with something better.
My experience though.


And I'm one of those asocial autistics. So the most annoying aspect is that I'm almost not alone.
If I weren't one of those types, I would've been very happy by my social opportunities and support a long time ago.
I would've love everyone more if I had been one of those social seeking types.

So I might as well be the opposite of "everyone has friends but me" type.


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QFT
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20 Sep 2022, 6:47 pm

Edna3362 wrote:
As for Filipinos in general? Sure, even as a native, they're nice. At least in my region


I thought you are Indian, not Fillipina? Or did you immigrate?

Edna3362 wrote:
And I'm one of those asocial autistics. So the most annoying aspect is that I'm almost not alone.
If I weren't one of those types, I would've been very happy by my social opportunities and support a long time ago.
I would've love everyone more if I had been one of those social seeking types.


Back in Russia, when I wasn't usually alone, I felt the same thing.

I guess for me, being alone all the time is bad, being trapped with others all the time is also bad. I wish I could be either alone or with people depending on my mood. But unfortunately that has never been the case.

I guess you might ask: how can it depend on my mood if I want others to initiate conversation rather than do it myself? Well, I guess what I wish were to happen is for people to approach me and talk to me whenever I am in the room yet at the same time have a complete freedom to walk out of the room and explore the town by myself any time I want. I never had both options at the same time. Its always been one or the other.

Being in the room full of people yet nobody talks to me is the worst feeling ever. I never want THAT one. But I do want some combination of exploring the town by myself and being in the room when everyone talks to me.



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21 Sep 2022, 2:46 pm

Fnord wrote:
Having been an ‘outsider’ among my own native culture (Midwestern-American “WASPs”) for many decades, I have become more comfortable among people of other cultures, especially Filipinos. So much so that I am currently in the process of learning Tagalog and moving to the Philippines. Better to live among people who accept me AND my differences than to live among people who marginalize me for being ‘weird’.

Hopefully you'll still be accepted in a place where Tagalog-speaking people are the majority, rather than a minority?

Good luck with your move.


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Last edited by Mona Pereth on 21 Sep 2022, 3:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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21 Sep 2022, 3:21 pm

Fnord wrote:
My wife is a Filipina. I get along better with her and her relatives than with anyone from my own Midwestern-American culture, and that includes my own relatives!

I guess that it may be because we expect to misunderstand each other, so we both try to take the time and make the effort to accommodate each other’s idiosyncrasies.

The above reasons are exactly why I think many autistic people would be happiest living in a highly multicultural neighborhood with immigrants from all over the world. I live in such a neighborhood.


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21 Sep 2022, 6:01 pm

QFT wrote:
Edna3362 wrote:
As for Filipinos in general? Sure, even as a native, they're nice. At least in my region


I thought you are Indian, not Fillipina? Or did you immigrate?

:lol: Where did that came from?
I never left the country I've been born into... But yes, I'm a Filipino.


So yeah. If you (or other aspies in this forum in general) say stuff about 'Filipinos' I just hear 'my version of NTs from foreign aspie POV'. :lol:
Because of the really obvious fact that chances are that it is likely towards another NT than it is with another ND.
And whenever I say stuff about NTs, this also means it is also true to Filipinos as well.

Then whenever another aspie in this forum say stuff about NTs, it very much likely meant foreign NTs and compare it to the NTs I've know in real life.
And see how much it parallels -- picking up between which part is human, which part is neurotypicality and which part is cultural, social conditioning and personal subjectivity.


:lol: Partially relevant to the topic -- of how would an aspie get along better with other cultures.
Quote:
Edna3362 wrote:
And I'm one of those asocial autistics. So the most annoying aspect is that I'm almost not alone.
If I weren't one of those types, I would've been very happy by my social opportunities and support a long time ago.
I would've love everyone more if I had been one of those social seeking types.

Back in Russia, when I wasn't usually alone, I felt the same thing.

I guess for me, being alone all the time is bad, being trapped with others all the time is also bad. I wish I could be either alone or with people depending on my mood. But unfortunately that has never been the case.

I guess you might ask: how can it depend on my mood if I want others to initiate conversation rather than do it myself? Well, I guess what I wish were to happen is for people to approach me and talk to me whenever I am in the room yet at the same time have a complete freedom to walk out of the room and explore the town by myself any time I want. I never had both options at the same time. Its always been one or the other.

Being in the room full of people yet nobody talks to me is the worst feeling ever. I never want THAT one. But I do want some combination of exploring the town by myself and being in the room when everyone talks to me.

I struggle with moods myself. And it's not limited to socializing...
I conclude it's just an aspect of emotional dysregulation than "myself as a human" per se, frustrating as it is.

Me as a human with psychological needs is simply gorged in socializing, but not enough connection to "sync" someone with.
I long for the 'sync' that happened to be in human interactions, not human interactions itself.

Those moments of being able to 'sync' with another are rare for me, even online -- I just have to meet an ND for that to be possible.

It's rarer in real life, almost impossible, because either I've yet to meet an ND of my own age...
And NTs?? That would be one in million. And I had only hit it that once with my mom.

Or wake up with a complete deck, well regulated all around and on near superhuman functioning level, then navigate my own internal state to accommodate others to synch with, which actually does take so much energy and internal resource processes, that the conscious mind normally couldn't and is not meant to do so. (This is not a hypothetical exaggerated scenario, that's what really happened to me)

And it's truly impossible for me to sync with anyone while woefully dysregulated.
That's like running marathons with a broken leg, half blind and no direction, with all targets barely hitting and increasingly frustrating if the goal is to hit all those targets to do a good job.


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nomad48
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26 Sep 2022, 5:48 pm

There is a limit to this, the minute the different culture person was around their friends or family, you will be out of place, it is similar when a new employee starts at a workspace, they will get along with me very well, because I am not part of clique, once they feel more comfortable the relationship changes.



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03 Oct 2022, 9:03 am

nomad48 wrote:
There is a limit to this, the minute the different culture person was around their friends or family, you will be out of place, it is similar when a new employee starts at a workspace, they will get along with me very well, because I am not part of clique, once they feel more comfortable the relationship changes.


Thankfully, this hasn't happened yet. Sometimes I wonder if she is on the spectrum too. I would walk into a living room, she just sits there by herself, and doesn't even say hello to me. The not saying hello thing kinda bugs me, but then again it feels like its not me its her. Because she hasn't had anybody visitting this whole time, except for a technitian where she would ask him to fix things. If someone were to eventually visit her, and she were to be friendly to that person, I would get upset. But it didn't happen yet.

I must say though that her "actions" (not words) show the kind of concern that most other people wouldn't. For example, her ad said she has a dog in her living room. I told her, before moving in, that I am afraid of dogs. So, because of me, she changed all that and keeps the dog on the back yard. To the point that I don't even notice the dog is there. That plus also she didn't have washer and drier. But now she got it. I would like to think its because she noticed I don't wash things by my hands (I mean she got it less than a month after I moved in). But I don't know. Also when the screen of my laptop broke she landed me her own laptop to use while my laptop was in repair. When at repair they said they can't change the screen and returned me laptop back with broken screen (no they didn't charge any money) I returned the laptop she gave me. But she said few times I didn't have to do it. I did anyway.

But at the same time she is VERY aloof. Doesn't even say hello like I said. So the combination of doing stuff for me most people wouldn't, and at the same time being aloof to the point of not saying hello, makes her really hard to read. But at least its been drama free, at least so far.