Never ask a local for directions.

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This is an element in my own, personal, string-theory of Aspergers. But it takes so long to explain, I figured I’d treat it as a separate issue.

As one with no sense of direction, I have extensive experience in asking for it. The five main rules that I have learned are:

1. Never ask a local for directions. Ask a cop or a gas station or a newcomer.
The locals are able to navigate for themselves, but do it so unconsciously that they don’t really know the way at all. They’ll say things like, “go down the road a ways..” Not a mile or three blocks, but “a ways.” They’ll say, “Turn right by the old mill.” Well, ignoring the fact that it’s actually a LEFT hand turn, the old mill was torn down twenty years ago, and in its place is a dilapidated strip mall. Or they’ll say, “Take the first left.” Well no, technically, it is the FIFTH left. It’s just that you’ve passed those others so many times that you can’t see them any more. Newflash: Those little side streets are still there, and the old mill is gone.

2. If you hear the phrase, “Ya can’t miss it,” or “it’s easy,” or any variation on that theme, you need to RUN AWAY. This individual knows, at some level, that the maneuver IS difficult. He wants to say something that is reassuring BECAUSE he KNOWS that it is difficult. So he lies. The phrase, “Ya can’t miss it,” is self contradictory. If it were true, he wouldn’t be saying it. Where the typical local giving the bad directions is unconscious, this individual is brain-dead.

And while you are running, immediately begin the process of erasing anything you can catch from your brain. Those synapses are quick, and you won’t be able to catch them all, but do what you can as quickly a possible.

3. Saying, “I don’t know,” or “I don’t feel like thinking right now,” might be the truth, but they don’t want to admit it, so they make something up. It doesn’t matter what. They just want to get out of this situation and forget it. And they will forget it, within about 15 seconds.

4. Sometimes they simply lie, just for sport. I pulled into a gas station once and asked a handful of teenagers, both boys and girls. One girl had a little more trouble than the others suppressing the smirk. So I asked the middle-aged attendant, and found that the correct way was the opposite of what the kids told me.

5. If you are a man, you can never ask for directions at all. This is seen as irrational by women, but men know instinctively that asking a stranger for directions gives the other guy the right to beat you up and take your woman. Irrational, yes, but it’s still true.

The first four made perfect sense, the last one left me scratching my head. It just didn't make sense, it never would even cross my mind.

I have also no sense of direction at all. I am way more than incompetend. I like your funny rules, it really made me think, but like Blossoms the 5th is just weird. In my opinion it is role modelling and even sexist.
My experience is that a male mate rather ask directions to a stranger than letting me handle it or just go directly in the opposite direction I think we should go anyway. I avoid asking for directions, which in my case is not clever at all.
Men hardly ever getting beaten up by a stranger asking for directions, let alone taking their woman... Also what have asking for directions anything to do with giving the other guy the right to beat you up and take your woman anyway? I am sorry, but I really don't understand this. Why do you think this is the case?

Pride is a primal thing. The NT doesn’t understand it himself.

Strutting around and beating on your chest says two things:
(1) I am big and tough and would be a useful ally
(2) I am big and tough and would make a dangerous enemy.

Perceived helplessness can go two ways:
(1) It can trigger a nurturing or protective reflex
(2) It can be a magnet for anyone looking for target practice.

Picking on a bully-magnet is a safe way of showing off to potential ally or a prospective mate.
(It's also a safe way of releasing anger. But scape-goating and witch hunting is another story.)

When you ask a stranger for help, you have no way of knowing which type he is.
It all depends on how enlightened the individual is.
If I see you as a member of my group, I will nurture and/or protect.
If I see you as "one of them," there are no rules.

Ok, he might not literally drag you out of the car and beat you up, but the instinct is there. Those kids in the gas station were using me for target practice. And I’m not even a man.
The middle-aged attendant probably saw me as a customer.
Or maybe a maiden in distress.
Or maybe just a citizen of the world.

Last edited by Tahitiii on 26 Jul 2008, 1:40 pm, edited 3 times in total.

This is going to sound made up, but last year I was staying w/ a friend in Brooklyn. She doesn't drive, so I offered to take her someplace she needed to go in the city, door-to-door. I figured she had preferences of which way to drive, or insider info or something, so I told her what route I was planning to take and asked if it was okay. Not only did she have no opinion ....

She claimed not to know which bridge was the Brooklyn Bridge.

'Pride is a primal thing. The NT doesn’t understand it himself.'

I agree with that, if that was the moral of the five points that you posted. Yes, pride is latent, and often it finds its ways in the small debris of our conversations, a hidden code in the snarls and those facial expressions. We, humans, are like birds that flings its feathers to ward off others.

I'll give you an example. I first studied at a university that supposedly had a poor reputation in my city, and I remember the responses I would get when I told others that I studied there. Later on in life I went to a better university. Once an old friend called me out of the blue, he also was then continuing his studies, and it was a nice institution. In the conversation, asking what I was doing, I replied I decided to study again. Straight away he blurted out a university name, if I went there (the institution does not have percieved a sterling reputation), this before I could answer where I went. From his voice he seemed to want me to go to that institution, maybe to flutter his feathers of superiority?

You also get it when people exchange info on the 'professions' they do and often a dad notes his or her children's education or jobs or an individual gets a sense of chest puffed out when they have the better social status job. Everyone wants to outdo the other. You do get people that are mean and want to use other as target practice, but that is not always the case. But pride games are indeed there, which are a softer form of bully games than straight out target practice. I think people with Aspie traits notice these small details when listening to conversations because they are almost like outsiders, not understanding things quasi-automatically as an NT. So they can stand out and observe and can be very perceptive to the little details. Do you think that observation is valid?

Last edited by blossoms on 27 Jul 2008, 7:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

Absolutely valid.

If you need help, you should first check for a connection.
Something that will trigger a nurturing or protective reflex.

A cop, if you don't look like a threat or a low-life.
A store owner, if you might be a customer.
A doctor, if you need a form of help that he understands and can give.
A teacher, if you look like a teacher's pet.
Up in the hills, your skin color might still matter.
If you have an accent, proceed at your own risk.

Are you a member of MY group? Why should I care about you?

Wow this is all a bit new and weird to me. Or am I losing the plot here?
What has pride to do with asking a stranger for directions? Is not knowing where you exactly are and asking for directions a weakness??? I don't think so! If you don't know where you are and decided to ask someone who might know is just very practical to me. I tend not to ask because I am way too stubborn and I think that is not really wise. Asking for a direction is just saving time and has nothing to do with pride or helplesness or deep primate related issues, that is going way too deep into a simple issue of asking for directions, if you aske me.
Tahitii my question maybe has your point more to do with self defence, or womens selfdefence and not just asking for a direction? Or am I wrong here?

Anybody who asks me for directions, tends to be sent on a bus/bike route because that is how I travel around town. I can't do left and right and I don't know the names of the smaller streets, primarily navigating by landmarks instead. Heaven help you if I know 3 ways to get from point a to point b as well, LOL!

I keep a map at my desk at work for people who are looking for specific places, and try to keep one on me when if I am asked in public. I had to laugh because twice, the same tourist approached me - weeks apart - asking for information about how to get to certain bike routes in town. Luckily the first time I could see the turnoff so I directed him there, but the other route - a popular one with the tourists - I didn't know how to get to, so I sent him to a local bike shop that I knew organized tours of this route. What are the odds of having the same tourist stop you like that, though? LOL! Nice enough tourist, although I did have to haul him out of the middle of the street, where he decided to ask me for directions. He must have been used to drivers who WOULDN'T run you down just because it was time to go, I guess.

I get stopped a lot for directions, though - I only hope I haven't confused the issue. If I don't know, I tell people, I can't help.

It’s not about right or wrong. Those are questions for reasonable, rational people.
You can’t tell by looking at someone whether he is reasonable or rational.

Ohh and asking a cop anything for me is really so not okay. A cop is just a protector of the state, limiting peoples freedom and arrest them when they do not obey the states will or when people standing up for their rights and freedom are being pepper sprayed, beaten down, sometimes shot and/or arrested. One moment a cop is friendly, the next moment you are nicked if he/she gets the orders. The police is the last I would trust. The police have an extended legal way of using violence and frame ups to cover extended violence, so why should I trust someone who can legally bully me and shoot me, or arrest me? The police is just a tool for the state for me, you only use it when there is no other possibility. I would never ask a copper the way, because I don't trust them at all! I really rather ask a random stranger. A stranger has no job to hide behind, no status to live up to. The situation is: it is just a human asking another human the way. Still a gamble, but without any society related status and misuse.

Tahitii all you name are proffessions that might seem like an authority; police, store owner (if you are a customer), a doctor, a teacher. For me that is very misleading. A profession has nothing to do with authorithy, nor status to me andno automatically trust to go with it, so they give no extra safety or guarantee with asking the way. A profession has nothing to do with safety or status, or respect and trust. Its just a job.

Asking for a direction is actually quite a brave thing to do. It is atmitting you don't know and have no other option than to ask somebody, a stranger. Whatever your proffession is it is not a guarantee for safety or getting the right directions. It is a gamble you take which you try to fit in the things you knew before you ask for directions and if they don't fit at all, ask somebody else because they might be wrong whatever your proffession is.

'What has pride to do with asking a stranger for directions?'

I think it has little, unless someone has a major ego problem about asking anyone for help! I think Tahitii meant the pride of those resonding more than those asking, to say -- 'you know what, I just don't know'. But usually those responding are usually cordial if you ask directions and try to help. As for the kids giving wrong directions, well its just being a kid. They'll grow up.

But I still agree pride is subconscious in our interactions, we often don't notice it when we are being proud.

If you have poor social skills and are inept, as people who have some social anxiety disorder (a trait that can be shared with individuals diagnosed with Aspergers), then you do tend to notice it more. Very poor social skills often are a result of fear of contact and hence slow or lack of development of these skills. So skills have to be learned (as shared with people who might be somewhere on the spectrum), and often you find yourself being an outisder and picking things up (pride, those snarls, those facial expressions), as socialisation has not become subconscious or near reflexive as a NT (being social inept and lacking social skills without other recognised Aspie traits would make you feel similarly as a stranger i.e. not NT).

Maybe Tahitii you meant that meaness or asking for help are opportunities for a few nasty people to be their nasty selves and not be helpful, due to some pride issues, which can be picked up in facial expressions and tone of response. But that is an exception, I would think. The first four of five points mentioned in the post are possible though, I still don't know about the fifth.

Just follow your nose.

I used to get asked for directions all the time. It gets annoying...I'd be standing at the bus stop along with other commuters and out of the whole group some tourist would pick me to ask for directions and this happened over and over and over again. I was working at the time, living in a tourist area, caught the same bus every day. Why me? Do I look harmless?

I would take that as a compliment.


If by “nose” you mean instinct, you’re in the wrong forum.
If by “nose” you mean experience and education, that’s why we are here. To share and interpret our experience and education.



You’re right. It’s not about the profession, but about the connection.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. If you have had a bad experience, learn from it.

On the other hand, times change. I often find that I need to reconsider my rules.
Things were different thirty years ago. The woman they see today is old and therefore uninteresting, which is mostly good. You’ll get a good reaction if you are a pretty, helpless child (nurture/protect) or a maiden in distress (I’ll save you). A man with perfect instincts can maintain the potential ally/threat pose (if you’re an aspie, don’t even try).
An attractive, unattainable woman can get a bad reaction (rage).
An old woman? Who cares? The enlightened person will help, while
the neanderthal will ignore (I’m not a threat, an opportunity or a target).


If you stick with enlightened people, you’ll be fine. But you can’t tell by looking.
With unconscious people, it all depends on the connection.

A better solution would be to get the route worked in your head, and bring a road atlas just in case you make a wrong turn, so you don't have to ask anybody in the first place.

But if you do ask for directions, I can think of a very good reason NOT to ask a police officer in particular:

http://www.wbaltv.com/news/9229472/detail.html

I can't even respond to that one.
I have no idea.