On being ignored...

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If you're like me, you hate to be ignored. I mean, you really hate it. It might make you mad and resentful, thinking that people are ignoring you on purpose. This is what I've figured out over the years concerning the topic of being ignored.

When people are sharing something about themselves that they want you (and others) to comment on, they don't care what your personal anecdote is. Very few people have the patience to consider how your experience has a lesson in it that applies to them. You're better off just sharing the opinion you have formed based on your experience and keep the stories to yourself. If they want to know, they'll ask you.

When people ask a question, most times they have a personal reason for asking that question that they just haven't shared because they want to pretend that they're opening a discussion. There's no way to notice that this was a personally-motivated question until the person ignores everyone except the few who have had exactly the experience the person has had that prompted the question. When you respond, you're rolling the dice on whether or not your experience is the winning one to get any sort of attention.

Social networks rely on algorithms, so it's possible that nobody saw your status update about how you saw the actor that plays your favorite Big Bang Theory character in Starbucks. In this case, your friends are not ignoring you, Facebook is. Try posting a picture of your cat.

When you mention a discontent with not receiving enough response, observe the irony as people get so angry with you for saying you're not happy they're ignoring you that they... wait for it... IGNORE YOU! Those are the people you needed to ignore anyway.

If you turning to FaceBook for validation, you're asking to be ignored. FaceBook is just the continuation of High School cliques in the digital age. The same people who ignored you while they babbled to each other in school, will babble to each other and ignore you on FB.

I will tell you, though, if you feel that your experiences contain bits of wisdom that it might behoove others to heed - that's an attitude bordering on the self-righteous and others will not appreciate it. You may not mean it that way, but remember one of the common traits of AS is that while we may typically remain rather silent in social gatherings and play the wallflower, when someone accidentally trips one of our 'interest' triggers, we can have a tendency to suddenly monopolize and dominate the conversation, turning it into an extended monologue on something that seems vitally important to us, but is of no interest whatsoever to others in the room (besides which, in my experience, people rarely actually WANT your help and advice, even when they ask for it).

I not only catch myself doing it, I've been trapped by others on the spectrum in exactly the same way, once forced to politely listen to a two-hour (no exaggeration) blow-by-blow synopsis of the plot of a ten-season long television show that I had zero personal interest in, because I didn't want to be rude to someone whom I actually admired.

Point being, as you're already noticing, NT types are rarely interested in a conversational exchange that lasts more than a minute or two before switching to a new topic. They seem to have a very low TMI threshold.

I have been ignored right to my face-that really hurts.

I was recently at a party with my fiance. There was a woman there who did this to me. At first, she ignored both myself and my fiance. I asked him why she was ignoring him, since she had been very chatty at the last function that we attended. So he went over and greeted her. Then I went over and spoke to her. She was very arrogant. When I gave her a compliment ( I process insults slowly) she just turned her back and ignored me. So I changed her name (mentally) from Patty, to Cow Patty.

This is the only place I don`t feel ignored (besides my home)

If I want people to listen to the voice of reason, they won't.

If I want people to leave me alone and ignore me, they won't.

WTF?