I hate being gullible

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I'm generally not a gullible person, I don't normally believe things what are said to me that sound strange or too abstract for reality depending on what was said to me.

But the other day I did have a ''gullible moment'', and felt ridiculous afterwards. It was at my volunteer job. There is a girl who works there who has always been nice to me, and a few weeks ago she was showing me some bracelets she had made herself, from her phone. I knew she really was making the bracelets because she is only 15 and wants to get a bit of money for them (I heard some teenagers are doing this in the schools where I come from), and also I heard her mum talking to another woman about her daughter making her own bracelets.
But last week I was at the volunteer shop with this girl and one of the other young volunteers that work there, and we were sorting through different jewelry what just were donated. I picked up a bracelet from the pile and said, ''I like this bracelet.'' And the girl said, ''I made that.'' I said, ''did you?'' and she said, ''yes'' in a serious voice, and carried on doing what she was doing with no grimacey expression on her face or anything, so I went, ''it is really good.'' I then saw them grinning at each other and laughing, so I looked at them and went, ''OK, you didn't.''

I felt stupid after that, but tried to reassure myself that I probably wouldn't of believed her if I didn't know she makes bracelets in school. But I still feel stupid.

I can totally relate to this, my good friend. Unfortunately, in my quest to be non-gullible in the past, I found that I engaged in what I call overcompensating mechanisms. If somebody said something to me that seemed far-fetched, I tended more towards skepticism, but the skepticism was misplaced on more than one occasion, and it got the person pretty furious that I was insulting them and what they were describing REALLY DID happen, or was true or what have you. I can understand where they were coming from, my response must have sounded flippant even if I said it in a jovial manner ("Nawww...you're sh**ting me, aren't you? There's no way you did...") but I do have my pride to maintain, Aspie or not, and I don't wish to be taken for a fool so sometimes I will get into these "false negatives" which cast aspersions on my mental state as much as the false positives where I naively believe some semi-absurd statement that somebody has told me, without picking up on the subtle nonverbals.

I can relate. I think I'll always be that way to an extent, no matter what. People joke sometimes so literally though, I think anybody could misinterpret their humor.

The only thing I feel I can offer to this is, just laugh at it. I've often felt rather stupid when things like that have happened but I realised I'm never going to get them so I just shrug it off and say things like 'Psh, you tosser' I find it helps with not feeling stupid if you just add a joking side to it all. It came about one day with an online friend who is sarcastic a lot that I need a sarcasm sign like Sheldon off BBT.

At least with your situation, if you can find yourself laughing with them/at yourself and push the feeling stupid feeling away, it does end up helping you a lot. Not saying it's easy to do but it does get easier the more you try it.

Ok, so did you ask Person 2 (the 2nd volunteer you talked about) if she made the braclet?

In either case, I would have made a joke out of it rather than take it seriously.

I only took it seriously because I knew she did make bracelets. If she didn't make bracelets then I wouldn't have took it seriously.

But I did ask her afterwards. I said, ''you didn't make that, did you?'' And she was like, ''no, that's why we were laughing.'' (She didn't mean it in a nasty way, she was smiling as she said it). I just said, ''I thought you might of at first because you told me you made bracelets.'' She just went, ''oh, yeah'', then the conversation kind of ended and was forgotten. I saw her again today (haven't seen her since 2 weeks ago) and she talked to me fine and sat and had her lunch with me and we were talking about other things so it doesn't really matter any more.

I have situations like this all the time, and I used to get really embarrassed about it. Now I work with kids, most of them realised very quickly that I was gullible and made fun of me for ages about it and I felt about 10 again. But now I'm open about it- I tell the kids that I will believe anything they say because I don't understand why they would want to lie, and they seem to understand that and most of them don't do it any more. It still happens with people my age too (eg recently I mentioned that I can never find my name on a diet Coke bottle and a friend whose name is 'Eithne' said she'd found one with her name on; I said 'really?' and she started laughing and said 'no, i was joking', and I laughed too and said that I always believe what people say which she didn't make fun of me for), and I usually explain the same way I do with the kids.

I don't believe everything people say. But some people throw up stupid pointless jokes what have a big possibility of being true, using a serious tone of voice and everything, that anyone could believe it.

I never trust strangers and casual acquaintances, because my gullibility could put me in danger. But I get fooled by friends. Who fool me sometimes when joking, but not by the deliberate telling of lies about important stuff.*

For example, a friend emailed me and another friend and told us something, but said not to tell anyone else about this email, that this was in strict confidence. My other friend emailed us back, "what email?," and I, quickly and without thinking, forwarded the first friend's email, saying, "didn't you get this?". The next day I realized he'd been joking And I mentioned it to him in an IM and he said, yes, he and the other friend had laughed about it. I'd done similar stuff before so they know me. They weren't laughing in a mean way, though. I know these two are good enough friends that they understand this about me but wouldn't take advantage.

*I have had one or two friends who did, but I didn't stay friends with them.