Validating people's feelings vs being a pushover

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Hi all,

A problem I have been wrestling with over the past year or so is where lines in the sand are to be drawn when social skills are learned.

I recently got diagnosed with Asperger's. At first I questioned this diagnosis because I am a sociable, outgoing guy with quite a lot of friends. However, the psychiatrist said this was probably because I was fairly intelligent and I had learned through experience.

This kind of makes sense because I remember I was much worse as a child. My social life only really took off when I left school and went to college, and it continued to make strides when I went to university.

However, the caveat to all of this is that, when you are at college and uni, the crowd is much more tolerant, diverse and intellectual than the public at large, and since getting grades based on your own work is all that really matters, you have a lot more freedom to choose who you would mix with. If you think someone is horrible, you just don't associate with them.

What I have found since university is that a lot of people in the wider world really aren't that way. There have been several occasions in which I have got into blazing rows with people because I have supposedly overstepped some "obvious" unspoken boundary and I refused to just swallow their arbitrary nonsense. When I attempted to reason with them using logic they point blank refused to respond in kind and demanded that I simply accept the way they feel without justification.

After a while I became weary of these arguments and adopted a policy of compromise for the sake of an easy life. Indeed, one friend told me that I tend to think too much like an intellectual and I should just accept things the way they are for the sake of avoiding conflict. But this didn't seem to work. I have found that, if you give these people an inch, they take a mile, and you simply can't get out of the arguments. Eventually, they will find something.

Case in point: at a previous house I lived in, I had a girl housemate who owned an ironing board and a vaccuum cleaner - the only ones in the house. As I was the only one apart from her who even bothered with housework, I would sometimes knock on her door to ask if I could borrow those items. Sometimes I would approach her room, hear that she was on the phone and think "oh never mind, I will come back later" without really thinking anything of it. Then suddenly I was getting threats from her boyfriend (who had recently moved in) about "hovering outside her room and making her nervous". I tried to explain to both of them that I was doing nothing of the sort and that I didn't want any kind of misunderstanding to go on, but this only aggravated the situation. Apparently, she could not help the way she felt and the onus was on me to "just accept it". They simply were not interested in my side of the story; they had jumped to a paranoid conclusion and that was that. I ended up having to leave the house for my own safety, and my boss at the time had to help me move my stuff out because none of my family were in the area (I didn't want to bring my personal drama up at work, but I saw no alternative).

I have also found, in dating, that many girls expect you to validate and accommodate the way they feel, supposedly for the sake of showing that you care, even if you think they are being completely unreasonable. This is something I just can't get behind.

It seems to me that the topic we call "social skills" can be divided into two categories: the first is consideration for others, at least in the basic sense, e.g. don't prattle on endlessly about topics that only you are interested in; the second is just uncritically accepting arbitrary customs and subjective personal preferences with no regard for logic or fairness.

So I have decided that enough is enough. Life is simply too short to waste your time on these a**holes, even if their way of thinking constitutes the majority opinion. I will absolutely try to be nice to people, but I will not be pushed around and I will no longer waste my time trying to reason with people who simply do not care about logic.

Rant over, but I wanted to vent.

Yes, yes, YES! I have the exact same problem with people. To me it feels like people sense something is "different" about me and that automatically makes them assume I should "just go with it". I've seen other people argue about similar things in the past and usually some sort of compromise is made. But not with people with AS or any other disability, I swear. It's the same for me at work most of the time. Some members of staff would sit around chatting all day but I stopped for ONE SECOND I got told off.

I really agree with you about girlfriends doing it, too, and it leads to double standards. For example, my ex was incredibly jealous, possessive and paranoid, going for far as to not letting me be friends with another ex in case "something happened". I was expected to just go with it. Now, I'm quite paranoid too, but I got worried about her ex, who worked at the same place as us and who clearly still had feelings for her, she would get pissed off. Even though she apparently hates him. I'm sure a lot of girls aren't like that, but it does seem to be some absurd unwritten social rule that men have to agree with pretty much everything their girlfriends say or do, or the man will get the silent treatment/be called pathetic/be put down. I assume that's due to the ancient-but-still-widespread belief (held by both sexes) that men are supposed to take care of women. I've learned that it's best to hide your true feelings and not bother mention anything that upsets you or that you disagree with. Nah, f**k that. I'm totally with you on the whole "not wasting time on a**holes" thing

From my experience, people can be really, really selfish about getting to have their emotions. Rigidly greedy about their given emotion. And logic goes out the window.

I've made the mistake of being way too accommodating, being overly nice. And yes, as you've written, this approach can be a pushover....then I get stomped on. Letting them have their way can be an overindulge and once they learn they can do it, they can become increasingly manipulative.

Anyhow, so glad you don't live there anymore and hope you find logical friends who appreciate you, and aren't so caught up in their given 'emotional rights.'

Don't bother validating their feelings.
Their feelings are irrelevant.
If they disagree, then they're beneath your notice.

Or at least that is my take on it.
The more they complain about my not personally tip-toeing around their oversensitive nonsense, the more I trample their feelings underfoot. Sooner or later they have to learn not to be such mewling brats about it. Their psychological wellbeing is THEIR responsibility... not mine.

And let us be serious here... it isn't like they give a flying f**k what WE consider important. It isn't like they will show us even the slightest hint of basic decency or regard.

They're just hypocrites. Irredeemable, insufferable hypocrites... and the only way to handle them is to stamp them into submission. Never back down. Never allow them so much as an inch of ground as they'll just take it and demand more.

I blame social media (from movies to newspapers to online discussions).

When I was a kid, people expected good manners from each other and hoped to practice their own good manners. Currently, we even have national leaders (Bush and Obama, Brown, Berlusconi, and others too numerous to mention) see no problem with their own corrupt and outrageous public behaviors. Why, then, should people try to behave any better?

Still, I try to deflect bad manners and live by the example of my own good manners. But, I am hardly a pushover.

By the way, my own Asperger's Syndrome diagnostician declined to confirm my AS for the same reason ("fairly intelligent and learned through experience"). She claimed that I had "cured myself."