The paradox of putting yourself in someone else's shoes

Post Reply New Topic

(The expression of "putting yourself in someone else's shoes" means that you imagine what something must be like for someone else, who has different circumstances)

This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately, after I was told I needed to do it more when I pissed off some good friends.

Thing is, I'm doing it constantly. But I arrive at different conclusions because of how vastly different my autistic mind works from theirs. So despite my best intentions, I still make incorrect decisions about social situations.

I noticed that my neurotypical friends actually do the very same thing to me, for the same reason! They mean well, but because their minds work differently from mine, their actions have a totally different effect on me than they imagined.

An example would be my the use of brutal honesty. Because I would prefer some useful feedback over a lie to spare my feelings. If people lie to spare my feelings, it comes across as if I'm being strung along, or even set up to fail, which I find even worse than no feedback at all.

But when I use brutal honesty it angers my friends. Because they don't actually want feedback when they ask for it. They want approval.

Because I was born autistic, I have no idea what it's like to be neurotypical. But neurotypicals have no idea what it's like to be autistic.

The only solution to this problem that I can imagine seems to be increased awareness and acceptance of our differences.

What do you think? Do you recognize this problem? And have you found ways to deal with it?

I agree with you for the most part.

Sometimes, one can be honest, yet also be sensitive to a person's feelings.

It's not good to think that you are always right, and that the other person is wrong.

We, as autistics, should acknowledge that "neurotypicals" sometimes think differently from us. "Neurotypicals" should do the same.

Sometimes, though, we and "neurotypicals" CAN have similar notions of things. There's not always a clear demarcation between "neurotypicals" and autistic people.

I think you are circling around the answer for yourself.

For instance, you've become aware that your friends don't want objective feedback, they want approval. That may be correct...I don't know your friends.

As kraftiekortie mentions, I think many people often prefer honest feedback that is softened in some way...not a lie, but... I need to think of an example. When I do, I'll try to come back.

However, I like the people in my life who are brutally honest. I've decided not to actively try to change that in my AS son. My mother is also brutally honest. From my mother, it often hurt. But, I've grown to love and appreciate it. I *like* that there are people who will absolutely tell me the truth. Hopefully your friends will come to see you that way.

So, I suppose in conclusion...it helps to understand other people and what they want. But, also it's good to just be you. If you don't have bad intentions...just be you. People will learn to love and NEED you exactly the way you are.

Thank you for your insightful replies. I'd describe the actual situation in question but I'm afraid that it will allow others to piece together who I am in real life. I'm not yet ready to be "out" about my autism just yet.

I understand. I struggle with those fears as well.

This isn't an aspie/N.T. thing.

Putting yourself in others shoes is like treating others the way you want to be treated - it doesn't work.

Why? Because everyone is different, not just aspies.

Treating others the way you want to be treated does not work as other people may not treat you the way you want them to treat you, and you might not want to treat another person the way they want you to treat them.

We all have different beliefs, views and opinions of the world.

Honesty is a fine example.

I can be brutally honest with others, and expect the same from them, but they don't want to be brutally honest and want me to instead change for them.

Just like there's plenty of behaviors other people might consider rude or annoying or makes them angry, but I would be fine if they did it back to me, and strongly encourage they do so, but they simply do not want to.

And when they do, I actually don't have a problem with it, so I don't learn my lesson that my behavior is wrong because I don't consider it wrong when others do it to me.

The key is compromise from both sides, not demanding the other person alter their behavior just for you.

It's the same thing with putting yourself in other's shoes - the only time you can see when your behavior may hurt others is if you agree with the other person the specific behavior is wrong.

If you yell in someone's face, they say they don't like it, and say you should 'put yourself in my shoes and imagine if someone else did that to you'...

well, if you'd be fine with someone else yelling in your face, then you'd learn nothing.

If you'd have a problem with it yourself, you'd see where you went wrong.

It's not because you're an aspie - it's because, like everyone else, you simply have different views on what is right and what is wrong.

However, the key is compromise and to be considerate of others as much as they are considerate of you. Any sort of imbalance is a sign one person is putting in more effort to compromise than the other. This will be a cause of future problems and issues and is not ideal.

E.g. making all the effort to change yourself for your friends or partner and they not doing the same back.

BTW, I've known plenty of outspoken, politically incorrect N.T.'s not afraid to speak their minds, and just as many N.T. PC crybabies who respond aggressively to a single swear.

It's not you - it's them.

And it's not them - it's you.

So to speak.

The phase is very misleading. It is perceptual relativism. The belief that you share a common experience or can relate. Sure you may relate, and may have thing in common but that is not the same thing as experiencing it as they do.

The key is recognising something that you can identify as a common experience, rather than knowing for sure how they experience it.

I also think the definition of empathy is somewhat different from what actually happens.

Haha that's exactly the thought I had at the time. I think I told them something along these lines "you know I think we're both at fault here, and we both need to take the time to understand each other's situation".

But the other party ignored that and instead changed the topic into nit-picking about using word "fault" because, for both me and them, mental health issues come into play and they believe that the word "fault" is forbidden in that context. I left it at that, it made the impression they were actively looking for stuff to disagree/get angry about. English isn't my first language either, but if when I'm using the wrong words you can still figure out what I'm trying to say.

Have you ever heard of what some call the "Platinum Rule"?

The "golden rule" is simple and what many people try to use: "do unto others as you would want done to you" or whatever.

The "Platinum Rule" is do unto others as they would like done to them. It's more difficult and requires loads of insight. But, I think it's essentially what is needed.

I've not heard of that rule, but I like it. It's a very nice way to put it.

see my problem is i do think im always right but only when logical evidence is there for my side, ive upset my dad countless times on the fact that i just won't see his point of view because his has no evidence to support why he'd react like that or think that and so i just can't see it from his point of view. he once said "look i just have that reaction and i doesn't have to be logical or make sense, are you complex enough to understand that?" that actually really hurt my feelings but i still don't understand that, if it doesn't have any logic or evidence to it, then you can't react like that because theres nothing triggering it, haha maybe if this could ever make sense we'd get on better.


_____________________________________________________________________________________________

seeing something from anothers point of view i find is really difficult because when i try it, i come to the conclusion that i would, not them. so im technically projecting literally me into their shoes instead of becoming them for that second, but i can't become them, because i can't imagine what its like to be them, my brain just doesn't seem to be capable of doing it. to be honest i think we'd all get along way better if we could all do this. but i find the OP very interesting, thats actually a way of putting it that ive never thought of, yet its very true, we are projecting ourselves into an NT's life and being, but with our way of thinking, so it would never work, and the same being with NT's doing it, it really does allow it to make more sense.

There's always a reason for the way people react, the thing is, they don't always know what that is exactly.

The difference between aspies and NTs is sometimes that aspies think about things in advance and come to a conclusion whereas Nts do what they do in the moment and haven't actually thought about what the reason is. There is a reason, they just haven't thought about it in any great detail.

It's like Frasier and Martin Crane. Frasier always explained the psychological reason behind everything, which annoyed Martin who liked to live spontaneously.

What was the topic of this thread again? Oh yeah, empathy.

Yes, think about how other people would like you to treat them. Or think about how they are likely to react to a certain thing that you do. If you say x how will that make them feel?

Empathy has so many definitions and so many people have it in their heads that autistics lack empathy while NTs are empathetically skilled, that the word "empathy" has lost all meaning to me. It gives me a headache each time threads about empathy come up here, and is becoming as confusing to me as math equations do.

So many Aspies say that we find it hard to imagine emotional things we haven't experienced, which implies that NTs have understanding, tolerance and care towards things that they've both experienced and haven't. So if that was accurate, we wouldn't be bullied, laughed at in public, taunted, expected to be social, misunderstood, rejected or shunned. Not everything bad NTs do towards any non-NT is just about emotional manipulation, some NTs really don't understand what it is like to be in an Aspie's shoes.

Once I was with some friends who were judging a woman for being bald. But I had to tell them that that poor woman might have been a cancer survivor and has lost her hair due to chemo treatment. I also had to remind them how that woman might have felt if she see us judging her. But it didn't seem to get through to them. They just couldn't cope with the fact that there was a bald woman in the same room as them, and also thought it was funny. And these people were NTs, although they weren't my proper friends exactly.

Good comment Joe90 and well done for standing up for that woman. That's a good example of how to empathise I think.

This is why I very carefully avoided the use of the word Everyone has a different meaning for it. The word "sympathy" has the same problem.