New girl in my office

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She walked into the office and immediately assessed you as a weirdo. Everything thereafter was just nervous filler on her end to try to get out of the office, including the question about whether she was assigned there. She was scared and didn't know what to do.

Perhaps you should have said something like, "I'm sorry, I'm a bit out of it. Been doing all of these calculations and dozed off, so sorry if I'm not all there."

She probably would have faked a smile, said "Oh, it's all right," and felt a LITTLE more at ease.

I think your problem is you took everything she said at face-value and kept building on that with each subsequent interaction.

By the way, I'm not saying you're a weirdo. I've been in situations like this before, and it is very insulting. And you see the neurotypical solidarity, where they all lie for one another. You're friend wasn't being honest with you, he knows she never gave you a direct answer, but he's covering for her. You're friend probably said something to her like: "I get along with him, but he IS weird, I totally understand why you felt creeped out as a young woman being alone in a room with him."

I think it's great you keep in touch with your mother, but you can't really trust her advice either, frankly. You're her son, so she'll sugarcoat things for you. She's NT, and probably doesn't want to tell you the truth. There may also be a cultural disconnect.

Was it definitively established somewhere that she is NT, because I can totally imagine "she" being me or my BFF (both ASD). That's part of the reason I'm exploring this with QFT. I just read in my college letters about a "condescending" TA that impressed me enough to write about to a friend. Might that have been a QFT on my college campus? I remember feeling put off by many of my (all male) professors who I didn't know how to educate about my circumstances and needs.



This could indicate an introverted NT or an extroverted ASD (me), or introverted ASD (my BFF). In either case my assumption is that her response was honest. Alongside engineering, I studied psychology and communications and can have long conversations (which are arduous and painful, but I can do it).

Heck, even though QFT didn't hear it, she supposedly answered him --again, I assume honestly ("you stared")-- even in the face of social pressure. Either a brutal NT, or an uncomfortable but thoughtful ASD (me).


She sees a pattern with QFT. She "reads between the lines": he repeatedly doesn't reciprocate, so she stops her overtures. Logical.

If she's ASD and similar to myself then she's intimidated, not judging. If she's NT, well, then she's a very special snowflake: an NT woman in pure math, I'd like to meet her and see how she ticks. Unless pure math is now dominated by NT women?

I'm new to this ASD thing, but I know for myself that "scripts" can help. Practice a few phrases. I am customer-facing and had to learn to handle questions that I didn't have answers to; it was very simple once I had a few phrases to use.


(c) You feel good about yourself for each new social step you take, whether or not you "succeed"



Power differentials indicate the range of behavior that is socially acceptable - I have learned to conform to them over the years (trail and error) and was relieved when an Employee Resource group in my company shared a study on this (it's not in my head!). So, I would look to a senior colleague to respond to me favorably or not to define allowable behavior for me. I have learned quite clearly that when I do not conform to the allowable behavior, I am encouraged to leave (this is unpleasant). If I were the senior colleague then I get to define the range of behavior (which is wider)!


At work I asked an NT co-worker if she'd help me interpret some social work situations (30 min every two weeks). She happily agreed. I have a list and we go through them. Find a resource (other than your mom), make those scripts.


This is on my part - my confidence wavering. What you can do is lead with a confidence building statement when coming back a second or third time with a counter argument... "Thank you for this discussion, what if? how about?" or self-effacing "I'm having a hard time seeing that... still don't get it" "I'd like to explore this further if you don't mind" --- some sign of consideration. Again, script it. Get a "writer" to help you out.


Both. I told the VP that the job description for my job didn't describe me - and I meant "women" in general. I suggested the job descriptions be rewritten according to gender neutral guidelines (or even written to attract women to get the numbers balanced) and there was no interest. He can't say it wasn't brought to his attention. He can say he wasn't convinced, but that's his job.


Thank you. I cried **hard** (come to find out it was a hormone crash prior to miscarriage which exacerbated my tendency to over-express). I probably gave everyone PTSD by proxy.


LOL - I tell everybody that I live here b/c Company X opened an expansion plant here in 1980. And then I get to explain the 10-point connection. I wish I could back even further as to why they chose this location...


When did you go from "boy" to "guy"? When do you expect to go to "man"? Yes, I understand it's relative to the social situation: right now a 4yo may call you "man" and a 80yo may call you "boy". So relative to your peers let's say. I am immature relative to my peers - it's funny when people say to me patronizingly "at my age" and I say "I'm your age". But alas, my peers are all older men and women, so even though I am "younger" I am well out of the "girl" range --- oh, gosh, I hope so! Although I mentioned that an assumedly much older man called me "kiddo" last week. He better be in his 90s or I'd smack him.

I'm in my early 50s and they are in their early 20s. I have come to learn to be diplomatic and we keep our distance (something the OP could learn to do rather than find fault with other people's posts).

Dude! I was trying to help...looks like you need some insight into your own perceptions.

Oh and BTW the statistics are relevant when you look at psychological intent (I will give you some leeway as you are a math major not a psychologist). Stereotype/Social identity threat covers both why girls don't choose to enter STEM but it also explains why they those that are working/studying in STEM related fields are not motivated to perform to their full potential as they are worried that it will threaten/conflict with their perception of feminine identity in the eyes of their male colleagues.

That's why I mentioned I have never met a young female in science who is intellectually curious.

I am approaching 50 and have a severe "confidence gap" that many women have (in science, in general). This is in part due to "stereotype threat".

Last year I suggested that my dept of 300 increase the % of women from 8% (most are in the "girly" dept) to 20% (to start) and my VP's response was a knee-jerk "we can't do that". I asked why, he said "there aren't women". Granted there may not be a lot of women who've persevered this far, but there are more. Either he is ignorant as to what can be done or he is resistant. I don't like either option. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: "There aren't women", so there aren't women.

Normally in the situation above, I back down. I lose my words, I can't articulate my thoughts. I am intimidated and I "lose". That is why I find the discussion with QFT interesting. QFT is very intimidating since he is frequently in opposition but by his self-report he's intending to explore not offend, and he's a world away ---- so here I get to have that conversation with him without "shutting down" - I get to face the opposition with lesser personal threat. Perhaps I can then apply this IRL when faced with opposition.

I wish I had figured this all out decades ago (and am a bit embarrassed that I didn't, instead I followed those particular "rules"), but it's good to start somewhere.

Source: Stereotype threat (which impact people regardless of gender or subject, negatively or positively depending on how it's wielded) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 3198913737

You have to remember that women who choose a STEM career path also risk losing their network of female (girly) friends so they have to make sacrifices there as well. My brother told me that the 4-5 girls in electrical/computer engineering are particularly special breed; often loners/introverts who find the all male "dork" environment unpleasant but are sufficiently driven to finish. But they don't last in research and development and tend to move into client services where they prefer human interaction to sitting in a backroom.

I currently work in the science/education sector where there is predominantly (85%) females largely involved in teaching/consultancy and ed design. It amuses me the more "sciency" the material the less likely women are involved. I consult in quantitative analysis/statistics and here it's me and one other male. Females run away when they see numbers for some reason? the more creative pursuits (ed design) are 100% female.



Have you read the biography of African-American astronomer Dr Neil De Grasse Tyson? he suffered serious stereotype threat when he was a grad student not just from the white scientific fraternity who had never seen a black grad student but also his own community who thought it was weird for one of their own to study astronomy. He also lost school friends.

Plenty of glass ceilings to crack/break through.

These are not the droids you are looking for, little girl.


Thank you, there are a number of biographies (and letters). I find good ratings for "The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist". It's on my reading list.

I would like to point out that a lot of men also think that a man who's in to math is a nerd and not a real man. In other words, lots of men are "afraid of numbers" as well. It's not some "girl thing." Can we just ditch the stereotypes?

Here, here! And be who we are. Someone told me last week when I explained a difficulty --- "No worries. You, be you!" That was refreshing.

I actually remember the times when girls used scripts on me, such as "sandwich criticism" among others, and they just pissed me off more. Since I knew they were scripts and so I was feeling like they think I am stupid that I won't see through it.



That is difficult to do. If I fail, then the specific dynamics in which they fail me would piss me off. Like when I say something and they pretend not to understand my accent, that makes me wonder "do they look down on me because of my accent or are they pretending not to understand my accent because they look down at me for other reasons" and both pisses me off. Likewise, asking me whether it is her office or leaving a textbook as an excuse why she came and gone pisses me off too, its like "look at those lengths she goes to invent those things just to get away from me".



But I thought I already told you that I am not in a position of power over her (as we are both graduate students) and I thought you understood it -- you said the use of the word "girl" is what confused you which made me read between the lines that now you finally understood it. But as it turns out you STILL don't understand it, as you still suggest that I am in a position of power over her, which I am not. Could it be that thing about men getting promotion at your job? Well, there is no such thing as a promotion for graduate students. I am sure I get the same pay as she does. And even if I didn't, I am not in a position to raise or lower her pay -- seeing that I am a graduate student just like her. So I am not sure why you still don't see it.



I noticed you didn't say "asked to leave" but rather you said "encouraged to leave". But the problem with this is that "encouraging" that doesn't involve "asking" could be misinterpreted, if the one "encouraging" is an aspie. So this girl might think I was "encouraging her to leave" due to my seemingly-hotile behavior -- but I know for a fact I was "not" doing that; quite the opposite, I was obsessing about how much I wanted her to stay and talk to me.



If you are insinuating that I am that "senior colleague" -- once again, its not true. And it is "especially" not true that I can define the range of allowable behavior -- if I could do that, I wouldn't be complaining about not being able to fit in.



Okay, I can try and do that. Although I won't do it as a script -- like I said, I think scripts are deceptive -- I will do it in such a way that it is sincere. Like in your case I can thank you for putting so much time and effort into responding to me, and also I can thank you for trying to analyze it -- which I always wanted people to do and they wouldn't. So, even though I might disagree with some points on your analyis, I am thankful that you put in time and effort into it. And, apart from that, you DID bring up some food for thought. For example, even though I don't think I am in a position of power over her, it is a good question as to whether or not she falsely perceived me that way (as evident by her asking ME whether it was her office even though I am not in a position to know it I am just another grad student). But then again I still think its more likely that the reason she asked me that question had nothing to do with her perceiving me as someone powerful but, instead, it had to do with her trying to get out of the situation. Nevertheless, since I can't read her mind, the more possibilities the better. So thank you for bringing thigns up that would put more possibilities on a table.



Are you referring to the use of the word "he" instead of "they" in the job description?

I don't know them, but here is something that crossed my mind. Just based on the fact that you are about the only person who has issues with the word "girl", it seems like it is your area of aspie overfocus. So I guess when it is obvious to all that you are just obsessed about a certain topic and you are the only one obsessing over it, they no longer take you seriously. I mean the same thing happens to me: when I bring up the topics of my obsession people typically ignore me since they already heard enough about it.



That is an interesting question. I remember when I was in the 10-th grade, I talked to some teacher about a general policy (I don't remember what it was about) and she pointed out how I said "if a child ..." and so she asked me whether I was thinking of someone in my age group as a "child". She was more amused than anything. I guess that was probably when I realized that I was too old to be a child. The other aha moment happened when I was 30 and was attending some physics conference. So in that conference I met someone else who was from Russia and we were talking about our memories of the time we were in elementary school when it was still a Soviet Union. He said at some point that the younger generation doesn't remember it. And I was surprised to realize that I was no longer the young generation.



I guess when I can get my stuff in order. It is too painful to call myself a man when I am still a student and still single. I guess I will be okay calling myself a man if I become a professor (if that ever happens).

And I am not degrading myself by refusing to be a man. On the contrary. I think calling myself a man is degrading since a man doesn't have any more growth to do so whatever the man has failed at, that is it, he failed at it. But a boy or a guy still has ways to grow and so there is still hope.



If I were referred to as a kiddo I would take it as a compliment since I feel bad about being so old and still being single and without professor job.

If you follow the quotes, you will find that the "she" being referred to in this particular instance was my mom.

But yeah, sometimes I wonder whether my mom is NT or an aspie. Sometimes it seems to me that she has aspie features that are the exact ones I don't have (and visa versa) which is why we have so much conflict. My mom's aspie features involve spending hours sending an email (since she has to correct the style), spending almost an hour before getting out of the house (since she has to check she got everything) and so forth. My aspie features involve poor social skills and talking obsessively about a topic. My mom doesn't like talking obsessively: yes, she would spend an hour getting ready, but she won't be *talking* about it, so it would be a mystery just what is she doing. In my case I can just roll out of bed and go, but I like to talk a lot about things (like I do in this post). So my mom has no patience dissecting things with me and I have no patience waiting for her as she gets ready.



The universities I went to were Berkeley, Minnesota, Michigan, Mississippi and New Mexico. In Berkeley I was an undergrad so I couldn't have been a TA. In Minnesota I was a TA for one semester and then they removed my TA status due to complaints from students. In Michigan I was a grader, not a TA -- but I guess it "is" possible to be condescending grader. In Mississippi I wasn't a TA either, but I was a tutor -- meaning I had to spend a certain amount of hours a certain day in a tutoring room where there were many different tutors (including me) answering students questions. I also did private tutoring while I was in Mississippi, too. And now, in New Mexico, I am a TA.

Anyway, what you read, was it pertaining to any of those schools? That way I will be able to tell if it was me or not.



You seem to assume its because men feel they are superior to women. But maybe thats not the reason; maybe, instead, the reason is that men have worse social skills than women do. When someone has poor social skills they can "come across" as if they think of themselves as superior -- but that is a pure miscommunication due to their lack of social skills.



What makes me question honesty of that reply is that I saw that, during lunch at the orientation section, she was sitting at a table with someone and talking to him for half an hour. In fact, this is part of the reason why I am taking it so personally: she could talk to that other guy for half an hour, yet she can't say anything more than a single hello to me.

However, one thing that would support what you are saying is that I had subsequent correspondence with that male roommate and he told me that she didn't talk to him (or others in the room) that much either. The problem with this, however, is that I *was* in that room, and there was lots of talking for like half an hour. At the same time, however, I wasn't keeping track as to "who" was talking -- so since there were like 10 people, it is possible that she wasn't one of the people that talked. But this is a bit hard to believe since the way it started was that they brought up some other woman from another office and wanted to introduce them to each other -- and after that introduction there was lots of talking -- so its hard to believe that she didn't take part in it, although its possible.

In any case, the context in which he told me she wasn't much of a talker was when he encouraged me to give up on her, so maybe he lied in order to make it easier for me to give up.



I don't see that pattern. I mean, look at the examples where I am "way too eager" -- such as staring at her or asking that question. In fact, all I was trying to do in that thing you quoted was to balance the time when I was "way too eager" with disinterest -- as well as to balance the time when she rejected me with doing rejecting myself. I don't think that balancing was successful. It was more like balancing a huge elephant with a tiny kitten. So I still think that, for the most part, I was way too eager and she rejected me -- even after I did those grasp-at-the-straw attempts to balance it out.

Something just occurred to me. Could it be that the reason we are disagreeing on who rejected whom has to do with the way we disagreed on who is in a position of power? Like I said previously, in terms of our academic standing, neither one of us has a power over the other. However, from emotional point of view, I perceive her as in a position of power over me. I am looking up to her for validation -- which is precisely why I am obsessing over her. My pretend-disinterest in the above thing you quoted was due to the fact that she did "not" give me validation but, instead, was just "being polite". But, just like I said, it was only a pretend-disinterest. After I refused her cookie, I kept wishing she could offer me cookie some other time so that I can take it this time, but she didn't.

Now, if I was thinking of myself as superior, I wouldn't look for validation to begin with. So the whole context of it is that I look up to her as superior -- and the reason I do that is that I assume she is NT and I am an aspie. I mean, it never occurred to me that she might be an aspie until you brought it up. And even now that it does occur to me, I still think she is superior: after all, most aspies seem to be more socially successful than me.



But to me being intimidated is a form of judging. The reason you are intimidated by person A but not person B is that you perceive that person A has some attribute that person B doesn't have. Since that attribute would intimidate you, it is negative -- at least on some angle -- so yes, it is a form of judging.



This particular semester a lot of women came to the department. In fact, during the orientation section, I actually counted men and women in a classroom, and those two numbers differed by 1 (I don't remember if it was 1 more man or 1 more woman). This semester is an exception though. The previous semesters there were mostly men and 3 or 4 women. But still, there "were" 3 or 4 women.

I think you misunderstood what he meant. He wasn't stating his bias that women won't apply, he was simply describing his observations.

Let me give you an example. I spent 5 years during the postdoc in India. Even though I was a postdoc, I got to see the demographics of graduate students -- and it was split half and half between men and women. When it comes to the professors, they were mostly men, with male/female ratio roughly the same as in the US; but when it comes to the students then somehow there were as many women as men. This sounds surprising given that India is supposed to be more sexist than the US. Yet thats what I saw, so I am relaying what I saw. The point I am trying to make is that relaying what one sees has nothing to do with a bias, since I just relayed an observation that contradicts my bias

So with that man saying "there aren't any women" he might have been doing the same thing. He wasn't saying that there won't be that many women 10 years from now due to their supposed inferiority or whatever. Rather he was talking about what is in front of him right here right now. If the *current* application poll has 90% of men and 10% of women, its really hard to hire 20% of women without biasing a selection process. If next year he gets 20% of female applicants then next year he would hire 20% of women. But he has no control over who applies. I think thats what he meant.

Maybe something a bit closer would be your complaint about phrasing of a job description that makes it seem like something only for men. But still it is a bit hard to imagine that a woman who really wanted to apply would decide against it on the sole basis of seeing the word "he". Maybe a better thing for you to do is to talk to your female friends as to why don't "they" apply. On the one hand you might just get some of them to apply, which would increase their percentage. And, on the other hand, you might learn the "real" reasons why they don't apply as opposed to your guesses -- and bring those real reasons to your boss' attention.



Its interesting that you feel like you "lose", because I tend to feel the opposite: when the other person stops responding to me, then I am the one who loses (not them) since they convey the message that I am not even worth responding to. Maybe this goes back to our discussion on perceived superiority? You were telling me that others perceive me as superior and I was telling you no, I feel inferior.

Another disconnect we have is this. Up until your most recent posts, I didn't even realize that your concern was women's rights. I thought you were just trying to be clever with things like the word "girl". So when you said how you run out of words to say I was surprised: I thought you always have a lot to say and talking was like your piece of cake. I guess I misunderstood where you are coming from.

But then again, its good that you gave me an insight on what happens in the heads of other women who "lose their words". My instinct was that they were the opposite to you: you have all that energy to distinguish woman from girl, and they don't even have enough energy to say anything beyond "hi". But I just learned something new: maybe they think the same thing you do just don't say it?

This reminded me of something else. I am used to the fact that when I write to my professors (regardless of their gender -- although overall the professors are mostly male) they don't reply. My mom was shocked by it. She told me that if I let her edit my email they would reply. So she spent an hour editting a few short sentences I wrote. Guess what: I got reply within an hour. I was pissed, since I was led to believe that they don't have time but apparently they do. Furthermore, apparently they have A LOT of time, enough so as to catch all those things my mom spent an hour correcting. So if they have enough time to notice all those tiny little things my mom was noticing, why don't they have time to simply reply?!

I guess the way its similar is that just like those professors didn't reply because they caught some tiny spelling mistakes, in the same way the women avoid me because they caught me using the word "girl". But in both cases I had no idea that they caught any of those things: I was assuming they were "too busy" to pay attention -- or so was I led to assume from the lack of response.



I thought you are intimidated by power? But the person in opposition is usually "not" the one in power. So how do you reconcile this?

I was actually unaware of men thinking that. But now that you told me, it doesn't seem to make any difference: I simply won't take the opinions of those men seriously. Why? Because only "some" men think that, not all. I guess there has to be some "critical mass" of a number of people thinking certain thing in order for it to become hard to avoid. If the number of people holding certain view is relatively small, then the reaction is to view them as losers not worth listening to. But once their numbers become too large, then the reaction is to think maybe they all see something I don't see and it is me who is a loser.

I didn't mean to attack you, I meant to correct the information. I was thinking you might have mistakenly thought that people from different departments might share the same office -- and so I informed you that this doesn't happen. This has nothing to do with your willingness to help: this might be simply due to the fact that you haven't been to graduate school and haven't seen how it works.



I think its pretty sad. I, for one, would rather date a mathematician than someone in humanities -- and, for that matter, I would rather date a really great mathematician than mediocre mathematician. I guess my criteria is different. I heard of some guys who won't date successful women, and I never understood them. Its like they are shooting themselves on the foot! I mean, for me, part of my self esteem is derived by the woman I date -- and since my self esteem is also tied to math and physics, thats why dating a really famous mathematician or really famous physicist would be a huge self esteem boost, for me anyway.

I realize that you weren't talking about dating. But a bigger concept is that I have more respect for mathematicians than I do for humanity people. Since that respect is gender-neutral, it also implies that I have lots of respect for female mathematicians too. So its too bad others don't see it this way.



Thats really sad too. So an older woman will try to do all this catching up, when she knows full well she purposely wasted best years of her research life for some silly purpose. I can't help but put myself in her shoes and imagine just how much regret I would feel.

Yes we have coffee room. The only time they meet for a coffee that I am aware of is before the seminar (although its possible they meet other times and I just don't know since I don't use that room other than when there are seminars). In any case, I don't go to seminars that often -- usually I don't have time due to my own studies. But, at the same time, the few times I did go, nobody at the tea room approached me. So I am not sure whether going there more often would help. If they really wanted to talk to me, they would have talked to me during the times I came.



This reminded me of that one time when that woman in my office offered me a cookie and I refused. Since she offered it to me two days "after" what happened, I was thinking she didn't really want to talk to me and was only being polite (since she ate a cookie its polite to offer it). But, after that, I didn't see her either eating OR offering any more cookies. Yes, a few times she was drinking something from her own bottle -- so its impossible to offer that -- but she wasn't eating any cookies. I wish I could get another opportunity of her eating cookie and this time I would agree and take it. But there is no way I would offer her a cookie myself: why should I do it if she made it so clear through her behavior that she doesn't like me?