Why is it OK for NTs to insult Aspies?

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As Aspies we are strictly lectured to never say your honest opinion on certain things out loud, like how fat someone is or how stupid someone is, etc. It is drummed into us that we have to lie to save people's feelings and to not give your honest opinion as this could hurt someone's feelings and nobody likes their feelings being hurt. We are taught to ask ourselves ''how would I like it if they said I was fat? I wouldn't like it at all, so the same applies to them. So I will keep my mouth shut.''

That's fair enough, as I hate hurting people's feelings. But when reading about Asperger's and social relationships, it seems like it's inevitable that NTs call us ''weird'' and ''freak'' to our faces and not even seem sorry. It's like ''oh yes, that will happen because that's them expressing their opinion'', even though it can hurt our feelings. Why do so many of us get called ''weird'' by NTs at least once in our lifetimes? I mean, we are being called these offensive names to our faces by people who expect us to keep our insulting opinions to ourselves.

Sorry if this sounds another ''us vs them'' but you've got to admit there is a pattern here.

NTs are in the majority

NTs overpower autistics because they outnumber autistics

That doesn't mean that NTs actions and statements are justified

"Wierd" has a negative connotation

But all things equal, autistics are more "weird" than NTs

Not all things are equal

It does certainly seem like it's generally accepted to insult someone with autism or to use autism as an insult. Many times when I read comments people make on the internet at large, someone will say in response to someone else's comment or in response to an article about someone: "The autism is strong in this one." (which is a take off on how Yoda speaks and is intended to be funny). Perhaps people should counter such insensitive remarks with something directed back at that person like: "The jerkiness is even stronger in this ass*ole." or something like that. I generally try to avoid stooping down to someone's level, but people should be called out on things like this.

Yep....it's hypocritical...no doubt.

No, it's not okay for NT's to insult Aspies.

But there are some actions which that people seem torrespond to for various reasons, some actions which follow "social rules."

I believe some NT's really want the Aspie to seem "good" in people's eyes socially; whereas others just want to insult the Aspie. Sometimes, it's hard to tell peoples' intentions.

I have found it best to just slough off most of that stuff that goes on in life.

It's not NTs versus aspies, it's us versus everyone who isn't us. As in, if there is a group of ten people and one doesn't fit in with the other nine, it becomes more socially acceptable to throw jabs at that one that doesn't belong. This can happen at other types of groups too. The ones I see most often are:
1. Men ganging up on a woman or few women if there's a lot less than them.
2. Older people ganging up on a younger person.
3. Highly (or just higher) educated people ganging up on someone with lower education.

I've also seen the ganging up happening the other way around too with all three groups (women ganging up on a man or a lower amount of men, younger people ganging up on an older person and people with lower education ganging up on someone with a higher education.) It's just that most humans have the urge to fit in, so if someone else doesn't, it ruins the dynamic somehow. That and they can't defend the outsider because it'd put them to a risk of becoming the outsider.

It took me a very long time to figure THAT out. I guess it was different from me because I have rarely known anything besides being the outsider.

This. Honestly, I think it's the thinking of the herd that reinforces acceptance among them by attacking who's different. Keep in there is context but a group that will discriminate a smaller without reservation, especially in the 1st world through some of my observations, probably will discriminate against other groups in the same way. Sad though it is, this is a way for them to tighten and strengthen bonds with each other.

My last experience in this vein was at my last job. I was ostracized and branded as the odd-one-out by both management and on-the-floor staff. Were it not for my professionalism or my pre-probationary status, I would have defended myself. But, alas, I had no pull, power or even basic personhood in that office and I just wanted to keep the job. Given that I was let go, I suppose I regret not speaking up or defending myself at least once.

The lame fact-of-the-matter is there is a "rite of passage" amongst most social groups. There's a point where you have to prove you can think and act like one of them, a challenge for most of us, here, on this forum. Without that forwarded effort and its success, we're just targets for ridicule and derision.

... And it sucks.

I read through this thread and the theme seems to be how unfair life and NTs are because we can’t help being blunt and they hurt our feelings, boo hoo.

It may be harder for us to figure out the unwritten, non-verbal social rules but if we want to function in society, we can’t behave like a rude blunt a**hole and expect the NTs to forgive us.

In addition, NTs are not always being rude or cruel to us. The nature of being Aspie is that we tend be overly anxious and overly sensitive because we cannot figure out how to decode friendly teasing. You cannot be happy and spend your life blaming others whether they are NT or anyone else for our inability to decode nonverbal unspoken social rules.

What if we are not being insulted but we just interpret some things that way?

I spent years observing NTs as if I was an anthropologist from another planet. And, I finally figured out how they function and how to get along with them.

Please post in detail how you did it. We are in need of more posts of how-tos.

Welcome to Wrong Planet, FletcherArrow.

You make some good points. I didn't make any progress until I started looking at social behavior by mentally stepping outside and just observing. I learned some of the patterns and can mask well. I choose to avoid situations where the masking level requires too much energy.

Rather than learning specific rules, I look at it more like a dance.

I used to take jokes to heart when I was a child. Well, I knew even then that the kids weren't being mean, but I still got frustrated because I just didn't find their jokes funny.

But as an adult I do know the difference between when somebody is joking and when somebody is being a mean jerk. I work in a place where people are always joking every day and I laugh because I know they don't mean it horribly. Just the other day I said how I think crocodiles are ugly, and one of my co-workers said, "you're ugly!" - but I instinctly knew he was joking, so I just laughed and said, "thanks!"

But this thread is not about basic bantering. It's about when people really mean what they say in a nasty way, even if you have never said anything to them to hurt their feelings. In fact at a volunteering job I used to do I once briefly thought someone was joking but then found out that they weren't and instead it was a personal attack. The people there became cliquey and bitchy, and would jump down my throat at any little thing, even though I was never nasty to them. I had to leave in the end because the bitchy atmosphere they created was making me depressed.

There are definitely situations like that too, but not nearly all the trouble autistic people face come from them being overly sensitive or because they were the ones who were rude and therefore deserved it. Yes, sometimes it's one of these two -and sometimes it's not. This topic is about the times when it's not, though there's no point in making it autistic people versus NTs since NTs receive that unfair treatment too, from other NTs and NDs alike.

Yes that is quite true.

I'd love it if I could just not give a f**k and be myself. I hate putting on masks for people, and people tell me s**t like "you don't seem autistic" as if it's a f*****g compliment. Unfortunately, I have to do it as a matter of survival, and I've gotten pretty good at it.

Me too and I hate it. I hate having to hide who I really am and, too many times, it drives to near absolute insanity. But, true, we wear masks to survive, work or simply as a way to interact with the world outside of our heads. It's a required tactic, a necessary evil and it p**ses me off every time I put it on.

Good for you for being able to do that, but don't assume that all of us can.

For example, even if I were to learn all the unwritten rules of eye contact, this knowledge wouldn't do me a whole lot of good, because I am unable to focus on the content of a conversation at the same time I'm paying attention to ANY visual stimulus whatsoever (except for a visual stimulus that happens to be, itself, the topic of the conversation).

I've survived not by trying to fit in, but by putting myself, as much as possible, in situations (e.g. highly multi-cultural enviroments) where there was not a high degree of social conformity expected beyond basic politeness.

Many autistic people, unlike myself, do try to fit in with mainstream culture. But those who succeed in fitting in often do so at great cost to themselves; "masking" is the source of a great deal of depression and anxiety for many autistic people.

What we really need is a much-better organized autistic community, including autistic-friendly workplaces. Even in an autistic-friendly environment, some social skills would still be required in order to enable us to get along, but not the arduous "masking" that is required in a culturally mainstream NT-dominated environment.