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QFT
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16 Jun 2022, 1:28 pm

I long noticed that, while they say it is aspies who are rigid, in my experience it is NT-s who seem rigid as they judge flexible-me. I used to explain it by saying that NT-s are rigid only in social sphere. Well, apparently not. Here is an example.

I posted an ad on tutoring website. A week ago some GUY (so its not just girls who are picky) responded to me. I tutored him, everything seemed fine. On our way back home he had friendly conversation with me. When we scheduled the next tutoring session, he told me that he needs as much tutoring as he can get so if I have free time popping up I can give him a call.

Well, on that day of my tutoring I done exactly what he suggested. I gave him a call asking if I can come few hours earlier that way we can get more time. Then he seemed extremely hesitant and said he will call me back (I thought he was the one who suggested we can be flexible). When he called back he said he was doing some kind of work (don't remember what) so he couldn't get tutoring that day at all (cancelling the one we originally planned). But he said he wants to meet on a regular basis, and suggested days, I was okay with this.

Then I brought up another issue: that I didn't seem to obtain money from the system for the last tutoring. He said he would look into it, and asked me for wait few minutes. Then my phone ran out of charge. It is ongoing problem actually. My mom constantly gets mad at me when my phone runs out of charge in the middle of conversation with her. I didn't have a charger with me, and yes I could have bought another one. But since me buying new phone chargers is an ongoing thing that drains my wallet I decided I won't do it this time. Instead I just sent him a written message telling him that my phone ran out of charge and asking him to write whatever he was going to say over the email. I actually didn't have his email address, I wrote him through that site. I have no idea how often he checks it. So one of my worries was what if he would check it much later after his mind is already made up that I hanged up because I was angry or something. But I remember he checked it right away before our first tutoring session when I couldn't make my way there.

In any case, he never wrote back. Then next day I called, he didn't pick up the phone. I left a message, explaining what happened with charger. He never called back.

Which brings back to the point mentioned earlier. Clearly what threw him off was NOT social skills: we had a conversation just fine in the car. What threw him off is probably the charge running out. So maybe NT-s are more rigid than me IN GENERAL rather than just socially. So could it be that social skills is just a collorary of this. Just like NT-s are "less flexible than me" when it comes to things like phone charge running out, maybe them being "less flexible" when it comes to social niceties is the same type of thing?

Well, unless they interpret the phone charge thing as a "social nicety". Could it be a "social thing" that they have to make sure their phone is well-charged unless they want to purposely be rude to someone? Is that what it is?



klanka
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16 Jun 2022, 2:21 pm

I have run into similar situations, but not professional. It's weird...is all I can say.



temp1234
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17 Jun 2022, 7:15 am

Maybe rather than being rigid, he may be thinking that you are lying about the charger. He may be thinking that you hung up because you were angry. Many people try to read other people's mind because they know people lie. Your student probably read your mind wrongly.