Our lack of role models

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Oh, if they have to be real-life, then I haven't got any, either. The only person who ever came close to having my personality was a girl in high school and college (we both attended the same, and were friends), but I haven't seen her in about twenty years. I don't remember emulating anyone who was like me...mostly, I used people who seemed to be successful out there in the world to emulate. Way of speaking here, way of moving the hands there, way of smiling in this one, way of telling a joke in that one, way of looking sympathetically concerned in that other one....

There is something that I do that might be considered role modeling, or modeling myself after a certain person who is still alive and whom I admire. This person is the actress Goldie Hawn. It's a little difficult to explain in a way that makes sense but I will try by giving you an example.

I go to a party or a big social event of some kind. It doesn't even have to be a party, it can be something as simple as going to a relatives house for dinner, or as stressful as a job interview, anything really where I must interact or socialize. Invariably, whenever I come home from a social situation I have a lot of anxiety about my "performance." In my mind I go over (and over, and over, and over ) everything I said and did in that social arena or peopled environment and I wonder if it was appropriate or not. I say things to myself like "Oh, no. Why did I say that" or " OMG, why did I do that?" or "I made a fool of myself" and on and on with the negative self talk and as I re-run the scene in my head. Well, I have this little trick that I do, to put the matter to rest, a kind of litmus test to help me decide if my social interactions were acceptable or not.

I substitute Goldie Hawn for myself. I run the video through my head with Goldie Hawn playing me and saying and doing everything I said and did at the party, or whatever the social event was. If Goldie can get through it unblemished, If I can watch the video and admire Goldie from beginning to end, if her performance is acceptable (if no one throws tomatoes at her ) and I myself am not appalled by her words or her behavior ....... then I can put the issue to rest and stop driving myself nuts over my own "performance". I realize that this might sound a little bizarre, but it works for me.

So, in a sense, I am modeling myself after Goldie Hawn because I admire her so much. My motto is, "If Goldie can do it, I can do it."

I think I'll try that, but perhaps not with Goldie Hawn.

Well, don't leave us in the lurch. Who will you try it with? Who will be your role model?

P-envy topic

CR, you are too sensible for that.

Err, no idea ... Tom Cruise?

Do you mean autistic or NT role models?

Mine include
Spock, tuvok, chakotay, captain janeway and a few other trek ones.

Also i like
Brunel, Churchill but i cant think of anyone else.

Alexis (thinking this inertia is caused by needing sleep goodnight)

What ???

Temple Grandin, H.P. Lovecraft and Nikola Tesla aren't good enough ???????

Apart from my son, I don't know of anybody that I'd think of as being particularly similar to me, and I wouldn't feel comfortable emulating him. Of course I have my humanity in common with the everybody else, but I'm more aware of the differences than the similarities.

But there was one guy I knew who had an amazing way of making everybody feel at home when he was around.....at least everybody who shared his values....luckily I did, and I found myself emulating his behaviour sometimes. He seemed very strong and wise, so it was quite a shock when he committed suicide. After his death I noticed the emulation thing increased and I even detected a little bit of his Birmingham accent creeping unbidden into my own speech. In those days I was still vaguely superstitious and wondered whether his soul was somehow living on in his friends. I didn't entirely like thinking that I'd been partially possessed. Anyway, these days I'm sure it was just my unconscious playing tricks. He does live on in his friends, but only metaphorically, not in any supernatural way.

Beyond that, mostly I go around feeling that I have some strange "spark of life" about me that few other people have or would understand, and that I'm largely set apart from the rest of the herd. Aspies tend to feel closer to me than most others, but I seem to have accepted my isolated state these days....I've let go of a lot of the hope that I used to feel back in my youth. It's still there, but I've lowered my expectations a lot. In some ways I feel like the last of the Mohicans.

I do copy the behaviour of others, but it's very piecemeal and there's nobody in particular who inspires me to emulate them or seems to be very much like me. It's more a case of logic, watching people and learning from their successes and failures, with no focus on the nature of the individual concerned. I might copy an action that was done by a person I have very little sense of identity with, if the action seemed wise at the time. I'm at least equally likely to do the opposite too......I notice things people do that don't seem to work and I avoid doing those things. But I have no "anti-role models" these days. Probably when I was a lot younger I would have deemed certain people to be as*holes, and would have taken great care to always do the exact opposite of what they did, but I learned that it's never that clear-cut, and that there's no need to totally dis-identify myself from any particular individual.

I've never met anyone that has had a similar personality to me AND lives a similar lifestyle. If that's a role model then I'm sure that I've never had one. Throughout my whole life I've learned that the only person I can truly rely on is myself, and now I'm even questioning that but nevermind, that's a different topic.
The idea of a role model still confuses me to no end.

Da Vinci.

I wouldn't call him a role model. Calling him a soulmate is a stretch for me, too. But there is a fictional movie character. And this might sound crazy, but I feel like he understands me as much as I understand him.

See, I'm very outgoing, and expressive, and confrontational. I'm also very distracted at times. I'm different even from a lot of young women with Asperger's.

I decided to watch this old Spaghetti Western one day, and the main character was this petty Mexican thief.

He was not autistic, but he was feisty, and comical, and expressive. And ridiculously energetic. Not to mention horribly unlucky. I mean, he was almost hanged three times. (Granted, I've never had that, but I've had a few bad things happen to me in my lifetime; and I got to know him at a time in my life when the world was screwing me over).
There was one scene where he pre-occupied himself with something, losing a piece of valuable information in the process. I related that scene to something similar that happened to me, something that had depressed me for nearly a month.

This guy, he's not fat, but he has a prominent middle, like mine, something I've been insecure about. But since him I've rarely had to worry about it.

But he's amazingly unafraid of looking silly in public, something that I have a problem with. I have trouble laughing at myself whenever I do something clumsy in public, and slowly but surely thinking of him is helping me through it!

I don't think this greasy bandit would be all that ideal as an icon for autism in general (due to his many, may flaws), but I find him to be something of an expression of MY autism.

Last edited by FragMichNichtWiesMirGeht on 13 Apr 2016, 12:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

My role models include: Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockheart, Samus Aran, Hikari Yagami [from Digimon], Clare [Claymore] and the Doctor [Doctor Who]. I have several others, mainly from video games and manga.

Being a cartoonist and female, I haven't had many female role models. Sometimes I thought I could never get a job making cartoons because I'm female and Canadian. So I was pretty happy that the creator of "For Better or For Worse" was both.

But honestly, role models don't have to be celebrities, in fact we're lucky they don't end up in prison. Friends and family members are much better.

The problem is that there aren't many role models who are on the spectrum. Another problem is that a child's parents are supposed to be their role models. It's pretty hard for a kid to take their parents seriously if they're always hurting them in one way or another. The thing that happened to me is that I chose a rock star to be my role model and 7 years later, I've asked myself, "Why bother? why not be my best self that I can be instead?" I also see Schultz as more of a twin than a role model.

and there's not to many role models who have role models in their lives. Yet, I guess that's just another brick in the wall of glass failure.