Other people trying to tell you how to see things.

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As someone with AS, I often have an entirely different view on how to handle social things, and I get rather annoyed when people tell me how I should view a situation sometimes.

For example, I get particularly annoyed when someone tries to tell me not to help someone in need because THEY have an aversion to "getting involved" or they have some perceived danger about the situation and they either try to project their fear on me, or think I am not aware of real danger, when in reality, I have taken this into consideration and made a well thought out choice to accept this danger.

A while back a woman crashed a car around the corner from my house because she took the turn too fast. As I was going over to assess the situation, one of my neighbors, an older lady who was terrified of my cats, called out to me "Don't go over there!! !" like she thought the car was going to blow up or something.

A few months ago, I was walking along the sidewalk and I came upon a homeless man on the ground who seemed in need of medical assistance. Much to the horror of my friend's cousin, I stopped and asked him if he was ok to see if he was conscious. He was drunk (no surprise) but fine and so we went on our way. But I was absolutely shocked at how angry my friend's cousin got that I stopped for this guy, and got a huge lecture on how dangerous it is to "talk to those people".

I'm not stupid. I'm 30 years old. I'm formally trained in risk analysis. I think of dangers more on an every day basis than most people do in a week. I KNOW the risk I'm taking.

I also know that if you're a decent human being, you take those risks sometimes to help someone who might be in need.

A homeless man was stabbed after assisting a Non-homeless young woman who's boyfriend was beating her up a few weeks ago. Multiple non-homeless people passed him and NO ONE stopped to help when he needed it. He died on the sidewalk and stayed there in his own pool of blood for 6 hours before someone finally stopped to call 911.

Who's the bigger danger here? The homeless guy who's so drunk he can't even stand up or all of the perfectly sober "normal" people who are completely with all of their mental and physical resources and walk right past someone dying on the sidewalk in a pool of blood?

And I'm supposed to to think that this is the right thing to do in life?

If the world is a horrible place I certainly had no hand in making it that way.

Its the cruel reality of the world. Its why I refuse to consider myself a human being half the time. People are too "busy" to care. Life goes on. Its just a machine made out of many smaller ones. And when you really think about it, does 1 life really even matter when there are millions out there? If you have the view that the earth is just one giant organizm, and all the 'lifeforms' on it are individual cells, just 1 cell dying isnt gonna harm anything. And with that view it is really easy to compare humanity to a cancer, a big giant tumor plagueing the earth.

And 'Decent Human Being' is such a subjective phrase, the definition can vary from person to person, and from group to group. I can easily just state, Why give a damn bout someone when they will have no effect on your life at all, on your existence at all? People die all the time, its just a cruel fact about reality.

"Untouchables" -- every human society has them, and most people enforce the rules enough to make the concept real. Sort of like money, it real (has value) because people treat it as if it does. Only with humans' lives it's the other way; has no value because (some, but too many) people believe some other people's existence is worthless.

I don't think this has anything to do with AS vs NT. Most people are afraid of strangers and afraid of helping them. It's not completely unreasonable because sometimes bad things do happen when someone reaches out to a stranger. I definitely won't do it in every case. I probably would not have walked up to that homeless man. There was a time I would have but now that I'm a mom with young children I don't take as many risks because the kids need me.

Like the OP I'm trained in how to help people, but I sought out that training because it's what I feel compelled to do. It's in my nature to care for other people and to help them. I had someone crash a car in my yard. I didn't hesitate to do all I could to help her, and was up bringing snacks and beverages to the rescue team once they came. She landed her car upside down in a gully so I couldn't get her out of there and it took a while for them to do it. Not helping would be really weird for me.

I have my own way of seeing things, and there's no way that anybody will be able to force me to suppress that.

There are a few people who give me advice and get really annoyed when I don't immediately drop what I am doing and do things their way. The reality is I am reasonably successful in my life; certainly more successful that the people giving me advice. If I followed their advice, I would be in financial ruin and creative chaos.

I think people tell others what to do more to get validation of their own choices than out of any real good sense of how things should be done. I generally listen to whatever advice or suggestions people offer, but in the end, I make my own choices and I do what I determine is the best course of action. I expect others to do the same.