Knowing how others see you / if you are liked.
I have a very hard time knowing how others see me. Do people think that I am odd, funny, intelligent, a good person? I don't have any clue. This goes for people that I am very close to as well as everyone else.
As an extension of that, I don't know if people like or dislike me. If they would consider me a friend. Even how my family feels towards me is confusing.
Do you suppose that this is an AS thing? I'm not sure what I am missing in being able to make these judgements. Perhaps it is the body language or perhaps just an adequate understanding of how relationships work.
I operate from the default assumption that anyone that expresses interest in me is doing so in order to eventually use me to his or her advantage. This way, I am never disappointed, and am often pleasantly surprised ... at least, until the inevitable conflict occurs where they want something from me and I don't want to give it. Then, according to them, I have become a jackass / jerk / bigot / sexist / racist / ret*d / spaz / idiot / whatever.
It's inevitable ... sooner or later ...
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Yeah. I have no idea what people think of me, but sometimes I get the impression that they think I'm an as*hole. I wish they would just tell me, even if it is something I don't want to hear. That way I know how I can try to improve things.
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Remember, all atrocities begin in a sensible place.
I have no gorram idea what people think about me. Though I keep thinking that I look intimidating (I'm a tall emotionless dude with a bald head, yeah, I'd probably be scared), but sometimes people warm up to me, apparently A LOT of people at my school of over 1800 know me as the smart kid, ME HAVE NO IDEA!! !
mindgame
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: 20 Jun 2011
Age: 60
Gender: Female
Posts: 51
Location: Indianapolis
As an extension of that, I don't know if people like or dislike me. If they would consider me a friend. Even how my family feels towards me is confusing.
Do you suppose that this is an AS thing? I'm not sure what I am missing in being able to make these judgements. Perhaps it is the body language or perhaps just an adequate understanding of how relationships work.
I still have a lot to learn about AS, but I'm inclined to think that what you're describing is simply a human thing. I've imagined someday a highly sophisticated computer program that would give you an image of yourself based on how other people see you. It might be a real eye-opener for some of us. At the same time, it would not be a complete picture. There are things we know about ourselves that others might never know.
btbnnyr
Veteran
Joined: 18 May 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,359
Location: Lost Angleles Carmen Santiago
Personally, I don't think it matters as much what others really think about you as much as it matters how YOU think they think about you.
Take a guess. It's what goes on in your own mind that really matters.
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I'm not likely to be around much longer. As before when I first signed up here years ago, I'm finding that after a long hiatus, and after only a few days back on here, I'm spending way too much time here again already. So I'm requesting my account be locked, banned or whatever. It's just time. Until then, well, I dunno...
Take a guess. It's what goes on in your own mind that really matters.
Don't give me an excuse to become 100x more arrogant and narcissistic than I already am.
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Remember, all atrocities begin in a sensible place.
People see me as stupid. And I suppose it's an easy mistake to make about me, because I may look stupid on the outside, and even act stupid, but on the inside I am NOT nowhere near stupid. I can suss people out as quick as lightening, and I always know who I like and who I don't like, and who they like and who they don't like. But the problem is, I find it hard standing up for myself or retaliating to anyone, so this is why I'm caught up in a trap here. People don't know that I've sussed them out already. They just think, ''oh she doesn't mind doing this and she doesn't mind doing that, and she won't mind if I tell her this and she won't mind if I tell her that.'' Oh I WISH I could stand up for myself! But if I do, (especially at my vollunteer job) I know I will say the wrong thing, and then make myself look awkward, and then creating an atmosphere without intending to, and making everyone think I've gone all huffy, then people will start gossiping and saying, ''you should have seen Josie yesterday - after 3 years of not retaliating, she actually retaliated!'' And then somebody else saying, ''I reckon she's either on drugs or have got in with a man who's changed the way she sees people. That's what I think.'' Then these gossips then turn into rumours, and I'm not popular enough to be rumoured about. All because I actually stood up for myself for the first time in my life.
So that's the story behind why NTs think I'm stupid. I am too bashful.
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Female
I used to be very anxious about what others thought of me, but I am still working on getting over that. I agree with MrXxx and think it doesn't really matter. If, in a social situation, someone keeps telling you they need to leave or do something else, that could be a sign that it's not worth persisting in carrying on the interaction.
Bloodheart
Veteran
Joined: 17 Jan 2011
Age: 40
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,194
Location: Newcastle, England.
I don't know how others perceive me, other than that they don't view me as I view myself.
I always rejected the 'No one understand me!' stance as a teen as it was so cliché, but I think as an aspie if anyone had right and reason to use that statement it was me, poor social and communication skills means who I am is very much buried and unable to get out, and as it's not me who people get to know it's hard to know who it is they are actually getting to know in my place...how I act or come across is often very different to who I am. This makes me sad, because as far as I'm concerned you are defined by who you are in others eyes...after all once you're gone the only thing left of you is how others remember you.
I have the default of 'everyone hates me' - I'm told at first I seem ignorant, cold, and intimidating.
Thus people do tend to take an instant dislike to me and as far as I'm concerned this is fine because it weeds out the people who can't be bothered to get to know me and thus the people I have no interest in knowing. I've been told online that nothing of my personality comes through, not enough personal information or experiences are expressed in how I write online, thus no one knows me and no one cares to know me. Although this is a fairly good self-defence mechanism; the idea that people only dislike me as they don't know me.
As for people who know me, I worry a lot that they think I'm pathetic, and that they're only friends with me as they pitty me.
It's hard to tell, many people don't seem very loyal or don't really seem great at friendship (or maybe I just have an unrealistic idea of what friendship is based off US sitcoms), thus they don't really get to know you as a person. I don't really know what friendship is or what is normal, so I can't tell if my friends have less interaction with my than others because I don't interact with them, or if they dislike me, or if I'm just reading too much into this and they like me just fine but people in general aren't overly interested in others and so don't always show their like of others in the way I'd expect.
I think things like Facebook make you all the more paranoid; seeing friends spending time with other friends, the sort of social interaction between other people but not with you, the popularity contest that is Facebook, and when so many people add others who they maybe met once several years ago it makes you worry what's wrong with you that they don't add you.
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Bloodheart
Good-looking girls break hearts, and goodhearted girls mend them.