Why do people laugh at me because I can't tie my shoes?

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Why is that?

Because they feel inferior and insecure with themselves, and making fun of others' disabilities makes them feel more superior.

Because people are douchebags.

Seconded.

Unless you have a GOOD reason, expect more of the same... people are awful like that, but the fault isn't entirely theirs. At your age, one should know how to bathe and dress themselves as well as some human basics like cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.

Is there a good reason you can't tie shoes? Like a muscular/coordination issue? It's not cool to laugh at disabilities, but we are talking about something taught to 6-year-olds too... it's very basic to a person with two arms and no medical problems. It'll take some lessons and practice, but you can get it.

Because they are jerks that can't accept differences.

I was 14 before I managed to learn to tie my shoes and still don't do it "right" according to some people.

Because they want to feel good about themselves by putting others down. That's the nature of most people though they often try to hide it. Laughing comes from their happiness at feeling superior to someone who can't do something they can.

I wasn't able to tie my shoes untill I was 12 years old.
I bet there's something that you can do that they can't.
I can play the piano and do crosswords but I bet those people that laughed at me because I can't ride a bike can't do those things.

Dunno. But people said they laughed at me for that because I was a moron for not being able to do it. Expecially younger kids told me that, because when I was 12 I still couldn't do it, and they were 8-9 and they alredy could do it. I learned to tie my shoe laces only the last year, when I was 14, and I still get from people comments like: <<You're 15 and you still can't tie your shoe laces well>>. I don't care if I tie them well or not, the important thing is that now I can tie them, duh.

Last edited by Kairi96 on 05 Jan 2013, 6:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

Double post.

I recognize myself in this description! I also have an "odd" way of tying my shoes and learnt how when about 12. I prefer not to as my running shoes used to come loose several times during a run, but I'm now using special laces that are tied once off and then you simply slip the shoes on and off. They are usuallly bought at specialist running stores.

I also can't ride a bike or drive a manual car, but can do cryptic crosswords, play reasonably good Scrabble and have a great memory of names, figures and incidents.

Right, because age miraculously grants self-help skills and ability. Right again, the fault isn't entirely theirs because you're disabled. Great "blame the victim" mentality there.

I know plenty of autistic adults who can't do the things you mention.

People who make fun of anyone about anything are not being nice, so that pretty much covers it. As far as being unable to tie shoes, I think I was at least 10 or 12 before I did it. Surprisingly, I think I know what the problem was ... Everyone who tried to teach me, was doing so from in front of me facing me while demonstrating, so the shoes were toe-to-toe against mine. The result was that I was trying to tie them in reverse, which doesn't work! The one teaching must be beside the learner, facing the same direction. That's all it took for me. The same learning block happened to me with learning to ride a bicycle. Telling me to "balance" was useless. As soon as a friend (an engineer) drew me a diagram which basically demonstrated in pictorials; countersteering and inertia, I got on a bike and rode it. The moral of this story is that we in the autism community, often can't learn things the "conventional" way. Same goes for mathematics. I flunked miserably in trying to memorize such basics as (x) tables, adding and subtracting in columns with borrowing and carrying, or worse yet long division. But later (still while in school) for some reason, I learned by a different method which I can't explain. I just look at the numbers, and they fall into groups or sets, and there is the sum or other answer. I wish I could explain it better. Teachers hated that I couldn't "show my work", but the math was learned and without cheating.

Charles