NT things/Social rules you find stupid or rude?

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I dislike that I often seem to find myself in a 'damned if I do, damned if I don't' situation in regard to social interactions.
Whenever I'm in a group, people dislike it when I'm very quiet and don't initiate conversation and don't really reciprocate much, so when I'm silent, I'm viewed as the 'anti-social' person.
Then, when I DO try to initiate contact, it tends to come across weird, or people dislike the subjects I like to talk about or they find it boring, so if I do attempt to intermingle, I get rejected.

That's crazy. Lose/lose situation. Sometimes (like today) I don't know why I bother.

Their rule that I don't like is that you have to live for today, in the present if you want them to accept you. They expect you to wear the same fashions and have the same hair styles as your same sex peers and you have to listen to Top 40. If you're a female, you have to be thin and frail so you don't intimidate the big, strong male. You can't listen to any music that's over a year old and you have to use the same lingo and speak in the same pitch and fashion as everybody else who's your birth gender. On top of that, you have to write like everybody else who's your birth gender. Another thing I don't understand is that if you're to be a part of the In Crowd, you can't have your hair dyed any colour other than blonde.

As an F to M who can't afford to transition, none of that stuff makes sense to me. I'd rather be free to be myself and do the things I enjoy than be around people who have hidden superficial rules like that. My mum was one of those people until I put my foot down.

I get that a lot! Just can't win either way.

I don't really know what the social rules are as I don't usually concern myself with them up until recently because I think the job center and my therapist want me to socialise so they can shunt be back into work. I am diagnosed with social anxiety and they want me to 'get over my social issues'. I would also like a friend or two, preferably a romantic one, but I have no interest in general socialising outside of that. Once I find a couple of people I like I don't really tend to want to be social outside of that circle as I don't really enjoy social interaction unless it is with someone I care about or like.

So other than noticing that people seem to mess me about a lot and have a tendency towards gossip and talking about subjects I don't really think about much, I don't actually know what these social rules are.

I realised this this afternoon when I was trying to think what to say to my therapist about my difficulty with social interaction and thought to myself 'do I understand social rules'. Tried to think of one and couldn't...

I have no idea what they are.

Socialising isn't something I do very often.

The "get over it" attitude is what I'd expect from the bullying thugs who work for DWP-Atos. I expect better from a therapist.

If you have a social anxiety problem, forcing you to socialise when you are already struggling with the rules will probably make things worse, not better.

Smalltalk. I want to talk about something more interesting than that.

When I say I'm not interested in something many NTs find interesting, they ask me, "What do mean you aren't interested in X?" or "You sure you don't want to do X?" or tell me "It will be fun".

Sugarcoating the truth. NTs only care about not hurting other's feelings, not telling the truth, and the latter would be less harmful in the long run.

Complimenting looks. They decide to do that instead of complimenting people's character.

I find it really rude when I am trying to keep to myself, avoid eye contact, and I am NOT bothering anyone but someone decides they have to speak to me anyway, like they feel obligated to draw me out of myself.

I find most personal questions to be rude and invasive. I don't see why people I don't know, or people I know through work, need to find out things like whether or not I am married, or have children, or what I like to do in my spare time. If it's not relevant to my interaction with them, and I am not wanting to become friends with the person I don't see any reason why they need to know more about me.

I really dislike it when store clerks try to make conversation with me or make comments about what I'm buying or ask questions about why I'm buying things. I don't mean to be unappreciative of the job they do, but I just want them to ring me up and let me get on my way. I don't think it is any of their business to even notice what I'm buying other than to make sure it's rung up correctly.

I buy most things in bulk or multiple quantities so I don't have to go back to the store as often, or so I can take advantage of sale prices, or just because I am picky and only like certain things. I just think it's bizarre how they find it acceptable to comment on some things and not others. I mean for instance if I am buying bulk toilet paper, they would never say, wow how often do you have to use the toilet? But they think it's fine to ask why I am buying multiples of the same food or clothing item, and act like it is strange, or to ask how many cats I have when I buy cat food.

And I have heard that some people are embarrassed to buy large packages of toilet paper? is that an NT thing??? I don't see why anyone would be embarrassed. We all have to piss and s**t sometime and everyone knows it, it's not like it's a big secret.

But it's like they have this weird understanding that certain things are supposed to be embarrassing, so you should hide it or not talk about it, and other things are okay to talk about and be nosy about. And they tend to assume you are embarrassed if you don't want to talk about something, but I'm not, I just think it's none of their business.

Also like someone else mentioned already they hide behind political correctness so they can make comments about other people but avoid having similar comments directed back at themselves. I used to be very thin and it never failed to amaze me how people would comment on it. It never would have occurred to me to comment on someone else's body type or appearance other than to give a compliment. But I knew it was totally inappropriate to tell someone they are fat, so why should it be any different to tell me I was too skinny? And no one who said that to me ever meant that as a compliment, they said it like a criticism.

Jealousy doesn't make a mean comment into a compliment either but some people would act like their implied jealousy was somehow supposed to negate the criticism. That's another thing they do, acting like jealousy gives someone a free pass to criticize or tear someone down. They don't have the generosity to just give a direct compliment or say "I wish I had that" or "I wish I could be like that" so they do it in a mean way. And they expect the other person not to feel bad about it because they act like you are doing it TO them to have something they don't have. And it's all built on assumptions that it's better to have/be one thing than it is to be something else, like everyone is supposed to see it the same way, which is absurd.

I also hate the way they try to be indirect about things and act like they are being polite that way but it comes across as much more rude than if they said it directly. Like when people talk about me as if I'm not there to tease me or try to hint that they want something from me.

I could go on and on. I think most NTs just have really poor manners and a basic lack of respect for people.

I can't stand it when strangers come up to me and start talking and I am in the middle of something. I will not stop writing or put my game down just to listen to them. I think me continuing what I am doing should be the cue I am not interested and I don't want to talk but they don't seem to pick up on it or they don't care and they say we are the ones who are rude and don't read social cues. Even a guy does this at work and shame English is his native language and mine too.

Direct eye contact is still something I struggle with regularly. I can do "face contact", but looking directly into someone's eyes is uncomfortable (this may also stem from some eye problems I had - and still have to some extent - growing up)

Complaining about someone behind their back - I used to post regulary on another forum and due to a security glitch, I accidentally stumbled on a private thread where others were complaining about something that I posted - I did not know that it was upsetting them (my social skills were a little less developed than they are today), and they never approached me about it. Needless to say, I do not post on that forum anymore. Being polite is one thing, but not taking action to fix it is another.

Some NT behaviors I can work with. Small talk I can do to some extent - I was at the grocery store today and I wore a shirt that looks very similar to some of the employee uniforms - I made a joke to the cashier that I "think I picked the wrong colour shirt to wear today".
Friendly sarcasm I can also do. I work in an office full of people who like to kid around and my co-worker once told me that he had to leave early to go to a dentist appointment. I told him "Have fun!", as if he was going to party or something similar, because he is the kind of person who likes (and expects) that sort of humour. Of course, we both know that going to the dentist is not necessarily a pleasant experience, which is what made it funny. "Hateful" sarcasm I can pick up, but would never use - that famous scene from A Charlie Brown Christmas comes to mind, where Charlie Brown (who many of us can relate to so well) says "Thanks for the Christmas card you sent me, Violet." because Violet did not send him a Christmas card.

I'd have to go with small talk, but when it comes from a family member. My mom being one example - it seems like she loves to talk/make comments about really trivial, "chit-chat" sort of topics, and gets annoyed when I'm not interested.

Ah, but don't forget that the NT person that seems ignored by the other one who picks up a mobile phone to talk to someone else, the apparently 'ignored' person may have given body language signals to the other to say it was okay for them to pick up the phone, and we (observer ASs) may not have seen that. They weren't ignored at all and the other one wasn't ignoring them - they were instead choosing the moment at which it was appropriate for them to go and chat to someone else on the phone. If we can't see body language, we can't see that 'appropriate' moment.

I've learned that the times when you don't get a straight answer to a question, your question has hit the nail right on the head. Meaning you've gotten the nub of the matter, and because you've therefore reached the truth, the other person is unable to provide an honest answer to dispute it. If, however, they answered it freely - keep trying: your question skirted around a peripheral (and, really, irrelevant) matter and you didn't hit the right point.

Don't worry. I have exactly the same problem.

One thing I can't stand about NT behavior is how many of them have little regard for personal space. I really really really don't like being tapped on the shoulder, or poked, or suddenly touched or grabbed, even if it's just to get my attention. I'm a sensitive guy, and whenever something like that happens it just sounds off all sorts of alarms in my head.

Another thing I don't like about NT behavior is how they often sugarcoat things and beat around the bush. For f***s sakes, if you want to say something, just say it! I'd rather a person be straight up and honest with me, than lie and be deceptive just to try and make me feel better. I hate being lied to, and I always want to know the truth, unless I state otherwise.

Another thing as well, it annoys me how NTs often won't allow me to take pauses when I am trying to say something to them. They just think that if I'm taking a pause to collect my thoughts, that I am done speaking and am willing to listen to them, when really, I am not done speaking, and I am not willing to listen just yet.

One thing that's been a major sticking point to me for many years, has been NT conventions on sleep schedules. I'm not the kind of person who can just fall asleep as soon as it's time to go to bed, and I'm also not the kind of person who can just wake up as soon as its time to. I sleep when I feel like sleeping, and I wake up when I feel like waking up. Setting arbitrary hours is just silly and it doesn't work with my sleep patterns, though I am trying somewhat harder to get up when my alarm clock goes off. I don't know why this is so hard to explain to NTs, but it has been the cause of many struggles between myself, my parents, and other authority figures.

On a similar note, I've noticed that a lot of NTs expect me to simply get down and perform tasks, even if I cannot or do not want to do them. I don't do things unless I know how to do them or there's a big enough reward waiting for me afterwards. I could never understand how people could attempt to do work that they do not know how to do, especially work that doesn't involve any sort of reward. I won't do "busywork", unless it just happens to be something I enjoy doing anyway.

Even though I don't get bothered much about it, I find prolonged eye contact to feel rather awkward and creepy, and it just feels much more natural to me to talk to someone without looking "through" them.

There's probably more, but I can't think of any off the top of my head at the moment.

Last edited by mr_bigmouth_502 on 20 Jan 2014, 5:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.

"Fishing" for compliments - as if they want to catch something: yuck!!

They want/expect people to say something to them that will make them feel better about themselves. So it's just the need for them to feel good about themselves, under the deluded impression that they made a correct choice. Such as buying that outfit they want to be told is nice, to reinforce their own opinion, rather than the hideous waste of money that it really is for something that really doesn't look nice on them at all. They're not about seeking the truth. When someone asks me a question, my instinct is to provide an honest and truthful answer that answers the question. These people, though, they want to feel good. But if they didn't want an answer to their question, then why ask it? (Answer to that is: they asked it to make themselves feel good.) My purpose in asking a question is to obtain a correct, accurate or truthful answer to my question, rather than to seek to make me feel good. (I already feel good, as I don't need to rest in delusions and my greater knowledge of the truth makes me feel good.)

The problem with that (from the NT approach) is that that is rational behaviour, you see, to stock up at the cheapest price. Whereas NTs behave irrationally (in economic theory terms) and just throw into the cart/shopping trolley whatever they need as and when they run out of it. And pay over the odds on nearly all of it.

As regards toilet paper vs cat food, it's the NT reading into it an implication behind it than you never intended, based on their own social conventions.

But - not to worry - you're the one who is not wasting money and you are the one buying more wisely (whilst NTs aren't 'wise' in this respect).

Nonetheless, there can be a fine line - for example if you are stocking up on stuff beyond what you will actually need or use or, in the case of perishable or expiry-date stuff, buying more simply because it is on offer and ending up wasting some of it. Sometimes these sorts of things (buying multiple quantities and stocking up) can get out of hand and become an obsession and, if it's part of one of our Asperger obsessive interests, can sometimes, in that area, become problematic. If however you are more Asperger obsession than OCD obsession, I think it more likely the Asperger rationality will then take over and act as a brake or reverse to stop it getting obsessive (to the sense of hoarding and wasting stuff that goes way out of date to be unusable). Whereas OCD, I imagine, might be more problematic, though it is not clear cut - as, for example, people can have both AS and OCD at the same time. If you are truthfully buying wisely, it may not be an obsession and I myself may be reading more into it than in fact exists! Certainly, NTs who don't buy in the way you do (for example stocking up, but within reason, at sale prices) are irrational in my view and they are the ones who are paying for that - more fool them!