not caring

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I keep pushing this, but I believe it's true.

GOF's law = Other people will always subconsicously do what you [u]don't[u] want them to do.

But that chitterchatter that NT's do does not signify caring! They enjoy doing that. If you care about someone, then you're willing to suffer at least some discomfort for the sake of their well-being. So if we Aspies don't blow people off when they want to chat with us, while the topic of conversation isn't of any interest to us, then this means we care at least a bit about them. For NT's this need not be the case, they enjoy that whole social spiel so they may engage in it for entirely self-serving reasons. (I'm not saying here that NT's are less caring than we are, just that in order for one person (NT or AS or whatever other mental composition) to show that s/he cares about another, a price of some sort must be paid for the well-being of the other person.)

willem, I don't think I'm getting through to you. Caring enough to not want to offend the person by flat-out ignoring them. If you flat-out ignore someone, be you NT or AS, there is a reason for it, and it will be perceived as a negative stance towards them. Since I'm self-aware to know that it would be taken as insulting to simply ignore someone, I respond at the minimal amount. It doesn't mean that I care about the person, rather that I care about the kind of person I am. I'm going to do my best to not be an as*hole even if that means minor interaction that I don't want. That doesn't have to have anything to do with the person.

Did that make any sense to you?

Well, yes and no... This confuses me a bit, because I thought that things like having some sort of external self-image, and "wanting to be a certain kind of person", were socially induced, hence things that none of us Aspies do. I directly experience my inside but not my outside, and I directly experience other people's outsides but not their insides, and this is the reason that "Theories of Mind" do not come naturally to me, and that I don't see other people as associated with me or similar to me in any way unless I am acquainted with them. Is this not the case for you?

I would also not think you'd be an as*hole if you ignore people, unless they're friends or family.

A lot of it has to do with what happened to me in the 8th grade, what seems like a lifetime ago even though it was only about a decade.

I had about three friends, maybe four. Not exactly the popular crowd, but it was something. All of them started ignoring me one day. Wouldn't even acknowledge my existence. If I said something, they would turn away. If I persisted, they would walk away. At the time, I had horrible dandruff. So they made a hand-sign to signal that somebody was "slipping" on ignoring me. The whole "brush your shoulders off" thing wasn't always a catchy rap line.

This went on for over a month. I asked the ringleader to tell me what I did wrong, so I would know better. He said if I didn't know, that was part of the problem. Ever since I viewed him as an as*hole, and assumed it was something I had done wrong against them, or at least him. Or perceived as wrong. Or something. I really don't know.

I've always been paranoid about both sides of that situation since then. If I'm ignored, I feel like I've done something wrong, slighted the person somehow. If I ignore someone, even unintentionally, I feel like an as*hole, because that's how I viewed him.

I understand. You have to look at why the ignoring takes place, though. Those "friends" you had were as*holes not because they ignored you, but because of their reason for ignoring you, a superficial thing like dandruff or possibly some other silly social "no-no". Things like that are never the reason for you to ignore people, I would guess. More generally, you probably rarely, if ever, ignore people for the purpose of making them feel a certain way. And, depending on your degree of Aspieness, it may often happen that you're ignoring people for the simple reason you're not aware they're there. In short, you should examine whether there is any sort of malevolence at all in your ignoring people, when you do so. If there isn't, then there's no reason to associate your own behavior with that of your old "friends".

It wasn't the dandruff, I'm pretty sure that was just to hurt me further. I never found out the reason, likely never will. I thought asking would show I wanted to fix the situation. Somehow that was part of the problem. Don't see how that could be either, but, doesn't concern me much any more. It was ten years ago.

Kids can be really mean and hurtful. It's especially hard to get over something done by people you thought were you're friends. I can understand why you wouldn't want anyone else to ever feel that way because of you doing the same thing.

You know, you've made me rethink a situation I'm currently in where I'm purposely ignoring someone. Granted, this person hurt me and I guess this was my way of communicating that without having to actually interact with him. It is kind of a childish thing to do though, and it's about time for me to get past it anyway.