Why would any Aspie pretend to be NT or non Aspie/Autistic?

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I don't understand why any Aspie would hide or"mask" their true self to pretend to be NT or a non AS/ASD person.It seem a lot of Aspies out here are trying to be someone that they're not and will never be.To me,pretending to be NT are doing things like trying social,making small talk,trying to mask or improve on "poor social skills",gossiping,doing NT activities ,simply being friends or romantic Partners with NT's,etc. I don't even believe in having conversations with NT's.I will say this as a proud Aspie, Learn how to Celebrate being a Aspie instead of trying to"overcome it",even if that means you may face total isolation.

I'm not pretending to be anything other than who I am. Enjoy your "total isolation" (I seriously doubt that you do); as for me I'll continue to work on my relationship skills and enjoy the company of friends and lovers.
I refuse to allow myself to be defined or my life to be dominated by BS acronyms.

Last edited by Piobaire on 22 Oct 2018, 1:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I like having conversations with NTs, and having NT friends and socialising with them.
That is my true self.
I'm not "overcoming" anything.
Why do we need to isolate ourselves?
I'm proud to be me, the Aspie label doesn't come into it.
It's a small part of me.

Picture being dropped from a plane into a foreign country with a different language and different customs. You have three choices:

1) Live in a cave in the woods in "total isolation" not modifying your behavior or the way you would interact with the others and not learning even an iota of their ways of communicating.

2) Try to figure out how they communicate enough and act in kind with them to get what you need/want.

3) Or, if you have a desire to integrate as much as possible, work as hard as you have to assimilate even if this process is lifelong and continuous.

I choose to live generally in Option 2 area. I realized and accepted that no matter how hard I try, I could not with practice, actually become NT. Rather, communication is something that I will always be conscious of in ways that NTs literally don't even think about. Challenging myself deliberately and continually this way wouldn't bring a payoff at my age that I feel I need nor want.

With all of that said, I also don't want to live in a cave in total isolation.......

To increase their chances for: "hooking up", getting a job, avoiding the police, and getting help from salespeople.

You didn't completely explain why a lot Aspies try to pretend to be something that they're not. Now, far as hooking up, simply date other Aspies .Far as getting a job,any minority group probably will struggle with this.Far as the police is concerned,any minority group has more of a chance of being profiled by the police. Those things don't completely explain why there are Aspies out here that hate themselves and wishing and pretending to be someone else. Aspie/Autistic people that pretends to be a non Aspie/Autistic person are basically lying to themselves,hiding their true personality, and trying too hard to fit into a crowd that will never truly accept them.

Last edited by rick42 on 22 Oct 2018, 1:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"Thou doth protest too much, methinks."
Shakespeare

Lol, bitter grapes anyone?

Yes I did, just not to your satisfaction.

Did you start this thread to get answers to your question and learn something new, or did you start it to deprecate the answers you receive and advance your own agenda?

I doubt that there is any person who ever lived who didn't, at least sometimes, pretend to like or dislike things or people at odds with their true beliefs, alter their use of language to fit certain social interactions, dress a certain way to attract or avoid certain kinds of attention, do things they disliked because the cost to themself was thought worth the potential reward, and so on. Everyone masks to a greater or lesser extent, and I think that society would likely be far more barbarous if they didn't.

It is a matter of judging what compromises to make from situation to situation, not a false dichotomy between doing everything our way or someone else's way; for autistic people as for anyone else. Autistic people may, of course, feel under more pressure to compromise, have greater difficulty doing so, suffer more undesirable consequences if they don't, or have less desire to compromise, as for many other minorities. I also believe that it is wrong to give people the idea that they have no personal choice in whether to mask or not in the name of psychological "treatment" (e.g. ABA). Those of us who are still children, are intellectually disabled, or are undiagnosed may not even be aware that they are masking autism (as I wasn't before my diagnosis.)

However, if I behave differently than I would prefer sometimes because it is an easier route to what I desire, I am simply being pragmatic; it is not a denial of self, because I am the one who has calculated what costs I am prepared to pay for the potential rewards that I desire. I am not trying to "pretend that I'm NT", and the people I make accommodations for are very unlikely to see it in those terms, anyway; I'm just trying to make interactions work for the best possible outcome. Understanding now that I'm autistic and what that means may enable me to make compromises that I'm more comfortable with now, but doesn't make me think that I shouldn't make any at all.

I do mask much less than I used to since my diagnosis, and I'm far more open and honest about my traits, but this isn't because of any idealised philosophy about my identity; it's because empirical experimentation has shown me that life can be more rewarding that way sometimes (other times it isn't). But I'm not going to waste my limited life-time twiddling my thumbs waiting for society to change so that I don't need to compromise any more. I'll gladly support any initiative which encourages fairer treatment for autistic people, even more so because many of us cannot mask even if they wanted to, but a world free of compromise simply isn't going to happen even if everyone were autistic or I could fill the world with clones of myself (in which case, I'm not sure which ones of me would be growing all the food, building the houses, making my clothes, etc...!)

FWIW, I also do not believe in being "proud" of things which are beyond my control, such as my autistic phenotype; I reserve pride for things which I have achieved through my own efforts, whether or not I achieved them by using my autistic traits to my advantage.

Well, I have not yet received a full diagnosis, so you may wish to disregard my response, but for me personally, the situation is far less clear cut than the scenario you describe. I have only considered that I have a high chance of being on the Autistic spectrum in the last few years, so I have not been consciously thinking I have a neural difference and that’s why I seem different and therefore that cannot be changed.... I have generally felt that the reason I couldn’t participate was that somehow somewhere I just (STILL) hadn’t figured out how to behave properly and for reasons I couldn’t figure, I wasn’t trying hard enough.

So that’s the angle I come from. But having at least the knowledge that I seemed different and couldn’t seem to figure out how to be around others in a natural way, why didn’t I go off into isolation (which in some ways would have felt far less stressful and anxiety provoking) in order to live on my own terms? Well because I did not have the internal or external resources to live in isolation. And I was born into a family and sent to school and then needed to work... I, like the majority of other humans, was surrounded by others as a necessity. And some of them I liked (admittedly not many) and sometimes that was because they were like me in some way, though that is rare amongst those I’ve come across; and sometimes the opposite, people who had great confidence in knowing what to do and how to behave, and they had enough social expertise for both of us.

We all have different levels of need for social interaction. Mine is admittedly pretty low and my day to day life reflects that, but it’s not zero. Sometimes I like being around others, and whether they have ASD or are NT, seems less important than their values and behaviour.

I like growing and doing new things every day. I don't want to go back to the stagnation I faced. I have found social contacts based on my interests. I didn't enjoy isolation and never want to go back.

Plenty of reasons: to fit in better, to gain any respect in life, to appear to have more social skills, to make friends and actually be able to connect with people. I'm not saying masking is necessarily a good thing, but it can certainly make life easier and there are many reasons that autistic people do it.

Rick42, why do you keep starting these threads? Ok maybe you hate NTs and don't want to have anything to do with them, but all Aspies and autistics are different. Believe it or not, some of us naturally (instinctively) want social relationships and crave social approval. Why are you telling us to be like you? If I socially isolated myself and broke up with my boyfriend, I would spiral into depression and even suicide, if I isolated myself from my NT family too. I could just see it:

*Me shut in my room, after finishing with my loving NT boyfriend, cut all contact from my friends, became cold and distant with colleagues at work, and even socially isolated myself from my family.*
My boyfriend: Jo, what's got into you? Is it something I said?
Me: Everything's Ok, Rick42 told me it's best I live this way.

Um, no, it ain't going to happen. Sorry, but I love people.

Many people feel it is the only way to gain acceptance.

This much is just wrong, because segregation is never a good thing.