People are so fickle and cold

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(I posted something similar but that is on non-verbal cues)

Hi:
I just got my feelings hurt by one of my colleagues today who I thought was my friend and she is a wonderful person. We used to get along and she's been an open book. The last few times I have interacted with me, she's been rather cold and short with me. Today I had her do something only to have her do exactly just that. Then another colleague walked in, she got excited and gave her a hug and smile with her. I tried to join in on the conversation when I noticed her cues.

1. She was friendly with person and smiled at her
2. Then when I asked where she was going she quickly frowned at me while she said she was doing something before turning her attention back to the other person with a smile returning to her face.

I decided to leave and let her them know I was upset by saying "Excuse me!"

I don't know why she is acting like this and she has an autistic son so I think she would understand instead of being passive aggressive.

She sounds very two-faced and extremely rude. I wonder if she’s harsh on her son after reading that.

I've seen something like this several times. One example in particular involved me disclosing that I have asthma to a co-worker. She became cold toward me, and treated me as if I was faking (my asthma is mostly under control, and I rarely have problems with it). It turned out that her father had severe COPD and could only walk as far as his oxygen tube would let him (he would usually tire out within a few steps). Her "reasoning" seemed to be that because someone else had it much worse than I, then I must not have it bad at all (e.g., I must be faking it).

Sorta like those people who sneer at others for having no shoes because they know someone who has no legs.

Personally, I would not bother myself with such a person. If her "coldness" is based on your disability being less than that of her son's, then she does not deserve you as a friend (imho).

We seemed to be "Friends" for 5 years and she was always seemed to be really sweet and nice to me. I had never seen any signs of her being jealous of me or anything. In fact, she seemed to be very supportive. The last few times, she has been a bit cold with me and I am very sad about it. That said, did some thinking and decided.

1. I am not going to try and bother associating with her anymore. If anything, the ball is in her court
2. I have way too many other things on my plate right now that I need to worry about and that excludes how she really thinks about me.

That deserves a standing ovation!!

Definitely don’t let her guilt trip you. She’ll think she can keep treating you badly and get away with it.

Given that she's not just a friend but a colleague, I think this is a situation that may need to be dealt with, because you will not be able to avoid her completely. If it's not dealt with, she may make trouble for you with other people in your workplace.

First, wait a little while (not too long) and see if her attitude toward you gradually improves of its own accord. If it doesn't, then at some point in the not too distant future I think it might be good to ask if you ever did anything that seriously offended her. If she seems puzzled by the question, point out the change in her attitude toward you however long ago it was, and then ask if she had some kind of problem with you then, and say that you would like to try to resolve the problem whatever it might be.

Another friend of mine told me that she is known to be very mean and extremely deceptive. She also said that I need to leave her alone. I am very shocked about this because she seemed to so nice before.

I have had it happen that people were nice to me to get me to do something for them. If I didn’t do what they wanted then suddenly they wanted nothing to do with me. You don’t need friends like that.

Will you take solace in knowing that I've had that happen to me before? (More than once, sorry to say...) Someone has gotten cold, and I have absolutely no clue what it is I did that caused this person to change her behavior so drastically. All I'm left to do is contemplate what it is I did. Maybe a tale the absurdity and futility of my speculations will help? In one situation, I was pretty sure that the reason why this woman (and a few other people) changed their attitude towards me was about a kidney...

A coworker I'd known for a few months was going to need a kidney transplant. He was talking about it, and two other coworkers, who'd known him for the better part of ten years, offered him their kidneys. Well, more like one offered and the other seconded. Not knowing him well, reflecting on the enormous unlikelihood that we would match, and considering the fact that I have a large family with a history of Diabetes, I wasn't just going to give away my kidney after two seconds of thought. I'm a very nice person, but I just couldn't do it. I think that I was "supposed" to offer, because I should have known (as the second girl, an NT knew) that the likelihood of us matching would be extremely low, so it's an empty promise which is just the "polite thing to say." My aspie mind would never let me form the words to make a promise I couldn't keep--not one so serious anyway, and I'd never make such a commitment so lightly, even if it were one I meant to keep. For months, actually years after, I was wracked with guilt over it.

But in reality, this kidney stuff was nothing but speculation. I had a whole list of ideas in my head as to what caused the girl to have gone cold, and there was the additional possibility that none of my speculations were correct. That was in 2006, and I've brought it up with more than one therapist, who very helpfully asked me "how does that make you feel?" and "why do you think that was?" (I swear a parrot could take over the job of half the therapists I've met and just repeat those two phrases).

This woman essentially threw this mystery in front of me with her silence, and then she happily (or unhappily, I suppose I have no idea) continued on with her life. I can be certain, though, that she has no thoughts about me, and whatever annoyed her was something she recovered from long ago. She got to skip off into the sunset, and she left me with the burden, which I compounded with all my characteristic spectrum overthinking.

If someone suddenly turns cold but says nothing about having been offended, then isn't she the one with the communication problem? Yes, we are also technically people with communication problems, but ours is a real thing, and it has nothing to do with us being inconsiderate of other people's feelings or too selfish about our own to try to resolve anything. I think you're right. Screw her (your coworker). Why should you have to get down to the bottom of this when she's the one with the problem? And who knows what angers neurotypicals? Yours might be doing this over a kidney bean!

So this happens to us, it's definitely an aspie/autie thing, especially, from what I've read, for aspie women. This abrupt abandonment of a friendship. But really, if we look back and can't think of anything we did that was offensive, and no one tells us what we did, can it really have been that bad? It's not like you're thinking, "Well, I gave her a black eye and cut her lip open, but I don't think that's the problem..." I'm starting to realize since my May diagnosis that if I'm autistic, I need to stop apologizing for acting like I am. If I'm aware of hurting someone (even if I had the best intentions), of course I should apologize for that. But what I can't apologize for is something that I don't know I did -- any more than I can (or should) apologize for not wearing someone's gift of an absurdly itchy scarf. So you're right, you can be like me, and you can wonder thirteen years from now if you should have offered this woman (or one of her friends) a body part, or you can decide that it's not a mystery worth solving, and if you want drama in your life, you'll change the channel to TNT.

If she wants you to leave her alone, then cross your fingers that it also means she'll leave you alone and consider yourself to be the one to have most benefitted from her bizarre behavior. Flip it in your mind. She's making you feel at fault, and she's taking away your power. She's the problem, not you.

If you live long enough, this phenomenon could happen again, but if the only way to prevent it is to keep donating organs (which I think must be the case), then maybe when some crazy NT just randomly decides to stop talking to you, you can think of me and my two kidneys and know you're not alone.