Why NTs might find autistic people annoying

Post Reply New Topic

Your roomate was accusing you of being passive-aggressive

Hmmm.... I think they just use their assumptions. And if what you say doesn't match their assumptions they just don't hear it or don't believe it, and go on assuming what they assumed in the first place. Because in order to read subtext that is not there, the conclusion has to entirely come from the listener's own views and past experiences, since it doesn't come from the speaker. And it's okay if both people are starting out with the same assumptions, but otherwise it just goes off the rails.

I don't know what the solution is other than to grin and bear it and just allow people to misunderstand you, even when they are assigning bad intentions to you. And try to get away from the conversation as quickly as possible.

Again, that was her assumption that actually had nothing to do with me or anything I was doing or thinking.

That isn't a NT person, that is someone with a personality disorder. That is exactly the sort of thing my narcissist mother used to do- accuse me of doing something normal just to annoy or criticise her. I'm glad you still haven't got that roommate!

I had a friend like that, she would ramble on for hours about people she knew and her relationship to them, but I didn't know these people and had no idea who they were or what to say or advise her.

Our whole friend group was fed up with her doing this, she had verbal diarrhoea and just talked for hours without taking a breath, it seemed!

I got so fed up with her that once I said 'can we talk about people IIII know sometimes? I don't know these people you are talking about and it would be nice to talk about things happening in my life and people we both know for a change.'

She was astounded but actually listened and started asking me 'so how are you? What's happening in your life?' etc. in the following phone calls. So it worked with her.

What foxed me was that I was wishing these people well ("I hope you get enough money for your needs" and "I'm glad you've got enough money for food etc. though.") and they didn't seem to like that. I was wishing them well FFS. Not sure what else I could say to show them I was wishing them well.

I'm not going to stop wishing people well, it's just basic kindness and support.

Like there was this woman online years ago, she was telling me how she had been abused/raped/something serious, but I didn't know her from Adam. My 6 year old daughter was throwing up in the bathroom so I had to go and deal with her, so I explained about my daughter's situation to the online woman and said I had to go and care for my daughter. I wished the online woman well. Then she blocked me. No idea why. Obviously I'm going to go and deal with my sick child rather than get into a conversation with someone online I don't know.

All of this is true. NTs use prior experience to build/scaffold schemas that are used to interpret and assume. Do not forget NTs are also on a spectrum in terms of how shallow they are in using impressions to draw conclusions about you. Some NTs are more patient and understanding than others.

Are you expecting natural justice? NTs do this all the time. They develop internal algorithms based on experience with other NTs.

Quite naturally dealing with autistic individuals who don't follow the NT script they are having to re-adjust or calibrate their sensors to make sense with whom they are dealing with. It sounds like your room mate got it wrong but it seems she already made up her mind.

easy...she opened up her vulnerabilities to you and your timing (with your daughter) was interpreted by the woman as you not wanting to deal with her opening up about her pain seriously. Yet another reason online relationships are more likely to lead to misunderstandings.

Not quite. The biggest insult you can do to an NT is be passive aggressive. Washing the dishes was perceived as being passive aggressive to show up the other person's lack of attention in cleaning cutlery/utensils.

Okay but for that to be true then washing dishes or doing any household chore would have to always be considered passive aggressive. That is the only way in which it could sometimes be construed as passive aggressive, since the action itself and even the context in which it's done, unless there's an actual external context beyond the chore itself that is different, is always exactly the same. It sounds like you're excusing what is appalling behavior. I'm not that autistic that I don't see it for what it is. This is entirely on her. There is nothing I did that was clueless or that she would have had to be understanding of or excuse.

I don't agree with that at all. There are lots of worse things you can do to an NT e.g. not respect their position in the hierarchy, or make them look like they don't know anything, or point out their faults, especially lack of knowledge/ intelligence.

If Bee had said 'I'm washing up because certain other people obviously can't be bothered,' or something, that would be passive aggressive.

I suspect probably she felt secretly guilty about not washing up, so you washing up made her feel inadequate and hit back at you.

Look at me, finding ulterior motives and subtext in behaviour

I think you both jumped to conclusions over what I am saying. NTs operate with subtlety. it's the undertones, doublespeak, undercurrent and subtle actions that speak volumes. The days when somebody will directly point things out are largely gone.

Once upon a time I worked in a lab with an attached kitchen where PhD students too lazy to wash up would pile their dishes after a cursory wash and quite obviously not bothered to run a scourer or soap across their plates. We point out this out to them and they cheekily said we are not their mothers. I recall agreeing with them and then saying but their mothers are not here to wash after them either. I thought that would insult them but instead they chuckled and ignored us.

Later me and some colleagues helped re-wash their plates and cutlery (properly). The students were enraged and came as a group asking why we are re-washing their plates? We said were happy to do it for them. That tipped them over the edge. They went straight to university management and complained that we were belittling them and treating them like children. We knew they were stressed out and highly strung but at least they took the hint.

I didn't even know the woman though, it was our first conversation online. Why would she suddenly tell me some huge news like that when we'd only just met that day? She wasn't a long term friend, she was a random stranger. At the time, I felt like she was trying to shock me or scare me.

She was right. I didn't want to deal with a random stranger who might be lying, as opposed to my precious daughter who was fragile and ill back then, and may need to go to hospital. My priorities were 100% correct.

This is where the human race is soon going to get into deep trouble. Well, it's already in deep trouble with the sheer number of lonely, isolated people around these days.

The undertones, doublespeak, undercurrent and subtlety will soon become so prevalent that anything anyone says will be misunderstood, used against them, cause them to be abandoned by their friends.

NTs will soon find they are all isolated because no one will be straightforward with anyone else.

The pendulum will have to swing back towards speaking more plainly, or everyone is going to be alone. In their individual ivory towers, with just AI for company. Or maybe that's what they want!

Things do move in cycles.Prosperity breed good times which breeds soft people adept at suppressing their true thoughts. When hard times come then people will need to be more direct again.