Aspergers don't understand social cues...

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I hear this a lot but something I've personally noticed is that, it's not so much that we don't understand social cues, it's that most people in society send mixed signals because they are fake and manipulative, which throws off our circuits. Being social around authentic people is super easy in comparison...

I think is too easy to over-generalize and I don't happen to think most people are fake or manipulative. Certainly some are, but not enough for that to be the sole reason for anyone to not understand social cues.

OP might be mentioning contributing factors, though.

Possibly, but its a easy place to attach blame as well - "its nothing to do with ME, is all on YOU"

From my experience a large percentage of people put on a fake mask for the public, a fake version of them self, which causes confusion for someone with aspergers, at least me.

So, if you understand that, why then is it so hard to pick up those cues? It seems that if you already know someone is a liar, then what is true should be apparent to you. If it is NOT, then is would seem that your hypothesis about the majority of people being liars is incorrect.

Last edited by DanielW on 17 Dec 2023, 5:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There are a lot of reasons that anyone might not pick up on social cues or interpret them correctly. I'd put faking and lying at the bottom of that list - if I included it at all (there is very little proof you could produce that would show that everyone around you is fake or a liar...if you said so openly to most people they would probably call you paranoid or delusional.

Based on further interaction with OP, delusional is quite a reasonable conclusion to make.

I think "faking" and "lying" are loaded words, and that is where the truth is being lost.

There is a really old phrase, used by old farts like me, that says "Go along to get along", and I'm familiar with it because I never have.

Tribal behavior is, inherently, choosing to do something different in order to blend with the tribe. We're primates, and like just about all primates, we're tribal. We change what we say, what we do, what we believe, and how we look according to what our tribe does. This is why people in the same region tend to follow the same faith, dress the same way, have the same language accents, listen to the same music, eat the same food, just about everything you would put inside the word we call "culture".

It isn't dishonest. It's a natural subjugation of self in order to support a tribe.

But ... I have no tribe. Never have. Other Aspies are as close as I get, and I didn't discover that until I was forty. I don't think the same way as neurotypical tribes. I don't find the same things appealing. I don't have the same priorities. That makes me stick out in basically every crowd I join.

It's not fake or dishonest what neurotypicals do. It's just tribal behavior ... but not for my tribe. You'll see very similar symptoms when a person from a radically different and isolated culture comes to ours. They will seem different, a little ridiculous. They miss social queues, interpret language a little too literally ... feel me?

For me the problem when interacting with people is that my definition of being honest is much stricter than what is seen as normal by the NT-society. It seems to me that there is a social norm that you are supposed to take into account that other people to some extent lie, exaggerate a little bit or cherry pick facts when they talk about their skills or what they have a accomplished. Besides that you are supposed to take peoples egos into account and don't prove anyone with a higher social status than yourself to be wrong. Everyone knows that people don't actually want your honest opinion when they ask you for it and that people will say that you look great in your new dress or that the food you cooked tastes good regardless what they think. I find it odd that people still find pleasure in hearing compliments that by that logic is nothing but an exibition of politness. When I say something there's no hidden meaning to it, so it doesn't come naturally for me to look for hidden meanings in what other people say to me. So, I don't intuitively understand - what by social conventions are agreed upon on as - social cues.