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ChristinaCSB
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22 Sep 2008, 10:55 pm

Does anyone else have trouble with boundaries or do you think aspies in general have trouble with their own and others boundaries? Obviously I'm not that best at making friends and I am shy but I still try to be social and talk to others. My problem is sometimes I tell too much when I first meet someone. I mean obviously I don't wear a sign on my back that says; "I have asperger syndrome do you still want to be my friend?" But sometimes I think I talk to much about myself and don't always know where to draw the line at how much to say to people and when I should draw the line and talking about my personal life. I do also ask other people questions and don't just talk completely about myself. I mean I don't sit there and just write a book about myself and tell to the other person my life story, I am not that bad. But how do I know when it's ok to tell someone about asperger's and anything else that makes me different? Also my boyfriend says I tell strangers too much about things going on in my life. Where do I draw the line?



Kaleido
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23 Sep 2008, 2:58 am

This all sounds a bit like me when I was younger.

I am myself when I am with my aspie friends but I still struggle when with other groups. My worst experience was when I used to go around with a group of other women mostly around my age and one of them would ask questions. She would continually ask them and some were personal and I had no idea how to stop her. I tried being polite, I tried trying to change the subject but nothing worked.

In the end, I felt like a plucked chicken and finally like a heap of bones on the ground, completely stripped. Eventually I became so angry that it was too risky to see that crowd again because I knew I would lose my temper and go over the top with what I said - knowing what you should not say comes with age and experience, though to be honest, I still get it wrong now and I am fifty :oops:

I think in conversations, we need to stay in context and its so hard. The other week I was talking to a lovely man in his 90s and at one point I asked a question which I thought was related to the topic but he seemed annoyed as if I had suggested he didn't know enough about an aspect of it. I was only asking because I was interested in the answer and I realized that we need to make sure that a question which seems isolated to us may be seen as related to the topic to an NT and cause offence. How to do this is not always clear to me, but at last, I have seen yet another potential problem.

I think soon I will just become completely silent for fear of getting things wrong since it seems we need about three lifetimes to understand what others get in their younger years :?

As for whether to say you have an ASD. I mainly tell people and get it out of the way so that I can try to judge quickly whether they can handle that or not, if not, I am gone, life is too short to waste waiting to find out if things will work out or not.



donkey
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23 Sep 2008, 5:11 am

yes there is a problem here with modulation and knowing how much to say , it is either too little or too much.
most As are a little naieve and give away too ,uch info.
there are people out there, who will realise this and exploit it.

it is a function of time and age to learn how to modulate responses to questions.

you can learn a standard phrase liek forrest gump "stupid as a stupid does"

it stops the questions.

mine is, excuse me ( i need to make a phane call, find a bathroom, im late for a meeting etc) an dwalk away.


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