Dear Aspie:WHY ARE ASPIES VULNERABLE TO BULLYING?

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YES! Schools don't do anything. They just look away and hope, if they ignore it- it will disappear. Sometimes I wonder if they encourage it. I have been reading about more parents suing their children's schools because they (the schools) failed to intervene. Good for them.

I heard sometimes schools use bullies, to try and get students who might be less compliant to comply. This could be a reason they target Aspies, since we're known not to mindlessly fallow authority.

I'm well aware of that possibility. To prevent it, I take the following measures.
* Always, always, ALWAYS say "excuse me" or "sorry" when I bump into someone.
* When I want to approach a girl to dance with her, and there are guys standing nearby, I ask them directly: "Is she with you?" If no, then I ask: "Is she with anyone else?" Only when "no" to both questions, I actually try to dance with her.
* When I bump into someone and accidentally spill that person's drink, male or female, I offer to buy them a replacement.
* I avoid going near the good-looking girls, since they're the ones most likely to have a typical alpha male boyfriend. Even if the less-attractive girls are with a guy, he's far less likely to be an aggressive alpha male.
* I make small talk with a few guys in a club (during appropriate moments, of course), so that people who see me doing that will think I have "back-up".
* I avoid drinking too much so that I can maintain control over my actions, but I'm a peaceful drunk, so this isn't a major issue.

Sadly, just because something is a trusim, doesn't make it fact. The above is generally accepted, but they have actually done some studies of school bullies, and it turns out it's categorically untrue. Bullies tend to have, if anything, a surfeit of confidence, and are not cowards at all. They're usually above average in at least one aspect of their lives (sure, often sports, but sometimes other things too), and will often go on to be more successful than their peers. It would be wonderful to be able to wave your middle finger at them while screaming "Karma's a b***h, my suffering will come back and bite you!" but chances are they'll go on to have a successful, happy life, and not even remember the misery they visited upon you when they were younger. It's funny, because it's one of those myths that just refuses to die - you even see it repeated in books such as Attwood's. It would give me the greatest satisfaction to believe that those who bullied me at school were emotional cripples who had succumbed to a life of crime and drug addiction. No such luck.

Ahem, anyway, to the article itself. GroovyDruid, there is a lot of good stuff in there, but I wonder what you're basing your thoughts on? Personal experience? It kind of feels like, in places, like you're trying to string experiences and thoughts together into a whole that just sounds and feels right, and then presenting it as fact. I'm not sure that some of it is. Sure, it sounds convincing, but reducing humans to wild animals is really glossing over a whole level of human interaction, thoughts, and drives. While much of your initial material on how and why Aspies give off the wrong signals seems good, much of the rest leaves a particularly bad taste in my mouth.

First, quick point - to riff off another one of your previous answers, there's also anecdotally a high likelihood that for whatever reasons, aspies may be mistaken for gay men (boys?). I'm sure that accounts for a large proportion of the bullying also, and was certainly instrumental in my school experiences. But I'm deeply troubled by your reduction of behavior into animalistic metaphors, here. I don't think it's simple like that, and I'm far from convinced it's true.

I don't see what's wrong with what GroovyDruid said. Why not use animalistic metaphors, to describe those who behave like predatory animals?

Well, mostly because I don't think it's a good or accurate metaphor. Moreover, the history of people reducing others to animals shows it's often used to justify some pretty awful crimes (not that I expect anyone here would do so, but it just makes me uncomfortable). I was exhausted this afternoon when I wrote that, and gave up trying to find what I felt would be a more accurate description, and I'm still tired. Maybe I'll give it another go tomorrow, so for now you'll just have to accept that it just felt... wrong there. Which was a shame, because so much of the rest of the answer seemed really great.

don't know that anyone's expressed this, but here goes: many bullies were former victims.........poor social skills and poor frustration tolerance can lead to bullying behavior. insecurity and the need to appear strong/not foolish can also lead to bullying behavior......lets also not forget that some bullies are bullied at home, and therefore turn on "the weak" when they're not home.

OK, this is one of those truisms that annoys the living c**p out of me. Sorry, I can't leave it, like the widely held belief that women and men think in different ways (sorry, love, it's not that he doesn't understand you, he just didn't care about what you were saying - of course, that doesn't apply in the case of aspies), it's categorically untrue. It took a good deal of hunting, but here is the study I recall on delinquent behavior and self-esteem, and here is a nice editorial on it. As with many things which don't fit the prevailing media and societal narrative, it's all but ignored in favour of the popular, but untrue, lie that bullies have low self esteem. From the report:

My italics.
Low self esteem doesn't make you a bully. It just makes you a target. And from the editorial:

Bullies are not insecure, damaged children. They are arrogant, self-satisfied, and happy. And someone should nail their ***** to the wall, not try to create a sense of self-worth which they already have in spades.

Ahem. I should probably get back on topic, shouldn't I?

hate to burst your bubble, nmaestro.....but my son who was a victim of other bullies for years became a bully himself...poor social skills and low frustration tolerance were the culprits behind son's behavior. he is better, now, thanks......
if you read what i wrote, i did not say that ALL bullies are a reflection of poor social skills or poor frustration tolerance or low self esteem.......i said *some*..........

Ooookay. What was I talking about and promised to get back to? Ah, right, NTs, animal comparisons, that stuff.
I thought about this all morning, and it's actually kind of tough to come up with a good way of saying what I want to say. It's like the thoughts are stuck in my head, but won't turn into words nomatter how hard I try, so this will likely be clunky and imperfect as I try to express myself.
Firstly, my primary objection is that my gut is that those are assertions which have little actual backup. Fair enough in some ways - I'm going to suggest an alternative set of hypotheses, and I don't have any evidence for them, either. All I can say is that what GroovyDruid said in his last sections just don't feel right to me. It's too simple, reduces social gatherings to mere harems where the reality is far more complex (really, if it was this simple, we'd all have figured it out already), and generally tries to draw conclusions that I don't think are justified. Not that mine are, either - I'd love to see someone studying the subject seriously, but as is, all we really have to go on is gut feeling.
I'd suggest that the primary cause of bullying is not necessarily the signals an aspie is sending out, but simply his or her isolation from her peers. It's simply that a target is there, alone, with no others to help defend themselves. It's going for the smallest sheep or the baby elephant. It's not that they're being aggressive towards the predator, they're just easier to take down. So why is the bully doing so? We might as well ask why is he driving fast or smoking a cigarette. What did the cigarette ever do to him? Did it seem to be acting arrogantly? I doubt it. But the smoking is a rush, and in the indestructable world of the bully, because of their perceived sense of self-worth and ability, that rush is valuable. The feeling, the adrenaline proves to themselves that they're right, they are awesome. Same with driving a fast car. Same with other risky behaviors. And the same with bullying. It's a rush, pure and simple. It's imposition of will on an unwilling opponent, a position where a fight could ensue, and the risk creates the feeling that affirms the bully's already high opinion of himself (especially when he inevitably wins). While there may be some power dynamics going on, I don't think they're a primary concern. It's just that people tend to be attracted towards confident leaders, and so other congregate around the bully. Sure, they do again confirm the sense of self-worth, but I think that's a side effect rather than the aim of the exercise.

Final point: I'd be more than happy for GroovyDruid to come up with some evidence that contradicts me. I'm more than ready to eat some hot, crumbly, humble pie if he can back up his claims with more than personal anecdote. I sure as heck can't back up many of my ideas.

There'll always be some outliers, who buck the overall trend, but that doesn't make them in any way indicative of the majority. Bubble is fully intact, thanks.

I also think most bullies know very well what they are doing is bad and so they should be held accountable instead of being excused most of the time.

I wish so desperately that I would have known about Asperger's when I was suffering through my teens. I never saw hierarchies (still don't, their very existence angers me), I was oblivious to social cues, completely clueless as to why I was a target and could never understand why adults accused me of being arrogant, smart mouthed and so forth.

I was in a fight once. This girl I'd never met kept coming up to me at lunch my 9th grade year and saying that if I didn't stop talking sh*t about her friend, she was going to kick my a**. I responded with, "Clearly you have me confused with someone else, so leave me be." She would say things like, "Well I know it's you, I have proof," and I'd reply with, "Find better sources, because apparently the ones you've got are idiots."

One day she confronted me with the same line of garbage at my locker. Bear in mind I don't like being touched in a nice way, let alone a violent way, and I don't respond well. She says again that she knows I am talking sh*t about her friend. I tell her she must have a delusional disorder, and she needed some help, because she was out of touch with reality - reality did not include me talking sh*t about ANYone. (Have you ever heard of an Aspie doing such? I haven't.) I turned my back on her and continued getting my books to go home (end of the day). I feel her shove me, hard, into my locker door as she says, "Don't do it again. Consider this a warning."

And I snapped. Months of this insane cr*p, and I'd had it. I shoved her back and told her she had better not touch me again. Once more, I turned my back, as if she no longer existed. She slammed my face into my locker. I lost it. Years of bullying had finally reached a head, and months of her saying the same ridiculous thing to me day after day after day. She got whomped good. I didn't know I had it in me.

Not knowing what to do, I went to the principal's office and basically told on myself. I got in-school suspension, same as she did.

On the bright side, she never uttered a word to me ever again. I always thought it was stupid and pathetic that it had to come to me behaving like a neanderthal for the message to get through. Why didn't simple logic and reason work?

I recently wrote an article as it pertains to bullying and aspies.

I agree with your article and found that the style in which it was written was clear, fresh and amusing. So thank you for sharing.

As you said, a lot of it is misinterpretation. My interpretation being that the issue lies in the realm of the question, "What is truth?" Or rather, "What is falsehood?" NTs believe falsehood to be yet another form of reality; Aspies see it as an insult to the what is really the true fact.

If you want to, you can read about the entire thing here: http://lastcrazyhorn.wordpress.com/2007 ... e/#respond

I think the main reasons that we make such good targets is that not only are we different we're a bit more subtle in our difference. Instead of having enough of a difference for people, peers especially, to relize that we have a disorder they just see us as freaks. Sometimes, as we basically lack physical markers and can at times look completly normal, our disorder is denied. They think we are intentionally acting this way and therefore deserve it. Our social nievity and ackwardness get us into further trouble. Help is not always available and children with AS are often put in emotional support classes where they also tend to put children with CD. In doing this they place the kids who are genetically the perfect targets with those who are genetically the perfect bullies. Beyond this are many explanationsbut a simple answer is that people are cruel and we're more convienient channels for that cruelty.

and then one someone steps into break it up, the aspie adamantly denies kissing anyone so the intervener thinks the aspie started the fight just because he's been accused of kissing