Don't care about what anyone thinks of you: Subtext of this

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momsparky and others, I've always been told by various authority figures in school and by my family that I shouldn't care about what anyone things of me. I've always wondered then why I should care about what employers thought of me. Momsparky, you gave me a tool to work with and that is called analyzing the subtext. I looked that up. It finally dawned on me that I was taking what the authority figures were conveying to me to literally.

What they were trying to say was if trying to become in the cool crowd will cause me to get into trouble both legally and non-legally then I should not try to be cool. I don't need to be following that crowd. What was cool during that that time was doing drugs, cutting class and drinking alcohol and other naughty things. This is the context they were operating under.

They did not mean that one should be rebellious and not care about what those with good sense had to say. They did not mean to rebel against all authority with reckless abandon just so one can be cool and fit in with your peers. What they meant was to use good sense and good sense may say to not try to fit in with one's peers if they're doing reckless things.

I am wondering if many kids are misunderstanding this subtext as well.

Am I correct and what do you all think?

Hi CubeDemon,
I love your understanding and analysis of this advice. I think you have it perfectly right.
I am sometimes been told by my kids that they are embarrassed by some things I do or that they are embarrassed to speak up in certain situations. I believe these are the situations where the advice applies: Are you having a good time and not hurting anyone? There is no reason to be embarrassed or ashamed. Are you in need of help or are in distress? There is no need to be embarrassed to ask for help.

I will be more careful in telling kids "not to care what someone else thinks" and maybe I will print out your post and show it to them instead.

Cheers!

I can just see how this could cause problems for my ex boyfriend if he were told this over and over. He would go extreme with it and be rude and disrespectful like cursing in public and not care if it's embarrassing you. Hey he doesn't care what people think so why should you care too? Just another reason why we are not together. But he did care what people thought of him because he was bothered by my mother's opinions about him, people feeling creeped out by his trench coat, people passing judgments about him but had no intention to do anything about it. Heck, he would even care what strangers thought of him even though they would never see him again nor ever meet him and they don't know what he looks like so they wouldn't know it's him if they saw him. When I told him he can say anything about me all he wants to his friends because I don't care, they would never see me and all, he said I do care. Talk about projection.


Not caring what others think, it would never occur to me to be rude to people and rebellious and be nasty to them or do anything illegal. That's not what comes to my mind when people say you shouldn't care what others think.

I agree with your assessment. Social pressure can be thought of as positive or negative. My son is immune to both, for better or for worse. When talking to (NT) teens,in particular, the focus is on the negative peer pressure, because NTs know that "You shouldn't care what others think of you," means you should not follow the social pressure that goes against what you know to be right.

So, here are the assumptions:

1) This is in reference to negative (bad) social pressure, only.
2) You know what is right and wrong, on your own.
3) You can tell when people are trying to influence you to do something wrong.

With reference to autistic people this is much more complicated. For example, with young kids one of the devices used in school is positive peer pressure. They will have rewards for example, for the most well-behaved class, so that the other children will help the teacher and assist in controlling the behavior of peers with social condemnation. (I actually told them at my IEP meetings to put something in there about not having my son's class penalized for any of his behavioral issues, to preclude bad outcomes resulting from this) They will also punish a whole class by taking away some of recess if a kid or two get unruly.

Especially to an autistic mind (but to a lot of NTs also) it is not fair to blame a whole group for the behavior of one or a few. This is something, however, that is done to get social peer pressure to their policing for them.

In addition there are societal rules that everyone is expected to understand and follow. You are supposed to care if other people think you are smelly, dressed inappropriately for a given place/occasion etc., for example. You are expected to care if people like you (to a point) and what authority figures think of you(to a point), as they control a good amount of your fate.

None of these are absolute rules, and it is confusing. You are supposed to be able to know what to do, in each case.

My 16 year old brother in law has extreme ODD issues. If your ex bf is anything like my 16 year old brother in law then I know what you were dealing with. Personally, I think a number of kids today have some form of pragmatic issues. I would love to see this tested. Do you remember that a test was given for autism in a certain area in S. Korea. The prevalence rate was higher than much thought.

When you state



I would've saw this as a contradiction if I did not know the subtext behind it. It sounds like with your ex bf he would've just accepted it without any thought. On the other hand, I would be asking all kinds of questions. What I don't get about your ex BF and my 16 year old brother in law is why wouldn't they make sure they were interpreting this correctly and ask any questions. Don't either of them see the contradictions? I don't get it and I don't get how either of them think. I have tried analyzing it and I can't.

Here is another thing. He told me that someone was at the door which was true. When I answered the doorbell he literally ran into our bedroom and stole some coins and tried to run back to his room. I caught him dropping the coins and caught him running out of our room. I couldn't believe anyone would do this. Why? It makes no sense. I feel like I was betrayed. Why?

He and his brother will be staying with us for 2 weeks. I do not know how to effectively handle him. He steals for goodness sakes.

His brother is on the spectrum. The brother needs routine as well. This can cause major conflict between them since ODDers do not like authority they will see the ASD person as a form of authority when the ASD wants routine.

Last edited by cubedemon6073 on 19 Jun 2013, 8:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

This explains a lot as well. I did not know any of this and know why teachers did these methods. I am no exception to this. I felt like this was unfair to blame a whole group for the behavior of one or a few. I was able to keep myself low keyed. Deep inside, whenever this happened I literally wanted to just punch the teacher out. I felt like the teacher was a tyrant. Now that I have subtext I would not get as angry anymore. I dumped my emotions inside instead of expressing them. This is why I have major rage issues today. This makes so much sense once perspective is given.



Well, momsparky's analysis of the subtext helps a lot. When I do that, things become clear. You are so correct on these things. All of this explains a lot to me.

I'm totally at lost about the contradiction part so I can't help you there.

okay, I will try to explain. Without knowing the proper context I would've been confused. I will give you an example with employers. If I am told the phrase that I'm not supposed to care what anyone thinks by those who give this advice and all of a sudden I'm told to put on a good impression for employers this implies I'm supposed to care what employers think of me. I would question this because how is it possible to not care about what anyone things and care about what employers think at the same time. I would become confused and question the logic of this.

Now let's try this scenario. The child is told by various authority figures the same thing. This statement was good advice that meant that if being popular and trying to be popular meant doing stupid things like drugs, cursing out parents, etc then maybe the child does not need to try to be popular or try to fit in this sense. Later he gets poor grades and does drugs. When those in authority try to correct this child he tells them he does not care what others think. The problem is the child is missing this context. How it applies to me I don't just go out and do stupid things. If I see a contradiction I ask and I question. Without the context which I just figured out I would've just perceived contradiction of people's standards that made no sense to me. Do you get what I am saying now?

What I do not grasp about your ex bf is why he doesn't do the same thing I do? Why doesn't he analyze to make sure he is interpreting things the way they're supposed to be interpreted? I don't understand him on this and how and why he thinks this way. Can you explain please? I always feel like I'm interpreting things wrong somewhere along the way.

I get what you are saying. I have done the same, asked and my mother would tell me "That as different. This is different now" and then explain.


About my ex, my guess because of his black and white thinking, he thought he was always right. He didn't know he was wrong, he didn't know he was confused, he didn't now he wasn't understanding something. He always thought he understood. Nothing could get him to change his mind because he was always right. I have gotten him to change his mind several times but he would then change his mind to "then everyone should have to work and everything would still be free because everyone would have to work" from thinking it was "ret*d" to work to live and everything should be free and be handed to us.

It baffles me how anyone could think black and white thinking is good and not bad because from my experience with it, it really hurt me and scarred me and all I ever see with it is holier than thou, self righteous attitudes, extreme judgments, prejudice, etc. so how can this all be good? They're delusional I tell you. They also tend to be abusers. So I have a big problem with this being an autistic trait because they are basically say we are narcissists, self righteous, very judgmental, holier than thou, prejudice, closed minded, emotional abusers, and it's very insulting. Lot of my aspie friends are not like this so therefore they aren't black and white or else they be this. Anyone who claims to be black and white is basically telling me "I am bad, stay away from me, I will hurt you with my B&W thinking." So it's a warning to me to not ever know them and not ever talk to them nor be their friend.

Last edited by League_Girl on 19 Jun 2013, 2:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

    This is very perceptive. yay! I learned something today! And from you! thankque!

My father does the same with me.




I don't understand how he believes this would work. Even his games has to be programed and the medium they're put on has to be designed and manufactured. Maybe he is going to design Artificial Intelligence Machines that are based off of quantum computing and quantum computers. Things are not produced in vacuum. There is no magic genie in which one is granted 3 wishes.



It is because NTs have this tendency to place terms on things but with different contexts and subtexts. Be glad you're away from this s**thead.

It think you're right, Cubedemon. I think also it means "don't worry if you are different from what people expect" at least within reason. There are an awful lot of social expectations that might be reasonable for a certain subgroup of people, but which aren't a requirement for being a part of society - for instance, in women, wearing makeup.

I hate makeup. I rarely wear it and when I do I can feel it on my face all day, it's an incredible distraction. Mostly, I just don't. This sets me apart from many women. However, I keep myself clean and relatively tidy (thus meeting the requirements for social interaction) and once people get to know me, they don't notice the lack of makeup. If people judge me negatively for not wearing makeup, it is their shortsightedness and I don't worry about it.

This can be a tricky game to play: 60 years ago, not wearing makeup would have communicated something entirely different than it does today, and would have had a significantly negative social impact.

You have to carefully observe and choose which things are actually important, and which things you can make your own choices about and then ignore what other people think of your choices.

OK so I am exactly like this. I don't wear makeup...maybe lipstick that's all. When I do have to wear more on a rare occasion, It drives me crazy. I feel it on my face and eyes and the second I get home I take it off. Same for nailpolish. I don't ever wear it, it makes me feel claustrophobic! ONE time I got my nails done and tips put on (for my wedding) I ripped the nails off when it as over. OUCH. Cant take it! I could care less what others think about that. One day with a group of moms waiting outside my sons pre school, the season was changing and the talk was all about getting pedicures for the sandal wearing weather, and how they wouldn't be caught dead in open toed shoes without a pedi. I told them not to look down at my feet then casue I don't ever get pedis...lol. SERIOUSLY?? I don't get it and never will. Maybe I am aspie too? I tend to follow my own path in life and not care what most of society thinks!

Do people really look at other people's feet? I take that back. I guess they do.

*sigh*

I don't wear makeup either. I have extremely sensitive skin and sometimes even products that I have been using for years will suddenly react (even mid tube/bottle). The lasst time I tried wearing makeup I had to go for a steroid shot, because the reaction was making it hard to breathe. I see people being snooty about it sometimes, but only if they are just going out of their way to be rude I don't care.

I've actually always been pretty good about not caring what people think about my looks. The one that gets me is when my kids are doing something that draws stares. I wish I could move on past that one like I have with the appearance one.

I think it goes back to the emphasis on politeness and not rocking the boat that my family both nuclear and extended had, but it isn't very practical for raising kids that neurologically aren't capable of meeting those expectations at the expected ages.