"Friendly" teasing of "You're mental, you're a lunatic"...?

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Imagine if this man turned out to be Aspie?

He doesn't seem to have a sense of the appropriateness of things.

He sort of seems like he skirts social boundaries.

By the way: I'm short, too. 5 foot 4 3/4, 164 cms.

You are a veritable skyscraper compared to me, lol! 4ft 11 and shrinking!

D'you know, I never did get to absorb metric -- I emigrated to the States back during the time when England had not yet fully pressed everyone of my generation into learning metric and abandoning Imperial, and then of course while living on your side of the pond I never had to! I still have no automatic connection to a metric or Celsius statement, but I respond with instant understanding to imperial measurements or a Fahrenheit reading. Too long in the tooth now to change.

About the guy being an Aspie.....hmm. I don't know so much. He's a bit rough around the edges but I think it's not so much an aspie type of lack of appropriateness, as much as just an East Ender type.

Not putting East Enders down, just that they can be quite blunt and care not for PC restraint.

I see what you mean.

Old-time New Yorkers tend to be similar. Lack of PC, bluntness, the joking around, etc.

It's funny, but I've often felt there are many correlations between that certain type of New Yorker and that certain type of Londoner! They have many things in common, it's uncanny. I've thought that a lot.

I would tell the friend you don't like those friendly insults and they trigger you because of your bad past due to abuse. He might not realize it.

Good advice and good points, League Girl. Many times, a person doesn't realize. It might be good if I say something about that to him.

BirdInFlight:

I'm really, really hesitant to reply to your threads because when I see someone blatently mistreating you, I see you insist that that person is actually really friendly. It's hard to respond because I feel you won't believe me at all if I were to tell you otherwise.

You, like many others here, don't seem able to tell banter and friendliness from bullying. It's not *remotely* your fault. I can't always tell either in real time, and it's easier for me to tell when it's happening to others.

This man is being very mean to you.

I think it would be helpful to you to read up elsewhere about how humans talk to each other in this way. I can't think off the top of my head of how to describe this man's behaviour, but he is being a bastard. If he has learning difficulties, that would explain his behaviour. If he's NT, then no excuse.

That other thread you wrote about that guy in the park who wouldn't leave you alone, seeing what he did made me cringe. I mean God, if that's the same bloke, then I can only think he's being that insulting because he thought you rejected him romantically.

I'm really sorry. When I can, I will try to help you to see what I'm talking about. It must be horrible. *Hugs*

smudge, I trust what you say, and I think you're correct. I haven't up until now seen this for what it is, I think because at first for a long while he never said stuff like this, and all our interactions were "normal" (ie, no weird "banter"...), just conventional conversation. I don't know what changed but he suddenly brought in all this "mental" crap recently.

It's not the same guy as that one in the summer, nope -- thank god! No, that guy, I've never seen again and if I did I would be blatantly avoiding him and using strong language if he tried to start with me again.

This current person -- I think it's been harder for me to make the "switch" between being nice and conventionally polite because he was initially always nice and conventionally polite, to now probably having to tell him "WTF??" or to eff off completely.

You know how when it's been set in your mind about someone, that they are this or that? And when suddenly there's a change to bad behaviour, for a while I can find it hard to figuratively change gears and understand that now there's been a change in the dynamic, I have to change my reactions and get tough with that person.

But I'm finding it valuable to hear all of your reactions to this. And ones like yours, smudge, talking in quite a "what the hell?" manner about this guy, this helps me see more clearly that a gear change is actually needed.

It's so weird. If someone I don't know or just met is outright a dick to me, I can "have at it" more quickly and know what to do a bit faster. But when someone has historically been okay for a long while, and then introduces something new that is not acceptable, it's the darndest thing but I'm so slow on the uptake, slow to really get it on-board that this is not okay.

I think that's what's happened to me here; I'm needing the reminder that wait, woah, this is not okay.

It's almost worse for the fact that he didn't start out this way.

God this is sounding like how a lot of relationships go bad and someone stays in it too long - except this is only a random acquaintanceship. Already gone to a weird, abusive place! Yet he does it all with "only kidding" gales of laughter....

I would also never dream of any relationship with this person, I had already ruled that out even before the "mental" "jokes" started, as I'm not looking for anything like that at all at this juncture. But now, with this stuff, even if I had been, nope, this is not what I want in a random chat let alone a boyfriend.

Wanted to add, I'm pretty certain he's NT; from the few things he's described of his life, it sounds like a lot of normal elements -- friends, work, social life etc and his manner seems NT. My aspie radar doesn't get any signals from this guy.

i'd go with that too, i had that popping up of bad-intended persons also some time, not so long ago, when you think it's rockbottom already,
being an unconventional being can be a place where you miss first-redflags of tresspassing, actually you're a magnet for those who spot the easy to tresspass
the first probably is already your accessability (not being in a group), then your politeness when that is an open invitation, as at this point you missed already several intrusions (speaking from my experience that is)
and than they "grab you by the p..." so to say

temptations, not as in tempting but hindering, keeping you down
one victory, one goes, but there's another popping up somewhere

a good read when you have these 'encounters'

Yes, I think some people do seem to operate on a "how far can I push" on other people's boundaries. And if they believe they've already crossed a boundary, even if from my own point of view I wasn't particularly aware I had let them, but in their mind they did -- and sometimes that can even be the fact that I was "politely" letting them chat when I wanted to read my book or something --- then they seem to enjoy pushing at more boundaries.

All this of course slips past my awareness because I'm not seeing the world the way they do, and I feel like this is not something I even bother to do with others; I'm too oblivious for one thing. I'm always just trying to go about my day rather than having it in mind to play these mind games with people.

I think another reason why I haven't responded more swiftly and strongly to the introduction of this guy's harsh "humor" or whatever it is he thinks he's doing, is because I guess I'VE tried to be "politically correct" in trying to keep in mind that he is of a certain grouping of people who are quite harsh with each other.

What I do know of his upbringing is that he grew up in a local neighbourhood which happens to have always been, and still is, an extremely rough spot. There is high crime there, gangs, muggings, even shootings in recent years. Everyone knows it's heavy duty "east end of London" (the east end has always had very tough associations, kind of like the older image of places like Hell's Kitchen in NYC.

People there are very, very tough and rough around the edges. There's no "PC" there. People don't attend therapy for inner turmoil or learn about caring sharing behaviours. Friends bond with friends by calling each other "w*kers" and faking outright abuse all as " a good laugh."

What I guess I've tried to do is attempt to understand that he speaks a different language and grew up thinking different things were okay or even HOW you made a connection with someone.

It's not the way I grew up and it's not how I continued to form ideas about human relations in my adult life either. I'm more the typical touchy-feely sensitive soul who bonds with people in what he would probably think was sickly-sweet sincere ways.

This is a guy who is very "meat and potatoes" old school, and we have nothing in common except an interest in wildlife which is the setting in which we run across each other when we are respectively out and about in the parklands.

There are a lot of people who stop to chat with me out in this setting, and he is just one of these many people. Basically it's the local community and we all have a common interest in the parklands, some of in a volunteering capacity when called upon.

So he's another of these parklands/outdoors acquaintances who chat when they see me.

I think where the problem lies with this ugly stuff he's started "joking" about is that I've tried too hard to give him a free pass on this stuff, basically, my reasoning being because I realize he's from people who actually do talk to each other this way and think it's all hugely funny and acceptable.

I've tried to overlook it because I'm trying to keep in mind that where he's from it's commonplace.

That's where my problem is, I've tried to be culturally accepting -- actually, you could call it -- of someone who still calls people names thinking it's just hilarious.

But of course that doesn't mean it's okay for me.

So, I know now I shouldn't take this anymore. I was trying to accept how different people can be and trying to bear in mind it's just the way he grew up with. He's a rough type in his manners and education.

But I can't put up with it, I do think he's also pushing at boundaries.

I would tell this guy directly, "Well, you know, I have some people with mental illness in my family, so this kind of kidding isn't okay with me."

You might get an acquaintance back (as opposed to just cutting him out) and you will have educated him about what is a sensitive topic for many - which makes the world a better place, just a little bit. It's like if you know someone who kids about women being too fat or sloppily dressed; letting them know that's out of line makes it less likely they will say that in other contexts in the future.

I didn't get the feeling this guy was acting in a hostile way or a romantic way. I got the feeling he has a little bit of "mental" stuff himself (or in his family) and is slyly testing how you react to these kinds of comments. But all of these guesses about what is behind his verbal behavior are only just guesses, and sometimes overthinking a social situation leads to less correct views of it.

I like this advice Bea; I think that could be a good thing to say, to point out about others with mental illness. I agree it does help things generally to call people out on comments that are not okay.

I get an impression that he's around rough guy-friends who probably still say a lot of not-okay things about a lot of people, among themselves; there's a lot of that type of old school person around here, unfortunately.

It's probably ingrained in him to think this stuff is jokey material, but I'd like to say what you suggested next time.

I feel the need to add a comment in order to clarify something that I only just realized may be misunderstood about some of the things I've remarked upon in this thread, about this man.

I've given the information that he is from what he himself admits is a rough area in my city. Yes the people there are what could be described as low on the socio-economic ladder. He would be the first to proclaim that about his friends and family there, he doesn't have qualms about that.

Neither do I. But the reason I mentioned this aspect of this man was STRICTLY in order to illustrate that his understanding of what's humourous or friendly banter is different from my understanding, and only because I know very well that people from his background do talk to each other this way and they have no patience with politically correct, newer ideas about how it's actually abusive, not funny.

I also don't say this to excuse the guy for abusive humor. I'm in fact trying to make allowances for the fact that he DOES come from a different sub-culture from me.

That's NOT a judgement on the guy, it's not classism, it's not "He's beneath me" or "I'm better than him." It's merely acknowledging that we are different in what we believe is the right way to talk to people.

There's nothing wrong in noticing that things like this may be the reasons why someone is the way they are.

I just wanted to add that, in case anyone thinks I'm being classist or a snob for acknowledging that.

It's also still no excuse for saying what he's saying to me. I don't like it, and I appreciate the comments here supporting me in that.

I felt I had to comment on the "class" angle because I noticed that someone has posted a thread examining class discrimination in attraction to someone.

That's one more thing I wanted to mention -- I'm not attracted to this man, but that's NOT because he's from a different background from me but because I'm.....not attracted to him.

The "you're mental" comments don't exactly make one's heart flutter or loins tingle......cough cough.