sinsboldly wrote:
Lene wrote:
This is a weird one, that I only learnt the other day;
if an NT makes a 'half-joke' (i.e. they give out about you 'hogging' a particular chair, but in an over-the-top-'I'm only joking' kind of way), don't say 'do you want to sit down?' because they will always say 'no, no, of course not....I was only joking...', when in reality, what they wanted was for you to quietly vacate the chair without saying anything....
Basically, act like it's a joke, but take the message seriously
at least, that's what I was told by a friend, when I told him about a particular incident
(backfired later on with another person; I asked did she want to sit down nd she said no, & then I realised I should have said nothing, so I got up and stood beside it.. I think she was a little confused...)
Luckily not all NTs play these mind games; I certainly have no plans to kowtow to them anymore; it's insulting to the other people who aren't chosing to play them.
but it is not mind games to
them They literally don't know any different, as they have met, what, ZERO other folks like you? The vast majority in life have rarely considered that there are other people on this world that are not wired just like them. Oh, sure, had you had a PHYSICAL disability and had to sit, they would have made accommodations, but they have no clue that you have a different mind that sees things differently about the social transaction and exchange. My point is, they will rarely understand about you 'not kowtowing' to their neurology, will be confused about your hostility towards their acting 'normally' in the situation and think you a muddled crank if you try to explain after they have been socially embarrassed. Even worse is when they ask for the opinion of others of their neurology and they
all give you the eye roll.
just sayin'
I think in that instance, not all NTs would have reacted that way; it was a little more mind-gamey than I've experienced before (although, maybe I just haven't noticed the other ones). I wasn't rude or anything, I just asked her if she wanted the chair, and she started going on a stupid play-rant (*sarcasm*"oh, no, I wouldn't dream of it.. you keep the chair, it's okay...."*/sarcasm*) and five mintutes later, when I borrowed back my pen to fill in a form (she had taken my other one), it was; "oh, so now you're taking my pen, fine, be like that....".
Jeezus, the woman was at least 35, and acting like a toddler. I explained that it was
a. my pen, and
b. I was only borrowing it because she was currently using the one on my desk, but she still continued on and on. It backfired a bit, when I went to return it; I just put it on her desk and said 'here's the pen' because the boss was in her office with her; it turned out he was in the room next door the entire time of the rant, so she was at pains a few minutes later to let me know it was 'just a silly joke'
I've never experienced that before, but then again, I've had little experience in an office environment... I believe you when you say that people like that often don't think they're playing mind games, but are most NTs seriously like that?