People treat me like i'm a toddler.

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Aspie_Nerd42
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15 May 2013, 12:11 am

When i'm at school, there are people that treat me like i'm five. For instance, I was in the library checking out Jurrasic Park, and two girls saw it and said "Oh hey, do you like dinosaurs?" And whenever things like this happen I end up walking away red faced and embarresed because I have no idea how to react.



donothing1979
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15 May 2013, 12:37 am

Aspie_Nerd42 wrote:
When i'm at school, there are people that treat me like i'm five. For instance, I was in the library checking out Jurrasic Park, and two girls saw it and said "Oh hey, do you like dinosaurs?" And whenever things like this happen I end up walking away red faced and embarresed because I have no idea how to react.


well, aside from the inaccuracies in the storyline, the physiology of the dinosaurs, and ... "frog DNA"... what's wrong with Jurassic Park? i saw it in the theater about 4 times when it came out.


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15 May 2013, 1:11 am

to the OP: at least from your brief description of events, I did not see anything that would indicate that they thought of you as similar to a little kid.



Chris71
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15 May 2013, 4:03 am

The reason for that reaction from those girls would most likely be one of two things ( or combination of both ):
- You yourself are probably aware that the study of dinosaurs can be a science, studied by many adult and highly mature academic people. However, the ubiquitious masses of people out there, who get their kicks from reality TV shows and herd mentality, have no attention span for such academic areas of interest so their only knowledge of dinosaurs are through toy representations that younger kids generally play with, with some limited knowledge that they were some kind of species that existed long ago. In other words, because of their lack of academic maturity, they assume that the study of (or interest in) dinosaurs is typically associated with 5-year old boys.

- The trigger for their comment ("oh hey do you like dinosaurs?"); presumably a comment with humorus and slightly derogatory intentions, could be because their perception of your appearance.
If you appear visually to them as a nerd, then they will talk to you like one. Why?... Their own experience of nerds are they appear as the awkward ones in groups, with no care for fashion or clothes style, hair styles, appearance, that most 'herd mentality' people care about. They certainly don't want to have a quirky/awkward person (in their perception) associated with their own girly group. In other words, they sometimes find it necessary to say something derogatory to a nerd-lookalike in order to distance their girly group from anything that isn't 'cool' (in their interpretation) ; "that guy is *so* not like us, so we want to reinforce a sense of distance between the nerd and our girly group".



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15 May 2013, 5:29 am

Aspie_Nerd42 wrote:
When i'm at school, there are people that treat me like i'm five. For instance, I was in the library checking out Jurrasic Park, and two girls saw it and said "Oh hey, do you like dinosaurs?" And whenever things like this happen I end up walking away red faced and embarresed because I have no idea how to react.

If I am to interprete it the way I think you have, then you believe that they were mocking you, since Dinosaurs are common thing for little boys to be very interested in (say 4-7 years old) and hence they were making fun of you by implying you were immature.
Things like this used to happen to me, and I could never think of how to react either. It's just as bad in the workplace.



Redstar2613
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20 May 2013, 5:29 pm

Chris71 wrote:
The reason for that reaction from those girls would most likely be one of two things ( or combination of both ):
- You yourself are probably aware that the study of dinosaurs can be a science, studied by many adult and highly mature academic people. However, the ubiquitious masses of people out there, who get their kicks from reality TV shows and herd mentality, have no attention span for such academic areas of interest so their only knowledge of dinosaurs are through toy representations that younger kids generally play with, with some limited knowledge that they were some kind of species that existed long ago. In other words, because of their lack of academic maturity, they assume that the study of (or interest in) dinosaurs is typically associated with 5-year old boys.

- The trigger for their comment ("oh hey do you like dinosaurs?"); presumably a comment with humorus and slightly derogatory intentions, could be because their perception of your appearance.
If you appear visually to them as a nerd, then they will talk to you like one. Why?... Their own experience of nerds are they appear as the awkward ones in groups, with no care for fashion or clothes style, hair styles, appearance, that most 'herd mentality' people care about. They certainly don't want to have a quirky/awkward person (in their perception) associated with their own girly group. In other words, they sometimes find it necessary to say something derogatory to a nerd-lookalike in order to distance their girly group from anything that isn't 'cool' (in their interpretation) ; "that guy is *so* not like us, so we want to reinforce a sense of distance between the nerd and our girly group".


Very well said! I don't think it could have been explained any better.



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21 May 2013, 12:05 pm

I remember when I was about 15 I had a small ''Tracey Beaker'' keyring on the zip of my pencil-case. I wasn't into Tracey Beaker, it was just an old keyring I found and thought I would put it on the zip of my pencil-case, for no reason in particular. And then two girls in my science class looked at it and one of them said, ''my sister likes Tracey Beaker. She's eight.'' I've never had much trouble with ''reading between the lines'', and so I could tell these girls were trying to criticise that I ''mustn't'' like Tracey Beaker because I'm too old. I didn't know what to say to react at the time, so I didn't say anything. But I felt a little offended.


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21 May 2013, 1:39 pm

Aspie_Nerd42 wrote:
When i'm at school, there are people that treat me like i'm five. For instance, I was in the library checking out Jurrasic Park, and two girls saw it and said "Oh hey, do you like dinosaurs?" And whenever things like this happen I end up walking away red faced and embarresed because I have no idea how to react.



I don't see how that is treating you like you are five. It just sounded like normal chit chat to me, tying to strike up a conversation.


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21 May 2013, 3:23 pm

/\ /\ /\

Seconded.



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21 May 2013, 4:20 pm

I think I will think twice next time if I want to strike up a conversation with someone because they might think I am treating them like they are a child or something. Or maybe it's the OP having difficulty because they do say autistic people have a hard time with reading peoples intentions. Perhaps the OP misread that person's intention.


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21 May 2013, 4:48 pm

/\ /\ /\

Hard to say for definite, but that does sound like the most likely explanation.



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21 May 2013, 7:40 pm

Some things are cool to some people, because they have the intellectual capacity to grok them in their fullness, and appreciate them as cool. Others, lacking that ability to grok, will consider these things as uncool, because of an inability to appreciate them.

Dinosuars are cool. Even the kid's toys.

Image


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donothing1979
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25 May 2013, 9:07 am

polarity wrote:
Some things are cool to some people, because they have the intellectual capacity to grok them in their fullness, and appreciate them as cool.


saying "grok" is cool. :)


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Hollie1996
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26 May 2013, 2:13 am

This happens to me all the time I understand how u feel. Its a terrible feeling sometimes I wish those girls would leave me alone just do your best not to react



KagamineLen
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26 May 2013, 4:44 pm

Sometimes, people are jerks. What those girls said reflected upon their own insecurities, and it had little to do with you. Most likely, they will continue to live their unhappy lives while you go home to enjoy watching Jurassic Park without them.

I get a lot of flack from my family because I enjoy watching Spongebob Squarepants. The only reason they are using an example like that to prove that I have an "immature" mind is because they are so insecure about their own immature traits that they need to stereotype others to feel better about themselves.

Knowing all of this does not make it any less annoying at times, but hang in there.