Have you felt alienated/discounted by the autistic men here?

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Reminds me of my wife...

Seriously, my wife is one of the most severely NT people I know. She is more driven by feelings than anyone I know. What do I do with her? I treat her like I want her to treat me - accepting my quirks even though they don't always make sense. In the long term, we've learned from each other - she never understood the concept of "me time" before being around me, and I never knew how to talk to an emotionally hurt person before meeting her. It's been a great 33 years.

How this applies to the OP: Yes, I am like most men, and even with my AS I see a woman with AS and just want to hug them. Even praise can be ineffective. But acceptance and saying "You are a good person just the way you are" goes a long way for everyone, on or off the spectrum.

Except when you've secretly changed the definition of what it is to be a dick, and assume it's always intentional. This is a classic bait and switch, where you claim PC means something totally innocuous that no one could possibly object to, but in the wild the word is used much more broadly to cover a lot more contentious things, e.g. saying "America is a land of opportunity" being considered an actionable "microagression" at some colleges. Don't even make me bring up sh***y Asian food and Yoga constituting cultural appropriation.

Unfortunately, it turns out autists are as prone to taking in prejudices and absorbing thought patterns without even realising they have as are NTs. And they are just as prone to rationalising their prejudices. Not me though. I'm ace.

Throw in that, almost definitionally, Aspies are meant to be more intelligent and 'rational' than most people, this forming part of their self-image. Further, that a leaning toward 'scientific' explanations means a lot of the male understanding of male-female relationships is going to be through the lens of essentialist biology, and those rationalisations, and the defense of them, can get ugly.

Thank you Hopper, a great observation. The biology reference also explained a medical/social piece that has long confused me.

Just a small point ... I'm not sure if it matters if the dickishness is intentional. In fact, I think often it is not. People fall into habits of speech that they use often with their peers. When they encounter others they use the same language, but out of habit, rather than realizing their audience has changed. Of course some dickishness is purposeful. But even when it's not, I think correction is still due and the dick should be made aware of the effect of his/her language.

On autism forum, I go with people say what they mean without lots of weird unsaid messages and social games. If that's not the case, I don't care, I just say what I mean and leave them to what they're doing.

Can't disagree with that. Some of the stories I'm hearing are so bizarre that I can't hep but wonder if it's Faux News fear-mongering: if something seems too stupid to be true, it probably isn't true. Taking offense over a Star Trek reference? Over cafeteria food?

But I don't think that's what we're talking about, here. I think this conversation is much more on the level of, 'treat other human beings like they're human beings.'

This is a good article that I think has appeared on WP before, but is somewhat relevant to the topic and worth reposting for those who haven't seen it yet: http://www.salon.com/2015/01/10/the_pli ... socialflow

How was she dangerous?


I remember being told in 7th grade how bad it is to be too nice or else people will think you are a phony.

Niceness is only good if it's sincere. For example if one tells an ugly person that they are pretty, the ugly person thinks you're being creepy because, well, they own a mirror.

It depends on culture as well. In Britain if you are overly expressive with niceties, especially if that person is someone you hardly know, then that is seem as insincere and creepy. Americans seem to be more forward, but I've noticed that British people tend to be irritated by ott Americanness and are like, "oh just shut up already." I have an American friend who really isn't coping socially over here.

At least we can get away with smiling at strangers here. In Eastern European countries smiling at strangers is not a friendly thing to do. It is viewed with suspicion.

For one thing, she can put someone on the ground without them ever realizing where they're going until they get there. For another, she'll give someone as many chances as she can to back away, behave, don't be harmful- but if she gives up on someone, decides that they need to die to protect everyone else - she will kill them with her bare hands and walk away, and never lose a night of sleep over it. I feel guilty over killing spiders, even poisonous ones; she does not.

I don't feel guilty over killing spiders by stomping them. Maybe I should; after all, I wouldn't have the balls to try to stomp a lion to death.

Reading the threads where men ventilate their frustrations about not getting a girlfriend or some sex (which for some seems to be paramount of having a relationship) makes me sick, too. There is a strong over-representation of the very goodlooking type of Asperger females on youtube and elsewhere and in their videos at least they appear often very functional or/and very cute, and aspie men over-focus on this type of women because they feel most attracted by them - to the point of completely overlooking females that have the same problems they have. So probably a link to a video of yours (or several of less attractive aspie women) would help. Then emotional regulation is not exactly a strength of quite a lot of high-functioning Aspergers, so they use the opportunity to let off of their anger and frustration. I hope that it helps them to be less nasty to the next woman they feel attracted to, and this hope helps me.

Many men dont get how much of their past frustration and anger is lurking underneath when they are trying to relate to women, how it is scaring away potential girlfriends. I often feel the need to calm down someone who has more interest in me than me in him, and to reassure him that this rejection is far from being complete, even with men who have not that much trouble with finding a girlfriend. But those with autistic traits tend to see then the whole relation as a failure, as if they had done an investment that is completely lost. This is extremely disconcerting, and is actually a much more profound rejection of the other than the one they have just experienced or realized.

I appreciate it very much if a man manages to accept graciously that I dont want him as a romantic or sexual partner. The capacity to let go someone you like very much is in fact very attractive . But to understand this you probably first need to be able to truly relate to people and to appreciate also the small relations and short encounters for what they are.

Do you mean that your worries and frustrations are acceptable, but ours aren't, and that this is a good reason to be disgusted with us for making our own choices on what relationships we're interested in, rather than the ones you think we should make?

Can you specify who this comment is directed at?

It varies but I have probably felt discounted more often by women on here. I'm not even sure if I can explain it. I don't have the words right now.

Not really, though a lot of it is going to depend on what particular social justice issues you're arguing for and how you're presenting them. Don't get me wrong, you're going to get push-back if you go into PPR and argue social justice, I'll likely be leading a lot of it, but no digital lynch mob is going to come after you, unless of course you bring the torches and pitchforks yourself and start inciting people. That's kind of been the problem with SJ on this board, people who argue it tend to have this way of coming on very aggressively and being shocked and offended when not everyone is 100% on board, then throwing around loaded terms ending in ist, "calling out" the board for not being progressive enough, gnashing their teeth that presumably kind and logical Aspies don't agree with their views, etc. Then they get reported for the name calling and such (again, often by me), think they're being "silenced" when they're asked to comply with the same rules everyone else does, and generally make such a stink that everyone gets sick to death of them and starts looking for reasons to make them go away, completing the self fulfilling prophecy. I heard the last batch was banned by unanimous vote, and there were and are outspoken feminists on the mod team.



It's all in how you approach it, and preemptively writing everyone off probably isn't a good start. There's a member right now conducting a very rational defense of his opposition to certain feminist tendencies in PPR, citing stats and explaining himself to anyone who asks, and that's not at all uncommon.