NT men using our extreme focuses to sexually manipulate us
If you're absorbed in your own world it is easy for NT men to catch on. There are some men who are low enough to "enter our worlds" so they can take advantage of us sexually. They pretend to be consumed with the same obsessions we are so we will bow to their cocks. How can we become aware of this before it happens? Must we run from every man who appears to share our obsessions in fear of rape? /endrant
MarketAndChurch
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Just curious: Do you make yourself or your situation vulnerable up front? Do you play hard to get? When he pursuits you, how do you gradually let him into your life? Is his interest in your "world" the point of attraction or are you attracted to him first, he founds out about your world after as you get to know each other, and then ruins it afterwards?
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Has this happened to you Haywire? I only ask because I'm not familiar with it myself, but I'm sorry if you've experienced it.
I have met the odd guys who changes his interests to fit hers, but they actually seem less common than women who do the same thing; I've come across a few more women that pretend for years to like his football team or a particular heavy metal band and then laugh about it at a later date (personally, I'd be weirded out if I was the guy, though I guess you could see it as flattering)
I suppose you see through them by asking yourself 'if this guy wasn't interested in X/Y/Z, would I still date him?'- that applies even if he is genuinely into in the same things as you are as interests do change over time.
(edit; I took 'enter our worlds' to mean special interests. I might have got that wrong!)
Yes, my ex-husband did that. He also took advantage of my extreme social naivety and my (what I know now to be) too-literal interpretation of our religion. He was a creep. He was later diagnosed as having a couple of personality disorders (narcissism and sexual sadism disorder) and my therapist said not to be surprised if they someday find a stash of bodies in his basement.
Not every guy is like that though. My partner and I share many of the same interests - we also have different ones, so we'll take turns monologuing about them I admit that it's hard for me to concentrate for long on his interests, but I listen as much as I can and he does the same for me. And when we get going on something we have in common, it's absolutely wonderful.
My partner (who reads people very well) says that most signs of creepiness are in tone of voice and body language, and that's how I keep collecting creeps - they can tell I don't spot them. Right now I just avoid all men other than my partner and one of his friends (who I trust because his wife has PTSD like me and he's careful not to startle me).
I wish I could tell you how to protect yourself, but I just don't know how. My ex spent months getting my trust and getting me to believe he respected me, to the point where I literally did not believe it when he turned violent. I want to go for social skills training at some point, and how to spot creepy people is one of the main things I need to know.
I think I was in a similar situation a couple of times. Not that any man has ever pretended to be interested in my special interests (which isn't really possible because it requires knowledge and if he doesn't have it you figure out instantly that he is lying). If I start talking about my interests I rather tend to at best make people furl their brows and be astonished and worst scare them away.
However, it's more the problem that I can't really interpret body language and mimics and stuff and thus I usually don't figure out when someone is behaving normal and when not. I was working as a supervisor for a language workshop one time and because it was on the weekend I was alone at my workplace (we're usually 5 women) with a guy who took care of the computers. The workshop itself was in another room that was closed and one floor down so I was really alone with him in the office. He kept talking to me, which I found annoying as I wanted to read and surf in the internet and be left alone, but I didn't want to be impolite.
When I told him I was reading about Sweden and I like foreign countries he asked if I wanted to go on vacation with him, which I found strange but didn't know if it was just being polite or actually inappropriate. Then he started talking about women and that one of his ex-girlfriends had had a boob job and liposcution. He first took my top (it was very hot and I was just wearing a spaghetti strap top and jeans) and rucked it up and drew the lines on my skin with his fingers where she had had the operation on her belly. I found it strange and felt uncomfortable but I feel the same way when I have to hug people or shake their hands for saying hello so again I didn't know if he was just talkative and outgoing or if it was not okay.
Finally he drew the lines where they had cut his ex-girlfriend on my breasts (but over the shirt) and then I suspected that this was not okay but I still wasn't sure and because I was at work I was afraid to be impolite, as I'm only the little maid-of-all-work. I thought what if I accuse him of doing something inappropriate and he will be angry and tell my boss and my boss will wonder what I am making a fuss about, because nothing the man did was not normal?
When the workshop was over it was dark outside already and I was alone with him in the empty office building but I guess he got confused because I did neither get angry nor react to his very blatant flirt attempts (or sexual harrassment) so he finally left. I told my mother afterwards because I just didn't know how to feel about that. Well, she totally freaked out and so I told my boss who as well freaked out. The guy is not working for our company any more. Now I know I was lucky he wasn't a rapist but I really didn't get what he wanted when it happened.
I had a similar experience with a fellow student inviting me to a cafe after class and then suddenly asking to go home with him. Again, I didn't know if that was "normal" or not, so I said yes. He was Russian and he had plenty of real Russian beer and vodka at home and he offered me some. I suspected this to be a culture-thing so I said yes and he kept refilling until I had had half a liter of vodka and half a liter of beer. He had been drinking the same amount and because he was quite drunk he started telling me that he "wanted" me and that that's why he had asked me to come home with him. So now that I knew what was going on I told im I wasn't interested and then was quite astonished he kept insisting. Well, so I got angry and said he should stop bugging me and I'd go now, and I grabbed my things and went home.
My sister nearly dropped dead when I told her where I had been. I guess I was lucky again that I can drink a lot of alcohol before I get drunk. My sister also suggested never to tell my mother about it.
I'm still not sure what to think about it. Maybe the men were real jerks, or maybe they just misinterpreted my reactions for flirting back?
My problem is not that I'm actually shy or something. If I know what people want I know how to react. If someone is unfriendly I yell back and I'm usually considered to have a very bad temper. It's just that at times I don't realize that people pretend to be friendly but aren't, so I stay friendly myself because I don't get what they're up to...
Ilka
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Its extremely difficult to spot these guys. They fool NT women too and they do not have problem reading body language and social queues. I always distrust, automatically, of any person too kind or showing too much care for you without knowing you very well. For me that means one of two things: 1) he is lying, 2) he is too trustful, which aint good anyway.
I've been thinking about this a lot and so I'll post again.
Do you mean out-and-out violence, or social manipulation? I don't have any ideas for figuring out if someone is dangerous, but there are ways to protect yourself from social manipulation. I think the most important thing is having it straight in your own head what you want to happen and what you don't want to happen. Don't let someone rush you into making a decision in the moment - if your processing speed is slow like mine, you may make decisions based on what other people want because you need more time to catch up to the situation. Don't give in to any emotional plea, any threat to end the friendship/relationship, any appeal to "If you were normal, you would want this." Easier said than done, but an NT guy is more socially accomplished than you are and so your only safety is in holding to your boundaries. He might even be trying to be a decent guy, but what is flirtation to an NT girl can be confusing, frightening, and emotionally devastating to an AS girl.
I don't know if this is at all helpful, and I hope at least I don't make things worse. I just realized then that in theory, there would be no difference in how it is experienced between a situation where a guy is being coercive by NT standards, or flirting (but it being experienced differently by someone without the social know-how to deal with it).
Maybe I'm just that bad at this. Maybe this is just proof that I should never have been considered an adult capable of having sex. That's completely possible.
hartzofspace
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I found a lot of helpful advice in a book called "The Gift of Fear." I believe that Aspie females are especially vulnerable to predator behavior, since we miss so much of the non verbal in social interactions. I have found myself in many situations which puzzled me, because I didn't understand what was going on. A rather amusing example follows:
I had come out of my apartment to ask a neighbor to turn the volume down on his car stereo. He was cleaning out the car, and claimed that he hadn't realized that the music was bothering anyone. He started chatting with me, and after awhile he started telling me that he had a horrible addiction. My first thought was to wonder why on earth he was telling me? Like a rabbit in the headlights I kept standing there while he described how he just couldn't say no to sex. He claimed that if a woman asked him for sex he would give it to her. On and on he went. Finally I said that there were support groups for that, and that maybe he should get some help. And that he might possibly catch a venereal disease if he wasn't careful. Somehow the subject of age came up, and he suddenly seemed really shocked to realize that I was much older than he. (I look very young) Again I was puzzled because why should my age suddenly matter? It wasn't until much later that I realized that he had been flirting with me and then felt shocked because I was so much older than he had thought me to be.
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Id say use huge caution and extreme skepticism and if you have a friend whos good and sniffing out the bad guys. Have them meet the person. If you dont have any good friends in real life. Try describe them to your online friends and see what they say. Send pics of the guys and give them whatever info u can. If you dont even have any good online friends, I dont know. Im guessing most aspies at least have online friends.
Be super skeptical if the guy claims to have all the same interests as you or fakes passion for something your passionate about. Guys do that a lot, its really stupid. For me, Ive had guys fake passion and to me its soo incredibly lame how they do that. For me, I got more feminine interests so if a guy pretends to have those interest, I know somethings up. Typically people might have some overlapping interests, some similar some different: thats natural. How common do you meet someone completely self-absorbed in the stuff your into, its probably rare.
I have some a couple NT female friends that whenever they go to clubs are super skeptical and nitpicky about all the guys there. After listening to them talk, I kinda got the sense of how nitpicky I suppose to be if Im meeting a guy online especially or not connected to a social circle.
Crucial rule: If a guy claims to have all the same interests as you, be skeptical. Likelihood that he doesn't.
Another rule: If your into an aspie guy, just cause there aspie, dont mean they dont lie, however a lying aspie males are much easier to sniff out then a deceiving NT male cause aspies typically suck at deception. Trust me, some aspie males are still trying to be asses and poorly imitate their NT counterparts.
And another one: If the guy knows your diagnosis, be skeptical if he claims to have aspergers. Thats another lure, I suspect I met a guy online claiming to be aspie and he could have been lying. I think thats just low.
If you meet them in social circles, if u have trusted friends who are also acquinted with the person, run it by them. However the reality for many aspie females is that we dont have those trusted friends so were often alone. Like I said in the above post, use extreme skepticism.
I dated men that were in my social circles, except my most recent ex who I met online. He was fine and left me because his mom didn't like me. The other two, who I knew as friends first, treated me worse. Sooo...being friends first doesn't always guarantee success. >.<
I dated men that were in my social circles, except my most recent ex who I met online. He was fine and left me because his mom didn't like me. The other two, who I knew as friends first, treated me worse. Sooo...being friends first doesn't always guarantee success. >.<
Hmm...how long were u friends with them before you started dating. Because as I talk to guys here and there. I get the idea, a lot of guys originally pursue friendships with girls with the hope of something more. Whatever that something more may be, FTFs or relationships. Or there drawn cause shes attractive. Guys are more likely to want to befriend a girl they find attractive then not, even if its on a subconscious level. Ok cause if ur friends with a guy for a few months, then it becomes something else, its likely they were trying to pursue you to start but going for a less direct route then just outright asking u out. If it was a yr or more, then your right the friendship one doesn't always work. But then also, what was the nature of their friendship, good friends, lesser friends. Sometimes aspies mistaken acquaintances for friends.
I dated men that were in my social circles, except my most recent ex who I met online. He was fine and left me because his mom didn't like me. The other two, who I knew as friends first, treated me worse. Sooo...being friends first doesn't always guarantee success. >.<
Hmm...how long were u friends with them before you started dating. Because as I talk to guys here and there. I get the idea, a lot of guys originally pursue friendships with girls with the hope of something more. Whatever that something more may be, FTFs or relationships. Or there drawn cause shes attractive. Guys are more likely to want to befriend a girl they find attractive then not, even if its on a subconscious level. Ok cause if ur friends with a guy for a few months, then it becomes something else, its likely they were trying to pursue you to start but going for a less direct route then just outright asking u out. If it was a yr or more, then your right the friendship one doesn't always work. But then also, what was the nature of their friendship, good friends, lesser friends. Sometimes aspies mistaken acquaintances for friends.
First one I was friends with for 6 months, the other I was friends with for 2-3 months after I told him that I liked him and he had no idea. >.<