NT things/Social rules you find stupid or rude?

Post Reply New Topic

In my age group a lot of them seem to have the habit of using their phone when someone is talking to them like when going out to dinner instead of just talking to the person they're with they just whip out the phone and use it till the food is coming.

Demanding eye contact, of course as some one with autism I find it incredibly insensitive and stupid, why exactly do you want my optical nerves to look at yours and how can you tell what is going on through another person just by looking into their eyes. I listen with my ears not my eyes. I read up that it is rude in some parts of Asia to have prolong eye contact.

The need to try and pry information out of someone when they're upset or angry when they clearly just want time to cool off alone.

Men have to buy ladies drinks in bars if they wanna talk with them. Men have to ask out or propose to a woman and never the other way around.

I noticed a while back the "Good for you" sarcasm was everywhere, whenever I had something good to announce or share, I'd get this comment, I didn't detect sarcasm at the time so I said thanks back. They certainly didn't like when I said it back (even though I actually meant it).

Of course the "No offense but" thing was rampaging everywhere when I was back in the 5th grade, people would use it in the most dumbest ways like "No offense but you're ugly" "No offense but I think short people should die" saying offensive things and thinking no offense makes it less offensive .

Any you guys can think of?
Edit:
Oh yeah another one I hate is people who ask for any "opinions" when they really want compliments I speak what I think of it with no lies or sugar coating instead of giving them a compliment like "Wow you're gonna be the next Mozart!!" they get angry when I don't praise them and give them constructive criticism or an opinion that they don't like instead. I often have to avoid small childrens' work because I will not hold back on them.

Last edited by LastSanityJermaine on 19 Jan 2014, 11:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Generally speaking, NTs aren't worth getting to know better. Your better off spending time developing your interests into skills that can get you employment in the future.

You're in the middle of a conversation and then another person buts in and starts talking to them and they start talking back to them ignoring you all of a sudden.

Men can't show emotion in public
Eye contact
Pink is for girls
Being fat is bad

Any hierarchies

That's funny, when I was giving my autism lecture to my old abnormal psych class last semester, my professor said she had a girl in class who would ask offensive questions and preface them with , "no offence but," and be completely naive as to how inappropriate she was being. I had to stifle a laugh when she asked me a question at the end of my lecture and started it, "This might sound really terrible but..." Fortunately it wasn't, but I still found it a little amusing.

As for NT rules that bother me, the small talk thing seems really stupid, I don't know why people can't just start conversations about things that are actually interesting, why is it considered polite to bore people for the first hour or so of their meeting you by discussing the weather or what celebreties have been up to? I also don't like the mandated eye contact; why should I be thought less of or found creepy because I'm unable to talk and stare at someone at the same time?

The most contradictive phrase "no offense" is pointless, since every time it is used, you know they are insulting you on the spot. Same with how people will lie about themselves in order to impress others. Also, I have a pet peeve against those who are vigorously sarcastic, even if is seemingly harmless. It's things like this that make talking painful.

Technology has come along way. When i was 17, I didn't have this problem the same way you guys do now. Mind you, 11 years ago, very few people I knew carried their cell phones around compared to now. Now why would someone answer their cellphone? It's on them for being rude here. They are simply indicating that they would rather be somewhere else if they have to use their phone in front of you.



Eye contact can be scary. the eyes of another person tells a story. They can either show calmness, or intensity for example. People often don't like making eye contact with an intense person.



I find women are more likely to do this than men. It isn't sexist by any means. Men would rather be on their own to calm down. Women typically like to let out their emotions. A lot of miscommunication occurs because of this. The fault can never be directly pinned on autism or aspergers.



When women chase me, we never stay together long. They usually need some form of reassurrance that helps them believe their men are in fact interested in them. Of course, there are some women that don't mind using men for free stuff either. But you have to be careful sorting that out. The give and take works here and must work both ways.



I wouldn't say this is NT based at all what I can think of. But there are a lot of people who take out their frustration and pain on people that don't deserve it. (Ie. ex treats boy/girl badly, that boy/girl takes it out on the next person that comes along, and feels justified in doing so).

As someone still stuck in the Twilight Zone between the NT and Autistic worlds, I'll let you know a little secret-

A lot of NTs hate it when the person they're with starts chattering away on the phone instead of talking with them. I mean, that is what the two of them apparently agreed on, namely to spend some time together. "Oh, yeah, I'd love to spend some time with you. Now let me ignore you and use my mobile to talk to someone else entirely."

They hate that too, and view the types who do that as just plain rude.

Unless of course the NT we're talking about is one of the jerks who do it, but they're probably so socially inept even an Aspie would be able to give them lessons on NT behavior.

^ this.

The lies really bother me - the little social lies that make their world go around, the "white lies" they persist in telling, the lies or untruths that can easily be shown to be untruths - climate-change deniers I mean you, but anyone who believes in modern economics and so on! The lies they tell to palm a problem off on someone else.

I wish they would stop lying.

I also wish that they wouldn't go on about their wonderful empathy. If they were so empathic the world would be a much nicer place, because they would actually understand when someone is being hurt, feel it themselves, and stop doing so many of the things they do. No more bullying, no more discrimination, no more poverty, no more wars. Many of them really need to face this. I genuinely think impairment of affective empathy is more common than they like to admit.

Yep I'm NT and I don't like any of those things either. I don't use my phone on a night out. I used to work in a shop and people would be chatting away on their phone as I was serving them and just shove their money in my direction which I found really rude.
And 'no offense but...' just seems to be a warning that you are about to be offended. It's like when people say 'I'm not racist but....' If you aren't going to say anything offensive/racist then surely there's no need to defend what you are about to say.

I agree with Niall. I don't understand when people ask you something and you are expected to be less than honest in your answer. Like, if I ask my husband if my jeans are too tight, I actually want to know. If they look too tight, I would like to know so I can change them before we go out in public. I am not fishing for a compliment or whatever people are usually doing when they ask things like that. Why ask something if you don't really want an answer?

Yes, I experience that too. I didn't notice it until after I was diagnosed (quite recently) as having AS. I think it's "subconscious perception of body language signals", in my own beyond-most-people way of putting it. Basically I think everyone else (NT) is connected to everyone else by body language - like everyone being a dot in the room and every dot connected to every other dot. Except one. Me. A dot alone and connected to nothing else. I lack the radio transmitter and receiver that is body language. So, someone else will walk in and their body language will draw the person you were talking with towards them. That and the fact that NTs, it appears, quickly tire of any conversational material that isn't short and pithy and stop listening - and use no effective communication method that reaches us to indicate that - as they are quickly bored. No attention span to listen to anything interesting or concentrate on anything in depth. (Except other people to whom they are connected and thus drawn.)

The other one that gets me is that, for example at a disco, apparently they need breaks to go and talk with their other friends and leave you alone. They're not intending to be rude apparently! So I was told when someone who now knows I have AS told me for the first time in my life a few weeks ago. Until that point, I'd never realised it. (Another unwritten, and illogical, rule it seems, one that yet again I never learned.) I thought people just walked off occasionally and perhaps just didn't like me. (I thought 'perhaps no-one likes me', as it seemed to be everyone that did this - although it didn't and doesn't greatly upset me.)

However, although they told me they weren't being 'rude', I still thought/felt they were! It's very rude, in my view, to go off and leave someone all alone for a while. Especially as no-one else is interested or listening to me either after that point.

And... NTs are the ones that say we are rude because we don't pay attention to them (we are aloof etc.)! I know nothing of relationships, so really I'm out of my depth commenting on NT-AS partner relationships etc. But one thing I've read (ha ha - laughing as almost everything I know is read and I've no practical experience of much at all) is that the NT partner often feels her (and it usually is her) needs aren't being met. The AS person is often cold and somewhat distant. Well, I felt the NT that left me at the party whilst she went off to her friends was, by doing that, somewhat cold and distant!

(The reason for my sometimes 'aloofness'. Sometimes social interaction is just too much to handle for my brain when I am concentrating on doing something else. I'm not ignoring you - it's just my brain can't handle both at once. Especially as concentrating on the task I'm doing, plus concentrating on and hearing everything you are saying, is taking up enough space in my brain that to respond or, beyond that, not just to respond but give eye-contact as well, is just too much.)

Last edited by ScottyD on 19 Jan 2014, 7:40 pm, edited 5 times in total.

EMTkid

I think (well, I know) that sometimes they lie in order to avoid hurting someone. I mean, for example, if you ask "are my jeans too tight?", and what you mean is "does my bum look huge in these jeans?" the correct answer is not, "you look like a beached walrus".* It might be true, but it would be hurtful.

In any case, when people think that Jennifer Lawrence is overweight, something is badly wrong with out perceptions of normal female body weight.

On the other hand, there might be ways of conveying the information that losing a couple of kilos might make you less at risk from diabetes without fat shaming or using a "you look great" cop-out.

*Obviously not commenting on your backside here: having never seen it, as far as I know.

Meaningless small talk and fishing for compliments are the main things that annoy me and I may or may not be NT, but I also agree with pretty much everything already stated.