If you've learned to "fake it"...why do you?

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This is why I "fake it".
The only way I have been able to succeed in school/jobs is by "faking it".
The "real me" only seems to cause problems in these environments.
I have a variety of personae that I can put on like masks should the need arise.
I do this out of necessity. I am fully aware of the interpersonal quagmire this can create.
Indeed, I've had a number of implosive relationships with other people because of this.

I suppose I'm becoming jaded... I'm through with trying to fit into society now, and I just want to survive and live as well as I can, now that I finally understand the sort of reality that I actually live in. If I have to "fake it" to earn a living, so be it. Maybe there will come a day when this whole dire equation will lessen in severity, and I can be myself all the time.

I think I'm such a blunderer when it comes to socializing, and also a bad actor, that a day of faking and acting "normal" usually leaves me mentally and physically exhausted. For my own daily peace of mind, I just basically wear a smile and remain inconspicuously as possible in the background, never volunteering for anything unfamiliar.

Survival.

yep.
survival and as much isolation away from the madding crowds, as is possible. (In my case that has always been most of the time.)
I have learned some "faking it skills." But i am left exhausted by them - and the faking it always came unstuck because i would invariably resort to type and start on about a special interest, facts, or query the hypocrisy of social exchanges and social functioning. You become a bit of a pariah after a while...

and then of course, breakdowns are too numerous to count. In fact, I think my life has been one BIG breakdown....

i feel very, very tired by life these days.

You said it, millie!

Survival and protecting the things that are important to me, such as caring for my father's wellbeing puts me in touch with lots of ego-driven doctors and specialized nurses.

I don't necessarily "fake it", but sometimes if I'm in a room full of people I try to fake a smile otherwise they end up asking me what's wrong. I don't see why I have to be smiling all the time but apparently people do.
I haven't pretended to be someone I'm not though. I'm not going to go out with people just to please my family and I'm not going to stop talking about certain things or being interested in them just because other people think it's strange. I will however say "I'm fine" to avoid being questioned about how I am.

All I do is "fake it". I was tired of my parents neating me for not, and I was tired of school threating me because I was odd. I have day everyonce and a while where I can not, not act like how my brain is telling me. I do try not to put up a front when around my friend Victoria and my bf Jordan, who is also an Aspie. Jordan gets angry when he find out that I am trying to act like something else, well angry at my parents.

Thats the beauty of the fact, that when they get old and disabled. you can stick em in a second class nursing home ,and when they ask why you never think about them, then you can explain every little detail...and how they sided with the bullies over their own kid...What goes around, comes around.

What do people actually mean by "faking it"?

Do you mean, utilizing your rote memory for verbal replies in various situations, and if you weren't "faking it", you wouldn't use these replies?

See:

Person without AS: 'Hello!'
Person with: 'Hi!"
Without: 'How are you?'
With: 'Fine, thanks. You?'
.
.
.
... .

(This above is the only thing close to "faking it" I've found in the text, other than mimicking a fictional character, which is the same thing, really.)

One very "important"/central thing to faking it ( for AS women anyway, because it is something women "do" more than men in general ), is "the smile(s)"!

A huge range; the gracious "thank you" sort, or the "sufficiently pleasant"/"friendly neighbourly" kind to people in your street, or the reserved/minimum version for people you actually don't like much ( but have to live/work/study in proximity to ), and dozens of others, eg. the questioning smile, the concerned/sympathetic smile, ( which I find very very difficult and suspect doesn't look the way it's supposed to; my real reaction when I'm feeling "sympathetic/concerned" is actually to cry with the person, and sometimes I almost do, which is very embarrassing if it's in public or with a relative stranger ), the "challenging" smile, the overtly patient but weary smile, the "I've understood you" smile, etc etc etc ... and all the eyebrow movements and tilts of head to go with them.

I often used to get my smile "wrong" by turning the wattage up too high, to almost everybody, ( it took me ages to discover that this was being seen as an invitation/"come-on" ), and have tended to get wrong in the other direction since realised this. Something I find complicated is judging how much smile is appropriate for the amount of chit-chat I am prepared to follow up with. I've begun to realise that if I smile at a neighbour in a very friendly fashion, cos I'm happy or feeling glad to live where I do, or whatever, that there seems to be some expectation that I stop and say things to "go with it", and if I don't they see see what was actually a genuine smile as "fake"/glib! So sometimes "faking" involves not smiling.

Another is the series of short answers, ( an exhaustingly big array, with minute variations for different situations ) for polite conversation with coworkers/acquaintances etc. Another is the way you are supposed to look at a person when you talk to them, ( not just when you listen ), and so on. Billions of small adjustments to voice, face, verbal response, etc, which take a lot of energy, and brainpower even just approximating.

I think AS women "present differently" to men because women do anyway; there is much more pressure on women to interact socially, to be sensitive to social signals, and there are more neural links between the two hemispheres in female brains too, suggesting more of the kind of "blended skills" involved in socialising, so that many AS women do learn more of the things that are supposed to do socially, sometimes/often ( because society encourages women to take social skills/knowledge very seriously indeed ), in as much profound depth and incredible detail as a special interest, but it remains something forced/artificial/"performed, and takes an awful lot of energy.

Like I said in my first reply on page 1, I think I learned to "fake it" because language told me that women did all this stuff, had to do it to be a real or successful woman. I still remember the first ever junk romance book I read, aged 10/11, came across it at a school fete, and my parents were furious and handed it back before I had read more than the first chapter, but ... which set lightbulbs flashing in my head, and the girly magazines that the girl next door let me have when she had finished with them and which I read with concentration in order to find out about this whole new identity/behaviour.

.

Last edited by ouinon on 06 Jul 2009, 2:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

I tried "faking it" for a while....and it was just TOO "fake" to me; I had to be me.

so I am...and apparently "me" is the personality of a 40-year-old stockbroker...and it's stuck in the body of a 27 year old. But that's who I am, and I can't change it just to fit in. If I'm not meant to fit in, I'm not meant to fit in. Basically, if you're trying to fit in, then those people aren't interested in YOU, but the phony you that you've created...so what's the point?

If you are a girl/woman, social skills are actually an inherent part of the identity that language teaches you "is" you/a woman. If language means much to you then it is like an imperative; if you are a woman you must be like this, do this; that is the "law"/the way it is.

And if you are bullied/mocked/ostracised and labelled lesbian ( which "label" Monique Wittig pointed out means "not a woman", because aren't doing what women do, which is "having sex with men" ), for your lack of social skill as a teenage girl there seems to be a point; simply putting a stop to "pain" and humiliation.

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Last edited by ouinon on 06 Jul 2009, 2:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

I've been ostracized my whole life. The thing to remember is this: there's the pain and humiliation you'll receive from everybody else, but it doesn't even close to compare to the pain you'll have on the inside for selling yourself out, and being something you're not.

I experienced that in my late twenties. I discovered the "me" underneath, and it was a revolution/painful breakdown. I have learned how much "faking it" costs, and reduced my mental and emotional "expenditure" on it, ( energy/brainpower, time, etc ), and I also make sure that I get enough downtime to retrieve "me". I have arrived at a compromise between them.

I still "fake" a bit any time that I am out and about. I have a 10 year old AS/PDD son, who until this year has been homeschooling; I couldn't afford to appear too peculiar because if you do they can make your child go to school; they impose social "controls" every two years, and want proof that the child has a social life. And some fundamental "faking" has become automatic through years of use, if still tiring.

If you have a well paid/valued skill/independent income, own a house, have no children, and don't suffer from mental illness, ( depression, mood disorders, anxiety, etc ), which fragilise, then yes, you don't have to "fake it", but if you have to pass as normal in order to earn money, or have the right to look after your child the way you believe is right, or if you live in rented acccommodation, then you need to "fit in" to some extent. If you don't see that necessity then you are privileged.
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Last edited by ouinon on 06 Jul 2009, 2:34 am, edited 2 times in total.