What IS vs. what it LOOKS LIKE

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I don't give anyone any tact points for saying "no offense but...". It's bullsh*t. People who say that clearly don't care whether they offend or not. Telling me I shouldn't be offended before saying something that will no doubt offend me is condescension, not tact.

I encountered trouble in the workplace over such issues; particularly when starting out. Others I have known had it worse; for example, one person would go for days without work but still have to attend full-time and pretend they were actually doing something, even though the manager knew there was no work in. At least they knew they had to pretend; I remember reading magazines until more work came in.

Concerning gifts: I once gave an ex partner some birthday gifts and had very little money anyway, but did my best. They were so disappointed with the gifts they actually cried in front of me. It was awful.

Indeed, and said poster seems rather familiar.

When it comes to professional work such as consulting, the goal is to keep the client happy because that's the bread and butter. Most/many clients don't have the capacity or interest or time to appreciate the technical details involved in the service performed, and are basically paying for security and reassurance. An AS professional may feel offended that the client's expectations are at variance with the diligence and sweat involved in performing the task, and send the wrong vibes, so that the client perceives that something is wrong loses that sense of security. Alot of money is often at stake, and kissing ass can be just as or more important than the service itself, because you want repeat business and a good reputation.

Of course a few years ago I didn't appreciate the value of perception, and assumed that the nuts and bolts was the only thing that mattered. Plus couldn't understand the office politics and other BS. No longer in consulting.

I've since moved on to renovations. Less stressful and the client sees what they get. But all the same, a paint job that takes 2 hours to do generates way more goodwill and is generally met with "wow, you really worked hard," than a behind-the-wall plumbing or electrical job (which is way more important) that takes a month and the client generally says repeatedly "why haven't you done anything?"

Style will always win out over substance. Until the chips are down.

Last edited by shadfly on 21 Oct 2009, 2:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

Greentea: Perfect anaysis. Obviosly is ethically better the "AS way" but sometime is better to switch for the second (if you care for the results).

Thank you, Nightsun.

Shadfly, that's exactly what I mean. Now I know that I managed to explain what I meant, because I wasn't sure.

Indeed, we Aspies tend to overestimate the capacity, interest and time the other person will have or want to put into appreciating what IS. It's easier to judge by what LOOKS LIKE. In the example of the birthday present, we tend to overestimate the centrality of logic in an adult's mind, and take for granted that the friend will prefer a more suitable present to a more timely one. Many, many adults, however, are grown children and want whatever present you bring them, but want it NOW, on the birthday day. And that's perfectly legitimate, just a different approach caused, at the root, by a different neurology.

Some Aspies claim to have mastered the NT social way. I very much doubt they've mastered the million and one ways in which an NT and an Aspie act and think differently, based on their different neurologies. The topic of this thread is just a tiny drop in the sea of those differences, and it took me 45 years of hard work of observation and analysis to discover it. Only Aspies who truly know, know that we know nothing - as the saying goes.

wow. I'm new here but the hostility in some of these posts saddens me. I would totally choose the what is option. it's gotten me into big troublein life but has also made me a bad ass at my job. I'm also a gay man. very very gay am I. and some of the verbage here reminds me of the homophobia I grew up with and how I've had to exercise it from every action and thought and muscle and atom until my spirit was free and accepting of myself. I can only wish the same for all of you.

There is no need to choose between #1 and #2. You can do both fairly easily as I learned from my parents when I was a kid. Once when I was a kid they got me a bicycle for my birthday. They ordered it from a catalogue. It had not arrived yet by the time of my birthday so they cut the photo out of the catalogue, put it in a birthday card, and explained that the bike in the photo would be arriving at some point in the hopefully near future. The few times I've found myself in the same boat, I give the person a birthday card which says something along the lines of #1 yet is a physical object I have presented, fulfilling the social obligations of #2. Dilemma solved.

I understand the tug between "how it looks" and "how it is". Sometimes the difference is petty and not that important. Sometimes it is literally a matter of life and death, which is why defense lawyers are needed. Sometimes an innocent person can appear guilty of a crime and then sorting out the difference between "how it looks" and "what it is" is vital. I think it's situational. Sometimes "how it is" is very important. Sometimes "how it looks " is very important. (I'm following a post about the importance of "how it looks" in jobs where a client's sense of security is dependent on their perception of what is happening.) Sometimes a middle ground can be found to bridge the divide between "how it looks" and "what it is" as in the gift example.

A post about white lies meant to spare feelings would be about tact. But this subject isn't really about tact or sparing feelings. It's about the gap that sometimes happens between perception and reality- and how NT people don't get cognitive dissonance from that gap whereas AS people do. Spit shining an area because the boss is walking through (paraphrasing another post) isn't about sparing anybody's feelings. And all the people involved are well aware that spit shine is not the norm. But this gap doesn't cause extreme discomfert to NTs. At most it causes annoyance.

I agree. I also think a big difference is what you have elsewhere called The Unsaid. What appearances are required and how to go about simulating them is part of The Unsaid- particularly hard for Aspies to access- and it is cultural. You learn it (or don't) by growing up immersed in your culture and what you learn of The Unsaid and the appearances that it mandates can't be transferred from one culture to another. An NT person who goes to a different culture will be clueless and lost in that gap between What It Is and What It Looks Like because where exactly that gap is will differ from culture to culture. But the commonality is a neurological difference because every culture will have that gap and its' own Unsaid, it's just the specifics that differ.

Right now I'm reading a fascinating book called "The Anglo Files" by Sarah Lyall. She is an American (like me) who moved to England after marrying an Englishman. Her book is about The Unsaid (although she doesn't call it that) and the places where it differs strongly between the UK and the US. Much of it is about her discombobuloment as she tries to understand where exactly the gap is between How It Looks and What It Is and how to navigate this gap once she finally figures out its location. Apparently in the UK, there is a considerably larger disparity between what people say and what they mean. I thought of WP as I read the chapter. As an NT she's used to white lies. But as an American (like me) she's also used to a certain level of bluntness, oversharing and boasting. She couldn't figure out how to interpret many of the sentences that came out of English peoples' mouths because she didn't know if she was hearing honesty or not.

Here's an excerpt. It sounds like something that could have been posted on WP.

"For an outsider it takes years of study to learn how to negotiate succesfully all the fakes and double fakes and insincere sincerity (or sincere insincerity?) that characterizes Briton's accounts of themselves. Are you supposed to believe them? Pretend to believe them? Pretend to believe that they are pretending to believe? Argue with them?"

Reading this made me wonder if it might be harder for Aspies raised in the UK to handle the gap between What It Looks Like and How It Is than Aspies raised in the US because the gap is that much bigger. The American ehtos of "this is what I think and I'm going to tell it to you to your face and I don't care how you take it" pisses off much of the rest of the world, but it might make things a little easier to negotiate for an American Aspie since there is a higher tolerance for bluntness (although there is still a ceiling on what bluntness is acceptable) and others will be more blunt too. There are many UK and many US Aspies here. But I think it's probably an impossible thing to accurately measure. But reading that did get me thinking.

"He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. "

I completely agree, GreenTea. Obsessing over appearances mystifies me.

Janissy, I always appreciate your insights.

reading WP in general has given me words for things that all my life i've been unable to articulate.



i've often wondered if aspies have something in common with feral children - removed from cultural norms and free to be who they really are, but in the case of the aspie, because they can't understand what's expected of them rather than not being exposed to it.

I would rather be right, than liked.

I stand by that, because ultimately I just divested myself of the idea that I need to care, I DO recognize the usefulness of this though, and have learned to fake being tactful a bit better.


It did baffle me for YEARS though, and is part of the "everyone else here is crazy, except you and me... and honestly I'm not totally sure about you" mentality I had for years.

THIS I have problems with. I have always wanted to DO what is RIGHT instead of doing what LOOKS right.

Thank You Greentea! I have always felt like I was too honest and it got me no where in life. So many times I have felt like I was surrounded by liars and brown nosers and that I wasn't meant for this World. It all suddenly made sense to me reading your post. Some of us here ARE new at all of this and it means a great deal to me to read post like this. It's like an explosion of recognition and a big WOW this is me. I love it. Thanks Again.

Taupey

Last edited by Taupey on 19 Apr 2010, 5:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I've done that so many times. Wonder if is a quirk related to Aspies. But I'd almost just as soon buy a loved one nothing that get something I am not certain they will like. Of course even with best intentions I mess up on occassion.

Wow. I'd never really thought about it, but I guess this is pretty true...
I hate when people do this to me, because in my opinion, "it's the thought that counts" is total crap. I don't care what the person thought, they didn't get me a present, they got me a pair of socks (though that's a bad example; I love socks lol).

I always take the extra time to find the perfect birthday present, and if I can't in time, I always just give my friends late presents hahaha. Thankfully over the years I no longer have to worry about offending my friends by doing things like this, as the friends that have stuck around are the ones that don't mind