NEtikiman wrote:
The same is very true of me. Usually I am lost in my own train of thoughts and it can be very intrusive (also annoying) when people try to pull me out of it. It's actually very difficult to pull me out unless people say my name directly.
The scripts that I tend to follow (smiling and nodding) while looking in the person's general direction were formed after many people got upset with me because it seemed as though I didn't care about them personally. For me, this is one of my coping strategies because people want you to give them fair and equal attention. It has to be reciprocal.
Yeah, I can smile and nod for a while if someone wants to talk about something and I'm not very interested. I agree that it has to be reciprocal and, as long as the person just wants to monologue about something, it's pretty easy to smile and nod. I try to make sure that the conversation is stirred toward something me and the other person are both interested in, though, so that it can truly be reciprocal.
JSBACHlover wrote:
Can you at least say, "Hello, how are you?" "Nice weather we're having." "How is your family?" "Where are you from?" Etc. That's all you need for a start.
I've done it numerous times in the distant past and even recently. All of these situations were very awkward because i ask these questions in a flat monotone and then can't continue the conversation with them so it just stalls. It feels very, very disturbing for me to ask these things. Why? Two reasons:
a) My mind will be wanting to escape and think its own thoughts, so I'm basically wilfully putting myself into the most painful and uncomfortable situation possible;
b) Because I don't want the person to ask these questions back to me, so I'm being a total hypocrite and not true to myself at all by doing this.
It's almost like hitting somebody but not feeling the vicarious pain - I do know that pain is unpleasant and I wouldn't want to give pain to someone else. Now, I know theoretically that asking these questions is not painful to the other person, but because it almost feels that way when people ask me these questions, it intrinsically doesn't feel right for me to ask these questions to someone else.
It makes sense that different people will have different degrees of mental openness and flexibility to enable them to do this to different degrees of comfort. I have ways of navigating these situations with NTs (I usually tell them directly or use implicit reinforcement techniques to guide the conversation in a desired direction - depending on the situation). However, I just find it strange when some people on the spectrum communicate this way and even seem to enjoy it. Based on the responses above, it seems like it probably doesn't come naturally to them.
Ok, then. I think I understand. Yet I have faith in you that even though it hurts and feels disingenuous, you can habituate yourself to a new behavior. When I was in my 20s I was almost at the place you describe. It took a lot of effort to change. But I did it for one reason: I needed a job and that meant getting along with co-workers. It was painful and awful. It has taken me 20 years to get the hang of it all. I just wish you the best so that you can live on this very strange planet that I have renamed "NTLand."
08 Jan 2014, 9:15 am
