AS people = Beta males/females?

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Reading this thread has fed my depression.

Meh if you read between the lines it's easy to see that many of our true problems as aspies are the issues surrounding social status. I think supposed issues with social skills are often sidetracking on the main point. Realizing this I think is empowering, and main actually provide tangible benefits instead of this nonsense of learning to say please and thank you.

I'm alpha. Extremely.

I'm not Alpha, but then I don't consider myself to be Beta either.

I think I like to dance to the beat of my own drum.

I think I'm more of a maverick type person.

I don't like to lead and I certainly never follow.

I guess I'm selling out both

I'm Stigma.

Could you elaborate on that question, not completely sure I get what you mean by that?


What bothers me is that my looks, education, etc. count nothing as long as I have the attitude that people are of equal worth. So low-status women believing people are not of equal worth will exploit that naiive but desirable attitude and attempt to make a fool out of me (of course without telling me - I've tried that, well knowing but without expressing that knowledge, and it made me furious, because in case I had not known, they would successfully have made a fool out of me! ).

So in the dating scene you are punished heavily as long as you believe people are of equal worth (lower-ranking individuals will exploit knowing your status is higher than theirs). That is what bothers me, because I would want to believe that people are of equal worth.

Conclusion: One should become a prick.

My footing in the social hierarchy is so low that I'd honestly consider myself an omega. Life is hard when you're born at the wrong end of the Greek alphabet.

Just kidding. I'm honestly not sure if terms like alpha and beta can accurately describe human social behaviour in the same way it can for animals like wolves, chimpanzees and other primates.

Ignore it, basically and just keep doing what I do, i.e being impulsive, talking about things I have no clue whether they are appropriate or not and failing to react with the right words and body language.

The people I know never let on that they think of me as inferior and I don't much care if they see me that way. I'm just continuing to do what I do and I'm using them more to advance my social skills or at least make me feel good about being able to get a few more things. I mean I love being around my friends but sometimes I haven't any patience to act in the ways they expect.



I was thinking the same thing. I relate it to the beta version of video games which I always thought are more or less bug free and fixed up versions of the alpha.

Good name by the way. I've always love the word norepinephrine, even if three years on Ritalin gave me heightened anxiety.

I'm not alpha, beta, or omega.

My social skills are so poor that I don't even "get on the board."

Furthermore, I believe such distinctions are overly simplistic when applied to humans. Humans have the most complex social system of any primate species, which is exactly why it blows to be autistic.

If you unironically use phrases like "lower-ranking individuals" and "low-status women" then your actual level of belief or attitude that people are of equal worth is questionable. "I want to believe people are equal but these lower-status people keep taking advantage of me" is a really weird contradictory stance to take.

The notion of alphas came from now discredited research into wolf packs that involved observing packs constructed and observed in captivity, who behaved in ways that wolves do not behave in the wild. It's been generalized to other species (such as baboons and humans) but largely has no valid scientific grounding.

Pickup artists and MRAs love to appeal to the notion of "alpha males" and such but I think they're largely looking for some quality to blame that isn't their own personalities for their dating and relationship difficulties.

Ah yeah of course, that way. I understand the objection!

The reason it does not seem that way to me is that,

- Emotionally, at heart, I feel people are of equal worth (when I had not learned about social dynamics academically I did not in any way see all the nuances to determining someone's "rank" - emotion was (and is) based on well intended good treatment of others).

- Intellectually/logically, I can (now) see people have different possibilities of survival, disregarding how they treat other people. The survival possibility determines the "rank".


So I can attach very little true, lasting emotion to the intellectual "rank" of people - if any at all really! I cannot care about successful people who treat me badly. This annoyed the hell out of my former boss. I just did not like him, despite his big car and successful career. I could not properly hide it either because I began the avoidance manoeuvre some of you may recognize.

But I know intellectually and from experience that others in fact do attach very much emotion to the rank of people, so I would feel like a fool if I let someone with "lower rank" exploit my feelings by realizing they just needed to treat me well in order to trick me.

For that reason I feel like I cannot escape the ranking aspect when it comes to relationships, because I could never be sure of the intentions on the other part - actually making it quite difficult for me to fall in love the way I feel I was meant to. A "ranking" levelling my own would actually be the only way of convincing me of their intentions (and having AS that really ain't very high!).

It's like, of course I do want to survive, but I do not attach genuine emotion to humans simply because they are good survivors. This is contradictory in the dating scene and on the job market.

Is that view also hypocritical, you think?

I'm not sure what these "low-ranking" women might be trying to "trick" you into doing--having a relationship with them? Of course it is true that there is a better chance of true love and successful communication between equals, so if you're going to try to play the heirarchy game you should try to find a partner in your own "league", as they say.

I hate to tell you this, but when it comes to NT "ranking" YOU are low-ranked because you have a disability. All of those fat, ugly, mentally ill, or socioeconomically disadvantaged women you consider below you are actually in your league.

not especially, also i find the entire concept of alphas and betas bloody ridiculous. human beings are not bad werewolf fanfiction.

Yep, I know you are right on that one. Aspergers Syndrome makes you VERY low-ranked, the pariah, the social outcast. That might in fact be the big problem, realizing just how much society, not only directly, but also indirectly, in fact despises your real you - so much that not even good looks, long education, good job, etc. can change that to any degree. One could just say I should learn to accept that my personality is flawed because it is not very fit for survival in NT-society, since I am completely outnumbered in the social context.

So being together with one of the girls you mentioned would constantly remind me of my, according to society, flawed personality and would humiliate me on a personal level at any public events being seen together with her (she would not be humiliated due to her personality, only her superficial characteristics, I see that as FAR less bad). See what I mean? And we were supposed to call what we had together love?

I mean, I can accept that my looks have limits, my job-skills are limited etc. I am okay with being "judged" on those things whether they are good or bad. They are just superficial characteristics. But the fact that the personality I am and love is so devalued to others, is quite hard to accept, given you have to "fall in love" and like other people on those conditions. How would that even be possible? They truly hate the real me, but can just come to terms with me because of looks and money!! !

I realize that is the reason I cannot find love. Finding love equates being ridiculed and humiliated, since people realize there has to be some subtle reason (my personality they realize) I put up with that league given my other seemingly "high-ranking" qualities.

I do not know whether I come across as hypocritical here again.