On faking NT

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Greentea,
I have the same problem with the A,B, or C answers. Sometimes the only answer I can come up with is the blunt, honest one, even though I know I shouldn't say it.
My formula for this is to tell the truth, but assign no blame, and leave the other person some dots to connect.
Something like this:
"I have a lot of work right now because we're down one person. But I think I can manage until we get a replacement for Sue."
Of course, the trick is coming up with this response on the spur of the moment. It simply isn't our natural way of responding. I try to anticipate situations like this whenever possible, so I can have a good answer prepared. Then again, preparing answers for questions that may never be asked can be stressful, too.

Hi Mark,
I wanted you to know the absolute satisfaction and delight it is to communicate with someone one that not only can USE dramaturgy in a sentence but knows when to PUT it in a sentence. I have been away from academia far too long if this small sample is enough to bring me almost to tears of gratitude . I am so weary of 'dumbing down.'

Merle

Yes, I'm in the same position - in my country of citizenship there is no welfare state and certainly no AS-related help or benefits.

Merle,

Thank you very much. You were one of the people who made me feel welcome when I first arrived here. I very much appreciate that, as well.

Rynessa, I think that's exactly what's needed: saying something that leaves them having to connect the dots. I've no idea why. I guess it's because NTs need to feel that everything is THEIR idea.

Merle, in regard to dumbing down: I feel exactly the same way, exhausted. God forbid I say something that's not ridiculously silly - I'm immediately mocked as the "too deep" one.

I have been working with another young Aspie and would like to share something that startled me when I thought of it, but it really answered a LOT of questions for me.

If we find we are yearning to be fulfilled by social contact, consider the idea that maybe we don't feel the social fulfillment we already find. Consider for a moment that interactions and emotions other people feel from social contact do not perform the same chemical reaction (if you will) in us. It really opened my eyes when I thought about it in that way. That people WERE giving me the social inclusion and warm fuzzies and what ever else it is they get from social interaction but it was ME THAT COULDN'T PROCESS IT. So all that tippy toeing around thinking that we 'had to get it right' so we could get the pay off 'being included' was for naught, anyway.

I mean, think about it. We get the SAME reaction from people no matter where we go, or who we talk to ( oh, sure from time to time we get someone that will ignore our defensive posture and become a real and true friend) and the only thing that is the same is ourselves.

Unless it is a vast NT conspiricy, the only thing that remains constant is our inability to get included in the warm fuzzy fest that is the social whirl. Maybe we just don't have the chemistry that makes it happen for us.

maybe we should give ourselves a break.
I have found the biggest shortcut to working with NTs is to PUT THEM AT THEIR EASE AS QUICKLY AND AS OFTEN AS YOU CAN. Lighten up around them, use gentle humor, chuckle appropriately. This relaxes them and they can take a lot of your idiosyncrasies when they know they can get your NON DEFENSIVE attention about something and you are OPEN to other opinions and ways of considering events.

So I would say work on your sense of humor, develop a grace of bowing ineveitably to what you might consider absurd about them. Learn to find your own center when the boat is rocking and be there, rather than concentrating on every dip and heave of the social give and take.

If you try to 'fit in' and 'be like them.' That's the struggle. If you are true to your own nature and become a 'good guest' in their world, then you relax the struggle and become more welcome into their society and we can not expect to get anything from them, not because they are 'mean' and withhold it, but because we can't 'feel' it anyway.

of course, this begs the question "Why would I have the desire to feel socially accepted but not give me any way to experience it when I get it?" That is just odd.

Merle

Yeah, I have situations where I know I screwed up socially pop up in my head afterwards from time to time. I realize I should have done/said something differently.

Heck, I still have this situation from like second grade pop up in my head from time to time.

I think that social skills learning is a good tool and all, but it's not the key. Because it's not about applying the same rules with everyone. It's about that feel that only NTs have of what works with each person. They just have an intuition that we don't have, an automatic knowledge of how to speak to a certain person.

The quality of relationships that most people have wouldn't give me any satisfaction, would be even less pleasurable than being alone. Í agree with Merle on this.