First time in history!! !! The NT/AS open hotline ! !! !! !
how do you mean? i wouldn't say so. one misunderstanding after another.
and i'm not refusing to date, i have a lot of anxiety about men confusing "single" for "available" .. i would like it to be clear they aren't the same thing. i might be available to someone in particular, if it made sense, but i'm not available for dates in general. this is what i'm trying to figure out how to convey. politely.
unfortunately you've confused me further
_________________
Now a penguin may look very strange in a living room, but a living room looks very strange to a penguin.
how do you mean? i wouldn't say so. one misunderstanding after another.
and i'm not refusing to date, i have a lot of anxiety about men confusing "single" for "available" .. i would like it to be clear they aren't the same thing. i might be available to someone in particular, if it made sense, but i'm not available for dates in general. this is what i'm trying to figure out how to convey. politely.
unfortunately you've confused me further
That's pretty much how it goes for most people whether they are Aspies or not. I've met a few who've had an easier time of it than that, but just about everyone I know has struggled with this stuff.
One term I've seen people use is "happily single" which means I'm single and like it that way, but doesn't imply an absolute commitment to not ever find someone. Maybe that's what you're looking for. Now, some people will take that as a challenge to see if they can be special enough to be the ONE. There is no perfect way to do this stuff.
PlatedDrake
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Joined: 25 Aug 2009
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,365
Location: Piedmont Region, NC, USA
For NTs . . .
Why the stress over deadlines and whatnot when its apparent that it doesnt little more than wear people out? I can understand competition for sake of an overall good, sure, but wearing yourself out over something that wont compensate much (meaning it gnaws at sanity and diminishes the "quality of living" imo). Hope i explained the question well enough . . .
Why the stress over deadlines and whatnot when its apparent that it doesnt little more than wear people out? I can understand competition for sake of an overall good, sure, but wearing yourself out over something that wont compensate much (meaning it gnaws at sanity and diminishes the "quality of living" imo). Hope i explained the question well enough . . .
I dislike stressing over deadlines and it does wear me out. That's very true. So I only do it if the consequences for missing the deadline are greater than the stress of working to meet it. At school, the consequences for missing a deadline were worse grades and the possibility of flunking a class. At work, the consequence is putting my job in jeopardy.
I don't wear myself out over something that won't compensate much, but this has never been the case at school or at work. I considered passing classes then and keeping my job now to be compensations that are absolutely worth it.
DenvrDave
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Joined: 17 Sep 2009
Age: 59
Gender: Male
Posts: 790
Location: Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
Hi katzefrau, this is difficult situation because no matter how gentle you try to be, the guy may have only one thing in mind and disappear. Here is a suggestion if you want to be polite and not come across as rude, for example if you want to try and stay friends. There is a simple formula you can use in this and other situations requiring a let-down or some sort of negative comment: Three positive comments first, followed by the let down (or negative comment). For example: "You're a very nice person, you have a great sense of humor, and I would really like to stay friends, but...[insert let down or negative comment here]." Unfortunately, there are no guarantees this will work. But it is polite, and you should be able to find three genuinely positive things to say before getting to the point. Good luck
DenvrDave
Veteran
Joined: 17 Sep 2009
Age: 59
Gender: Male
Posts: 790
Location: Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
Why the stress over deadlines and whatnot when its apparent that it doesnt little more than wear people out? I can understand competition for sake of an overall good, sure, but wearing yourself out over something that wont compensate much (meaning it gnaws at sanity and diminishes the "quality of living" imo). Hope i explained the question well enough . . .
Hi PlatedDrake, it depends on the nature of the deadline. For example, paying one's bills by the deadline is critical to maintaining a healthy credit rating. Personally, I value a good credit rating so I am meticulous about meeting all financial deadlines even if it causes stress. In the case of a deadline I make to someone else, for example "I'll meet you at 1:00pm on Saturday," I view that as a promise and I value honesty and therefore am meticulous about being early for all of my appointments even if it causes stress. Business deadlines are crucial because there is an element of trust involved, and if you want to be a valuable employee then meeting business deadlines is worth the stress. Some deadlines aren't worth the stress, for example a personal or valueless deadline like "I want to get the lawn mowed before noon" then I won't stress about it. Anyway, there are different kinds of deadlines, some more important than others. That's how I feel about it. Hope this helps
Why the stress over deadlines and whatnot when its apparent that it doesnt little more than wear people out? I can understand competition for sake of an overall good, sure, but wearing yourself out over something that wont compensate much (meaning it gnaws at sanity and diminishes the "quality of living" imo). Hope i explained the question well enough . . .
I think it depends on the situation. Deadlines are meant to keep things running smoothly and to create accountability. They can also serve to keep a budget under control. For instance if your job is to make a part of something the people who are making the rest of the thing or who are doing final assembly can't finish until you do. If selling that thing is how you are all getting income to live and you hold up the process the whole team can end up short of money to live on. That's an oversimplification, but I hope it helps.
In some situations giving someone a little extra time to finish isn't so detrimental, but sometimes it can really mess things up.
Kiley
I've got a question for Aspies or others who can speak from personal experience....
Why do you stim? What does it feel like? My eldest two do it quite a lot and I don't see how it hurts anybody, but it can catch the eye of a bully and identify them as an easy target. The psychiatrist has said we should discourage it and he has an adult child with Aspergers who is living independantly.
I will try to remember to ask the Psych, but we have more pressing things to talk about with him.
How does it help you, what are your experiences, and what does it feel like when you do it?
Layers upon layers. This is the sort of double think that makes AS people wild with frustration
wow. ok, i realize it's a little strange that i'm doing this, but i've actually started at the beginning of this thread and am reading everything in it - because it is so darn helpful, and i have until recently been totally in the dark about my own lack of understanding of other people's behavior. anyway, that ^ is something i swiped from about page 12 and wanted to mention ... Janissy, you are so absolutely on the mark.
some things you just plain can't ever understand by thinking and thinking about them .. like this (from that same post on p. 12):
How can something be both required and shameful if you are caught doing it? I have no idea. These two things are apparently in conflict. But that's the best I can do for an explanation.
how on earth do you figure this stuff out??
and .. if you just plain can't (hi!) how do you stop trying before you drive yourself up a creek?
thank you .. i've kind of been dominating the hotline .. the questions are endless. i feel like a four-year-old. this is the best idea ever.
_________________
Now a penguin may look very strange in a living room, but a living room looks very strange to a penguin.
Layers upon layers. This is the sort of double think that makes AS people wild with frustration
wow. ok, i realize it's a little strange that i'm doing this, but i've actually started at the beginning of this thread and am reading everything in it - because it is so darn helpful, and i have until recently been totally in the dark about my own lack of understanding of other people's behavior. anyway, that ^ is something i swiped from about page 12 and wanted to mention ... Janissy, you are so absolutely on the mark.
some things you just plain can't ever understand by thinking and thinking about them .. like this (from that same post on p. 12):
How can something be both required and shameful if you are caught doing it? I have no idea. These two things are apparently in conflict. But that's the best I can do for an explanation.
how on earth do you figure this stuff out??
and .. if you just plain can't (hi!) how do you stop trying before you drive yourself up a creek?
thank you .. i've kind of been dominating the hotline .. the questions are endless. i feel like a four-year-old. this is the best idea ever.
You are a brave person to trudge back to the very beginning of the thread. It's quite a huge one. I'm flattered if any of the things I said are helpful to you.
How did I figure it out? Well, I may be completely wrong. There is always that. But I arrived at my ideas because although I am NT, my daughter is autistic. Her struggles to understand the social world around her have required me to think long and hard about the things I've taken for granted my entire life. Many things I just acted on subconsciously my whole life (as many NTs do unless they study human behaviour for a living or are novelists). But I had to drag subconscious things up to the surface to examine them so I could explain them to my daughter. Then I had to find a way to put it in kid-friendly language. This is a fairly laborious mental project. By the time somebody asks something in this thread, I've probably already pondered a kid-version of the same question and struggled through to finding an answer for her.
If you just plain can't figure the stuff out, how do you stop trying before you drive yourrself up a creek? I honestly don't know. This comes up with my daughter too. It aggravates her that I can't give her a set of rules that will apply to all people. But I can't. I give her generalities that apply to lots of people some of the time. Or some people lots of the time. But then she discovers an exception to one of my generalities on the playground, things don't go as she planned, and she melts down. If I could figure out how to help her with this, I would write a very long post in this thread about it. But at this point all I can do is try to help her to recognize when a meltdown is coming on so she can make an escape-from-the-social-situation plan.
"Why the stress over deadlines and whatnot when its apparent that it doesnt little more than wear people out?"
A lot of people, both NTs and not, find it hard to motivate themselves unless there's a deadline. For instance, a college student might get up at 7 if they have an early morning class because they're interested in the class or they fear the consequences of not going. But if they're not required to go anywhere, they might sleep in till noon. Also, a small amount of stress increases alertness and speed of processing, which can be helpful for getting things done.
The problem is when a person RELIES on stress or time pressure to do anything, or puts herself under too much stress and gets panic attacks.
Does this help?
personally I find the speed that I stim at is linked to how fast thoughts are running through my mind. If I start to slow down the sequence it is calming and relaxing, running at full speed helps me focus when working frantically on a problem. generally I would describe it to others as the human version of the hourglass mouse pointer on a computer, 'deep thought in progress'.
in situations were it is unacceptable to stim, I can find it hard to think clearly because this is just part of my process. This is especially true when I have started to stim subconsciously and had to force myself to stop, as this can be frustrating.
I also find it calming in certain social situations, mainly because it is something to focus on that is not analysing the faces of others for signs of offence.
On a good day it can bring a little bit of order to a chaotic situation.
Thank you Huntedman. It's a shame stimming isn't more socially acceptable. It may be distracting in some situations, like in a classroom, but for the most part it really doesn't hurt anybody and if it's helpful you should be able to do it freely without having to worry about offending anyone. It's very unfair that people can be offended by such things.
I asked the same question of my 13 year old. He likes to rock or put things in his mouth to fiddle on them (not pica, he isn't eating them). He isn't able to articulate why it's helpful to him.
Kiley
I don't think I could have articulated why either if I had not been considering it allot lately.
when I first started reading on WP, A knowledgeable poster referred to all NT socialization as a game. My first impression was that this must be false. Although I recently witnessed an NT conversation which makes me question this:
after collogue #1 at work admitted to me, that he was wasting time to annoy collogue #2.
#2 arrived to confront #1
#1 told a very quick, plausible lie about how his computer had failed, and wanted to know if I needed help
#2 Instantly realized that #1 was insincere and told another quick lie about project deadlines
and that was it, they launched into something I can best describe as a tennis match or a joust. There were more lies, excuses and empty threats. The rate of speed and the ease that they seemed to do this with was incredible. It was all very jovial and polite, because they knew that they still had to work together and do not differ significantly in seniority or authority. They each had clear goals and motives and fought for their own.
I have never really witnessed a conversation like this were I knew enough information to properly understand what is going on, but I have seen some of the outward signs of this before and with other people.
if I was #2 I would have just asked #1 why his computer had failed.
Question to NTs:
- how obvious are these types of exchanges to you, both lies and motivations?
- i'm guessing that speed at which different people can lie, interpret, lie differs, how would you rate yours or others' ability to do this?
- what percentage\to what degree would you say that this happens in the discussions of the general public?
I'm not very good at that kind of thing. I can usually figure out when it's happening and can come back with an "appropriate" response, but I find myself so disgusted by the dishonesty of the whole thing that I just get away from the whole thing as fast as I can. If it's something that I have to stick with I usually get myself into trouble by bringing up the truth. Depending on the relationship and what's at stake I may try to go along with them, or not but I can't always hide my skepticism. If the person is avoiding the truth because of embarassment I'll usually cut them lots of slack and find another subject to talk about or try to give them a more honest out, though it's not always easy to tell if they are very good at hiding it.
- how obvious are these types of exchanges to you, both lies and motivations?
- i'm guessing that speed at which different people can lie, interpret, lie differs, how would you rate yours or others' ability to do this?
- what percentage\to what degree would you say that this happens in the discussions of the general public?
1. I find these kinds of exchanges very obvious, both in their lies and motivations. I also recognise their purposes- they do serve a number of functions.
2. Yes, there is a LOT of variation in the ability of NTs to lie and to recognise lies. I'm a middle-aged female working in an occupation that requires a lot of interaction with people (I'm a high school teacher) so I need to be very good at doing this, and I am. However, I greatly prefer to be honest with people when I can be.
3. It depends on the types of discussions that you're talking about. These sorts of "social" lies are used in situations where people need to maintain certain types of relationships, often involving status. These relationships are common in the workplace because people often don't get a lot of choice about who they have to work with- workmates aren't necessarily friends. Males in particular tend to be very status-conscious in their interactions with other males and will lie to "save face" or to gain an advantage over each other. It's like a constant jostling for rank in the pecking order. Females do it too, although it tends to be a little more subtle. Because most people are aware that others are doing this, it becomes expected. You expect people to tell a lie to avoid admitting laziness or carelessness- it's almost a compliment, because it suggests that they care enough about your good opinion to want to cover up their failure. If someone says, "I didn't do that job for you because I couldn't be bothered," it's honest but it also shows a lack of respect for you- a polite lie, "Sorry, my computer failed," shows that the person doesn't want to make you feel that your job wasn't important. And, of course, if you want to annoy the other person, you can tell a fairly transparent lie, so that they KNOW you're lying, but can't really prove it enough to confront you about it- this sort of "game" is common and comes quite naturally (and unconsciously) to most NTs, I'm afraid.
I guess the general rule is, it's all about about status and relationships. (I do realise that it sounds quite bizarre if you don't have an inbuilt sense of it, though- sorry! )
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