Why is it easier for NTs to feign?

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Exactly,many of us r so quite,reserved,distant and polite most people doesn't notice our existence at all,except when it's time to take advantage of us or in need of our skills or to tell us how we should behave and act.
U r not able to see the big picture or the over all scheme of things,
nobody does,
Most NT's suffer from too big Ago to notice how little we know on this world and about each others and instead of trying to feel and think they just practice social dogmas blindly mistaking them for true consciousness,
the AS problem is so complicated because it lays in the gray and quite area of endless little things that nobody notices them but us,
that's why no matter what we do we will end up the bad people while in reality we r the one who do the work and paying attention and cares deeply about stuff it's allwais the NT who do nothing but talk big who get to be the nice guy while we looked upon and treated like we some kind of ret*d persons
it's not question of masks,everyone wearing one,masks are creative way to express yourself and are part of an healthy identity(actually AS have many mor masks than the average NY)
it's a question how u "uses" them and for what purpose
AS uses their masks in order to explore and communicate
Too many NT uses them in order to deceit and use other people coldly and unfeelingly
and it is very sad that such behavior passes to be "normal" while ours passes as a disease

i think we have to take into account that social norm is not a constant
it's changes,rapidly
and in the light of this changes society at large must develop tolerance to our unique way of doing,feeling and behaving
we pick our battles very carefully and we have the right to tell the NT that what stupid and irrelevant to them may be essential to us
many years ago i cut any relations i had, no family (they are the worse),no friends,no co workers(i work only from home) and i must say my mental and physical health improved dramatically
ppl who new me told me i shed 20 years
NT must understand that we hurt a lot by the s**t and pretentious stuff they inflict upon us
what for them it is natural is poison for us as we see the "big picture" in a different way

BTW
i heard from many ppl, including NT, that our "big picture" is not that wrong

No
It is not
The question of boundaries is on of the most complex and we as a race are very far from settling it
The day we do we will have eternal love
But until we do i must say that i too feels very acutely the pain of NT lacking the sense to respect my boundaries
u have to be really sensitive and really care about the others in order to sense their boundaries
asserting them diplomatically or violently or any other stinking method used by the NT doesn't help at all
on the contrary

personally i believe and feel the boundaries of light where every thing is translucent and true
it may sound a bit new age but if we look at the way society evolves we can see we are going there anyway
even now we live in society of light screens which connected by endless lines of comms and being translucent, open and honest is considered to be an attractive trait for organizations and individuals alike
problem is that this qualities had to be respected and not used cynically as is too many times the case
NT doesn't respect my boundaries the same way fundamentalist groups take advantage of the open democratic structure in order to destroy it
and it is painful and wasteful because in order to create and touch the mystery and beauty of life u need to be open in a society u can trust to respect that openness
people who see only short term goals and who try to fake it will be the first to grab your throat any time u try to live and give freely and happily
experienced it too many times














BTW
No matter how hard the NT are trying to conceal their problems most of us can see them
Actually,the harder a persons is trying to hid the more exposed he is as the mere movement or sentiment of concealment is the most revealing

nara,
I respect your views. Many of your recent posts have been brilliant. If anyone can explain this, it is you. For me, the inability to establish and clearly project boundaries was causing more than 60-70% of my pain and suffering. Before I had clear boundaries, even if I said nothing--it seemed to offend!

I feel that the reason we aspies and auties suffer so much socially has a lot to do with our inability not only to project clear boundaries, but to even understand the real concept of boundary and it's significance. From what I can tell, aspies and auties, as a spectrum, are quite often in denial about some very fundamental social skills. When we know of a deficiency, we will openly admit it. But when we haven't a clue, we may at first be in denial, because we don't comprehend the underlying principles upon which the social skill is based. Those on the spectrum can be maddeningly stubborn. I'm certainly no exception there. Understanding the boundary and how to set it up, is among the most basic and important of social skills. Without comprehending boundaries, nothing else in the way of social skills will be very meaningful or useful. Establishing the boundary and properly projecting it is, to my way of thinking, one of the CORE social skills.

The very first requirement for setting up a boundary is to have a healthy self esteem. The second requirement is to make a realistic appraisal of one's strengths and weaknesses. [You will want to protect your weaknesses, that's the general idea of a boundary, your strengths don't need protecting.] The third requirement is to know precisely what you want and need. And it has to be exquisitely precise in your own mind before it can be projected clearly to others. From those three things, comes the boundary. But it is far from automatic. You then have to very carefully construct the boundary in your mind and hold it consciously focused until you feel the other person understands. With that, I just guess because frankly I have no idea whether they picked it up or not. This is all done through body language btw. NTs probably do this unconsciously. We have to do it consciously. Many aspies and auties fail at the basic requirements for this task. Then they create rationalizations why it isn't working when, in reality, they haven't even done it. Nobody showed them how, and they didn't figure it out. They may have imagined they've been successful...but to one who knows how to do it, it's quite obvious. Take swimming. A skill. If you see someone floundering around in the deep water, it becomes obvious to nearly everyone they don't know how to swim. It's the same with setting boundaries.

If any NTs would care to assess the above, it would be much appreciated.

I think there's a lot of truth in what you've written, Alba. As an NT myself (although a not-very-social, rather analytical one who generally prefers to be honest) I think the whole situation regarding feigning and setting boundaries is very complex and variable for NTs. A lot depends on the ages, personalities and contexts of the people involved. Some NTs can certainly be very superficial and manipulative, but I think that most of the "feigning" I do is intended to avoid hurting others' feelings or making them uncomfortable. I will usually hide the fact that I dislike someone or that they bore me. As for my boundaries, these depend greatly on my relationship with the other person and the situation we are in. For most NTs, these sorts of things are often conveyed via eye contact (or lack thereof) body posture, tone of voice, things said and left unsaid, and many other subtle cues.

I'd never realised until I visited WP what a nightmare a lot of this must be for many people with AS- I can see why some people must think that NTs are crazy or malicious. But a lot of this stuff is done to avoid conflict and keep social relationships running smoothly. Of course, it can also be used to manipulate and persuade, and I sometimes do that as well.

I certainly can't claim to speak for all NTs, but I'm happy to try to give my own perspective on these sorts of issues if anyone here wants to ask questions about why NTs behave in particular (weird) ways. Jenny

I have to pretend i care when a family member is upset. Of course, i don't aways do so.


Why steal from a group of people that benefit me? Why steal when you can get people to give you there money with a few words? Saving the child would always benefit me, i can't imagine a situation where it wouldn't benefit me (Unless my life was in danger as well, in which most people wouldn't help despite claiming they would.


You'll notice how on APD, only 3 traits are needed from 7, the empathy one also says a lack of remorse can be indicated by being indifferent towards another, which is a neutral action. On the Psychopathy/Sociopathy, you must score 30 points out of 40, to be a true "sociopath", you can actually miss all the traits i said were not important and STILL be a sociopath. Malignant narcissism isn't even a real condition. I've read all of these before, you are misreading the information in them.

To Michjo:

We're not talking about this anymore in this topic, I went on a off-topic rant and I apologized to GreenTea for it and I'm not arguing about this anymore in this topic, if you wish to continue this debate we can take it to PMs or another topic discussing this very separate issue.

the respect is mutual but things may not be that simple as what is considered social skills is no more than a current convention of where to place the boundaries
people tend to forget that this boundaries are all ways on the move( NT especially as a mature concept of time is out of reach for most of them)
AS are not just stubborn
most of the time they are much more flexible than the NT as this people would have no problem to kick u out of work just because u don't say hello in the right tone from the right distance
we are considered stubborn and deficient in social skills because we feel that boundaries should be places elsewhere
Many time i heard from NT that I'm crazy but my methods work great
boundaries are expression of identity
NT cannot teach us about boundaries
They are clueless
Perhaps it's time for them to swallow some of the pride and listen for a change

the reason behind us not asserting our boundaries is that true and balanced identity projects quite boundaries
stable and balanced Boundaries exists beyond the need to fight and sell themselves and declare them self incessantly
they are just there
flowing quietly waiting patiently to someone to listen and see
Can't u see that NT are constantly narrating their boundaries to any passer by
that's maddening for most of us
could they ever shut their mouth and listen for a change ?
i don't believe they can
it's much easier for them to critisize us fo our shynves or so called introverted nature
well
excuse me
I can see the the NT and i can see their shortcomings and the last thing i need in life is to be as dumb as them
social skills can kiss my ass

I agree with all that. I guess I'm not being clear enough on the type of issues I'm talking about. It isn't so much probing questions. It's the general things people do that annoy me and make me feel miserable. Things such as interrupting me with small talk or banter while I'm trying to concentrate. Being lazy/messy/sloppy, not doing their job right and causing me headaches. That kind of stuff.

Come now, folks...you think these problems are only recent?

Welcome to humanity....civilization has been pulling this crap since Day 1.

'Wanna know my take on it? Listen to what Magneto from X-Men always has to say about the humans versus the mutants.

As time goes by, I'm agreeing more and more with him.

Does this mean I approve of him trying to kill everyone? Absolutely not. I still believe in letting the rest choose their own path, whether it be to success or destruction.

to paraphrase a line attributed to Voltaire "I do not approve of any of your ideas, but will defend to the death your right to pursue them"

LOLOLOL I totally understand and agree with you on this, it appalled me at first when I came here, and doesn't cease to appal me, but this behavior is very local.

Leaving Israel would make my life easier ?
used to live in the Netherlands for a coupla years but it was very long time ago.
from what i read on WP i get the impression of a world wide plague of faked friendliness,
seems like ppl everywhere insists on sticking their head into each other ass.

I really think that is the bottom line. Before I came to WP, whenever somebody said "I hate phoniness" I immediately thought to the sort of hurtful phoniness of the hustle, con game, swindle--- somebody who used phoniness to swindle people out of money or swindle people into giving something they might not otherwise have given such as sex (pretending to be in love just to get sex). It actually never occured to me that anybody could be as offended by white lies or social masks as I am by somebody who lies "I love you" or "of course this financial plan is completely legal".

I compartmentalize types of phoniness because it really is easier tosee through them. This isn't foolproof .So many women have fallen for "I love you" and believed it from a man who wanted sex that one time and never to see them again afterwards. So many people lost money because of the phoniness of Bernie Madoff (U.S. lying swindler given a 150 year jail sentence last week). But it does work sometimes. And I actually appreciate the lie of "no, that tasted fine" from somebody who ate something that I cooked but not all that competently.

For NT people, the line is drawn at intent. Much farther downthread Greentea theorizes that it is easier for NT people to deduce intent from social cues and so the chances of being victimized by deception go down. They only go down somewhat, but that's still enough to tip the balance towards being comfortable with white lies and social masks. Certainly NT people can be and often are victims of emotional feints that cause harm. But we are under the (sometimes false) impression that we can sort these out from the harmless and even compassionate lies ("your son died instantly and without suffering" lied the doctor) and so are less upset by the concept of social feints in general. I am not allergic to bees. I don't want to be stung. I avoid bees. But they won't kill me because I'm not allergic. Somebody who would die from anaphylactic shock has more cause to avoid them than me. I think (per Greentea's theory) that the same thing is going on here. NT people feel comfortable drawing a line at intent and aren't worried about slippery slope because we feel we can sort out the safe from the dangerous. This confidence is sometimes misplaced, but itexplains why there is such a difference between the AS posts about social feints and the NT ones.

I think I'm starting to understand it now, to see it from the NT perspective for the first time... For NTs, the everyday pretense is more like a Carnival/Disney parade (everyone wearing masks and costumes to put a smile on others' faces and have a good time) and for Aspies it's more like "everyone's lying and deceitful".

I now understand for the first time, why I was the only kid (this was South America) who cried when she saw the disguised characters each Carnival. I think I wasn't able to tell the man from the costume and the other kids were. My mom was always very surprised at my reaction.

Jenissy, can you imagine what it's like for us, living a life where we believe everything that happens on stage (in the theater of life) is true, making all the wrong decisions based on that false reality, falling and failing all the time for it! Coming out of the theater now as adults and, now aware, resenting the actors/actresses for putting on a show...

All this, plus our inability to feign, is connected, I believe, to the DSM symptom of taking things literally. I guess Aspies are less apt than NTs at separating reality from pretense. I still fail to see how this difficulty to separate the two is connected to not being able to feign well, but I think they're probably related...

Actually when you share these things I realize I'm really not that different from you in some respects. The dividing line between the autism spectrum and neurotypicals isn't as definite or sharp as a lot people here imply. I don’t know if people here will feel like chewing me out for this but I’ve actually stated in another thread that I sometimes feel like I feign too much around certain people.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt102651.html

I've even gotten in trouble for being deceitful and avoidant with people I strongly dislike.
I do it mostly because I'm very aversive to conflict or even mild non-verbal awkwardness that I might perceive. It's never about cynically manipulating people to gain favor. I'm told I'm over-sensitive and that I over-interpret people's intentions.

I have high anxiety that isn't easy to cope with. I know that I completely lose any social grace I have whenever tension runs high. Instead I react very erratically, either becoming sheepishly mute or exploding in violent rage. I harbor very deep resentment and almost insane hatred towards arrogant, manipulative, or condescending people. I can't politically maneuver because any attempt leads to a meltdown. Sometimes I can’t even think about red tape and work related politics without feeling like I might go postal.

Thanks for the feedback Jenny.