And we harp on NT's

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I have noticed that many of us don't like the way Nt's are so clickish in their little groups of who is popular in the group, everything is popularity contest with them....yet it happens in WP with Aspies to.

I use to think that this was just an NT thing, but maybe not.....perhaps its a group thing. You guys post messages about who's popluar, or who puts the most emails on the board, or who is the most interesting. This is exactly what the NT's do. It classifies certian people above others......How do you think your being different from an NT?

I hate that kind of group popularity contest thing, which i heard is an Aspie Trait. Aspie's hate that.....yet I find a lot of that going on in here. Can anyone explain?

It's all part of the great disillusionment one experiences in encountering other aspies. One has such high hopes of kinship and fellowship with one's own kind, but eh, it's not really like that, is it?

We're like anybody else--deep down, we want to be popular and loved for who we are.

I don't post to get approval or rack up my score--I post because I need to. I suspect that's true for the majority here. WP is a lifeline for thousands of people with AS, ADHD and/or autism. But there's always gonna be a bit of cliqueism, especially in differentiating "us" from "them." Many of us feel we've suffered greatly at the hands of NT's and want our own back in some form or another. If they won't recognize our talents, maybe folks here will.

On a side subject: Though I use the abbreviations AS and NT as convenient locutions for subjects that would otherwise require more exposition, I'm not completely comfortable with them. Frankly, I'm not comfortable with labels of any kind. Any thoughts on this?

Human Nature is just Human Nature in the end. We all want to be liked, loved, by family and friends, that are in Our Lives. Sometimes people want more and yet may not truly understanding for what they are yet doing in the end. Being Human is just that being Human in the end. There is no really simple answer here. But it is just apart of who We All (NTs, ASs) are in the end.

Human have in the last few years, likes to Label everything NT or AS even I do not Like these Labels either. We are all just Humans to Me.

Like in real life, I never really fit in to any "cliques". I see that there may or not be any, but I never quite fit in to any one group anywhere. I've always just drifted form one to the other effortlessly. There's lots of cliques at school I don't talk with, simply because I can't stand them. Never noticed any here though. I'm not aware of my surroundings.

I think it's just the nature of group dynamics. For whatever reason, people choose to reach out and respond to people they relate to, find amusing, intelligent, kind, familiar, welcoming -- whatever it is that appeals to you specifically. I observe this on my other board all the time, and it's fascinating because it's such a mirror of real life group behavior. Personalities can be very clear even in this format. What I like about the interaction on the boards, though, is there is a whole community of people you can choose to get in touch with -- or not. I've known many friendships to grow into real life friendships because of getting to know each other on a board.

I wonder if the message board format (and internet life in general) allows people who aren't comfortable socially to have their needs for social interaction satisfied.

This site has definately made me realize how very human we are, and how we have many more similarities to non-autistics than differences, especially when one of the main differences, communication difficulties, is at least partly removed as it is on here. We have many of the same wants and needs, and tend to act in similar ways, and at the same time we are all unique-we all have different skills and interests and ways of looking at things, our ideas and beliefs come from all different points on the broad political/philosophical spectrum, we have a diverse range of religious/spiritual beliefs or lack thereof, and we all bring with us different experiences and ways of dealing with them. It really makes me realize how misleading and confining labels can be. Sometimes they're necessary for convenience, but the rest of the time they don't let you see the big picture or dig deeper into things.

Sites like these are wonderful and definately help a lot, but I wouldn't say they totally fulfill my need necessarily, since nothing beats seeing a person face to face. If it weren't for this site I probably would have never met a significant other because I'm just too shy and nervous (and more importantly I wouldn't have met my fiance specifically, I can't imagine being with anyone other than him), but on the other hand I also find communicating online a bit more intimidating and not quite as fulfilling as in real life. On here, it's so easy to see someone as something abstract rather than a real person-for instance, it's so easy for a whole person to become, in someone's mind, one of their ideas, and that makes it easier to judge them and to attack and/or criticize them and harder to empathize with them, whereas if you saw someone as a whole person standing in front of you, it would probably be different and more civil. Or maybe not, I'm not sure. People probably tend to be more blunt and direct online too, and I'm not saying it's wrong because it's a good thing in a way, but it tends to make me uncomfortable and nervous because I'm so sensitive that way.

Finally, a thread I can agree with. YES, we are all very NTish! NO, you are not that different from them! We are not above them! On a sidenote, is there a clique for those of us who aren't in any cliques? so those of us not in a clique can be in the clique of people who have cliques. Down with popular opinion! Dare to be different!

Good thing I am pretty much oblivious to groupings that do not involve physical proximity, or else I might have been too intimidated to interrupt the herds. Cliques have always been a bit foreign to me; that is, besides my biological family [minus my father, who lives the next town over and resents everybody he has ever met], I have never been near any selection of people (even those with definite similarities such as common interests and shared neurological traits) around whom I did not feel like an alien invader. Is that something like an Aspie thing, or an insecure person thing, or just a Glasskitten thing?


Sometimes I wonder why I even post on the Internet. I always regret invading.


There are people who just seem popular for one reason or another, at least in the online world that I take some notice of. I am capable of experiencing fangirl-type emotions toward some of those individuals, but it only serves to isolate me further from them and I do not believe that I do anything to further raise their status. I would probably lose respect for someone who was consciously trying to earn popularity, but I doubt I would notice such events going on around me.

...wait, don't think I'm stupid or anything, but...

What exactly does the term NT mean?

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You're not invading, Kitten. Don't let these guys with thousands of posts intimidate you. They just like to have their say in everything. It's good to be reserved and quiet. Personally, I think it's an individual thing. You can't put every Aspie into the same basket, because a lot of Aspies enjoy socializing as much as NT's. That doesn't mean they feel they fit in, though. It's a question of learning to be oblivious to how much you stick out like a thore sumb. For some people, sticking out becomes a method of fitting in. You just have to make it work for you.

Roybertito, NT stands for neurologically typical. In contrast, we say AS to refer to people who have Aspergers Syndrome. It's just an easy way of referring to a group of people when we make our broad generalizing statements about life, the universe, and those damn unknowable NT's!

^Ah, that makes sense. I wouldn't be prejudice to a person like that - they're not smart just because they don't have AS. I know that we're awesome, yeah, but we can't go around claiming we're superior.

Just my say on it.

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Every discussion forum that I've been involved with has a self-appointed elitist forum court (don't confuse this with Mods). I've even been part of the elitist clique myself, in a different forum. But I quickly learned that if you make even the slightest hint that you consider yourself superior due to your; a) registered date, b) post count, c) administrative priviledges or anything like that, people will despise you for it. It's human nature.

But I also learned that people do seem to give you a certain respect for these arbitrary things too. It's not just the elitist being elitist, people's behaviour changes based on authority by rank or experience.

So typical elitist forum guy can become hugely popular by being really nice to people, especially people new to the community, you gain a respect that's far superior to the effects that clinging to your forum variables has. Whether you are legitimately nice or just doing it to gain some sort of status in the community is up to you.

Luckily for me I've been worshipped, hated, and everything in between so I have no real desire to climb to any sort of status in this forum. I've already realized my selfish ambitions elsewhere. All that remains that's fun in terms of shaping an online identity is being pompously arrogant for the sheer fun of it.

I hate the human race. As soon as they let the public take holidays to Mars I'm off like a shot.

Yup. Humans suck.

It's weird, because when I started this site with Alex, I didn't expect nearly as much diversity in the aspies that showed up -- it's neat. I've talked with a great number of awesome people that have aspergers here, and a smaller segment of....eh...not-so-awesome people with aspergers.

One philosophical revelation I had a year or two ago is just in the nature of people. I used to have this black-and-white view that there were two kinds of people -- the genuine, reasonable, approachable person who has some semblance of individuality and complexity to them -- and the more robot-like clique-mongers that 90% of my high school is.

But then I realized that a lot of people just put up facades. Most people have insecurities and problems and fears like I do. However, I think some people are just simpler people than others -- for better or for worse.