Why is it that when "they" do something....

Post Reply New Topic

When they do something that seems odd to us, it's explained as "well it's socially normal to do such and such".... but if I try it, or do the same thing, then I wind up getting a lecture on how I need to learn social rules better?

Too generalised to actually mean anything, but I understand the feeling (or at least make me feel something while I actually have no idea what the feeling you want to transmit)

Well, what initially started it, is that my boyfriend rarely invites me to things that he does... We've been together for going on 5 years now, and I've only met one of his friends, and it was only when we needed a car looked at. He's never taken me with him ANYWHERE when it involves his friends. Honestly, I don't mind it, I don't like meeting new people anyway.

But this is an all the time thing he does to me.

Last night, I mentioned I was making tacos for dinner with a lady right around the corner who is a very good friend. Now, I've tried inviting him multiple times, and he always declines.

So last night, I didn't think to invite him at all, and I get a message at 5 a.m. telling me it's been bothering me that I didn't invite him. So, since that was his complaint, I figure he wants to be invited and come eat with us.

no.... logic evades me at this point and frustration kicks in. I invite him and say he's more than welcome to come over, but he doesn't ACTUALLY want to come over. He just wanted me to invite him so he could say no, or feel important, or whatever his deal is.

The kicker is, he called me to wake me up this morning to ask if I'd gotten these messages, accusing me of avoiding him, or saying my friend didn't like him and that's why, and just all kinds of accusations for me not inviting him. I asked him 2 days ago about it, and he said no, he'd rather do pizza, so he and I did that instead. Yet... he's still giving me trouble over not inviting him.

When I asked him why is it okay for him to never invite me, and the one time I don't invite him, I get jumped all over. Know what answer he gives me? "It's a social thing to be polite to invite others."


I just don't get why it's okay for him to never invite me to anything at all, but if I don't invite him once, it turns into a big "you need to learn social rules" lecture. It just comes across extremely self-centered to me, and gives the whole conversation "I'm right because you are socially inept" type of thing that makes it feel very patronizing to me.

If you feel that asserting yourself with your boyfriend may make him leave, then you are in a controlling relationship. These tend to only get worse, be energy sappers and self-esteem shattering, not to mention a waste of time and hard to recover from. Been there too many times, done that to myself too many times, not anymore.

Seem self-centered to me also.

Don't understand why someone would want to act like that, to me just seem more simple to answer truthfully: yes, no, can't this week, I don't feel like eating taco but if you make a pizza or pasta I would gladly come.


I know it not really help what I said, but doing my best to be supportive, which might be bad support but at least honestly trying.

Oh, I'm not worrying about him leaving. I say a lot of things that most probably wouldn't say. I mean, my response was "why the hell is it okay for you to tell me how to do things when you don't even do them?"

lol. The problem is moreso... I just don't get why when they do something bizarre-people in general-it's okay for them to get by with it, but I need a huge lecture just 'cuz I'm an aspie and they want me to do things the way they do....

Which ultimately makes no sense when it winds up being something they don't do anyway.

no no, it's helpful. Because I was sitting here thinking... "did I just not invite him the right way? Did I do something really bizarre? Am I really worse off in social skills than I think I am?" lol. So it's nice to know that I'm not just being nutty or freaking out... and it literally just doesn't make sense what he did.

Looks like you're asking a rhetorical question. You seem to get it just fine. Does he always throw the fact you're an aspie in your face like this? That's pretty low.

If it's not fear of losing him, then it's very strange that in 5 years you were never curious to meet his friends nor has he wanted you to meet them, nor have his friends nudged to meet you. It's even stranger that when you act as he's acted for 5 years and get a lecture for it, you think he may have a case at all.

Nah your approach was logic and if you ask me you were quite in your right to ask for count. It just that he gave you a practical answer so he could feel less guilt or make you think you did something wrong so you would leave him alone on that point. (One of the thing I hate is that most NT are unwilling to have a calm logical argumentation and discussion over subject)


But starting the be a bit overloaded in my head right now so not sure if what I am saying make sense, feel free to correct me, worse thing that can happen is that I will try to argue later, if I find what I said still make sense later.

Well, I think ultimately, it comes down to just wanting to understand them and why they do it. It's not so much about him, or the situation at hand even, that was just an example of things that happen fairly commonly with people to me.

I don't understand why they ask questions if they don't want an answer, or why they insist on an answer if they aren't really asking a question.

I find all of these things very silly, and it's hard when you have someone trying to explain them to you all of the time.

I guess what I'm looking for is insight as to why they do this, if anyone has any ideas as to why we are looked down on for doing the same things that they do. We are seen as rude, unappreciative, uninterested, and all of those types of things even if we do things that they do.

Is there just something missing in our approach to these situations that bothers people? Or is it one of those things where they just want to say "I'm right and you're wrong" no matter how little sense it makes.

I've noticed a lot of them will just say "it's a social thing" when I do something that bothers them, but I cannot see what I did any differently from what they do.

Yeah, I think a lot of my problem as to why it has lasted 5 years, is I'm very interested in figuring out how people work. So I kind of like it when he tries to explain it, just not when he brings it up in arguments because that is just getting personal.

We've taken breaks from one another a few times, and he makes it a point to talk with his therapist a lot to get ideas on how to work with me. But I think it's harder when he's applying the advice to me, rather than a neutral party working with us. Because it's easier to take from someone I don't know who sees what is going on.... if it's just him every time, I'm thinking "oh no, here it goes again..." lol.

Oddly this is what causes a lot of our arguments. I'm trying to understand something he does, and he doesn't even understand it himself. So it turns into a circular argument, me trying to get answers so I can better understand, and him leaving it at "well, I don't know what to tell you, it's a social thing".

...even more odd.... is that we really do get along really well. He tries, I can tell he's really really trying to explain things to me, but it always ends with "it's a social thing" when he can't explain it in a way I can understand, or once he realizes it doesn't make sense either.

It's not an all the time thing, just every once in a while. I'm sure he puts up with quite a bit from me in trying to understand why I do things the way I do, and I spend all of my time trying to understand things so that I can do the same for him.

But it's a rough battle in all honesty. It's a "this is what I do instinctively, and what it seems everyone else does too, so it's normal" thing vs. me analyzing and trying to pick apart the logic so I can do it as well. I can't conform very well at all unless I have a really good reason for it.

My whole deal with this thought and wondering started with the fact that he even asked for an invitation if he wasn't going to come over regardless, lol. I don't get why it would bother him if it wasn't something he wanted to do.

I think it has to do with pecking order establishment. Like when a high-status guy makes a joke at the expense of someone lower, the group laughs. However, when the other way around happens, it's not as funny & viewed as kind of a challenge.

The social world is vicious, & unfortunately, being aspie is considered a weakness that people will realte with low-status. It's nothing about what you say, but that it was you who said it.

As a side issue, why is your bf trying to establish himself above you? You should be equals.

Non verbal cues set us apart in a group. Body language, eye movements, glances, mannerisms, tone of voice etc.... those are picked up by NTs and tag us as weird. NTs couldn't even explain why they don't like us or respect us or why they think we are weird or at the bottom of the social ladder or whatever. This is all subconscious. They dislike us and they don't even know why. The entire situation is just absurd, actually.

Oh, trust me, we've had that argument plenty of times before, lol. No, he just wants me to be able to feel comfortable when talking with people. He uses a lot of examples of things people do, and will explain why they do it. The problem arises in the fact he's pretty much the only one I really talk to about things, and in a relationship, obviously that doesn't work when I start getting frustrated from not understanding.

I tend to always be the one with the counterargument... for example:

The other day he said something like "bluntly stated: I don't want to go. Nice clause: But I will if you don't want to."

I have a lot of trouble with things like that-I know he's doing it to try to help me understand because I'm always complaining about things like that really not making sense. I stop at the "I don't want to go", and automatically figure that I'm going to have to be the one to do it, regardless of the "unless" part. That part doesn't matter to me, if they don't want to go, they don't want to go.

I don't grasp a lot of things people try to do to be polite.

I don't have a therapist anymore to talk to, and she was going to put me into social therapy when I last saw her, but my car got all bummed up and I could no longer drive to go see her. So... he kind of tries to take on that role and help me out a lot of the time when I don't grasp something.

It just never goes well when he tries, lol... poor guy. I do know his intentions are to help me understand, because I want to sooooo badly. Not so much so I can fit in or anything like that, but so I can at least not take things quite so literally from the start.

He explains a lot of things to me too, about people asking questions but not really wanting an answer. He says they aren't so much doing it to get an answer sometimes, but to get me to understand to answer things simply, or to just view them as being polite. I don't get it, but I think he's almost trying to brainwash me since I want to understand so badly, lol.

It just doesn't work out in a relationship though... he can't be trying to play counselor and boyfriend at the same time, because it just makes it harder to understand coming from him. It sounds more like nit-picking to me than anything else.

We are very much equals. If I really don't get something, and cannot force myself to do it just because it's "normal" and there's no better reason than that, we work out a lot of arrangements.

He asks for hugs before giving them to me, he lets me know when he needs some sort of reciprocation that I am not giving instinctively... we are always talking about things that bug me and him and working out solutions to it.

I just find the "well the problem is you aren't socially skilled" as patronizing, and get even more frustrated because I know it's true. No matter how many times he tries to help me understand, I don't understand a lot of things.

Sometimes I wish he'd stop, but I know he does it because he cares... he tries because things bother me so much, and he knows the social things to do at times-like shaking hands, greeting people all of the time, saying hi back to people I don't know simply because they say hi... but there are always those things I'm going to have trouble in doing if it's not easy to understand or easy to just up and do, and that's when we have our problems.

Did that make sense or did I just talk in circles?

Then ask him what difference HE sees between what you did and what he did. If he makes a fuss for you asking that, it means he's trying to divert your attention from the question because he doesn't have an answer. So when he starts the fuss, tell him: "You have no answer. Thought so." and walk away. Don't agree to remain near him when he's making a fuss, especially when you don't deserve it at all.

And do keep asking questions like this on the forums. We Aspies have all learned these things by asking others or thinking hard, because it's precisely the kind of thing that we don't get intuitively.

The most basic rule you have to learn by heart is: "AS DOESN'T AFFECT LOGIC. ON THE CONTRARY, IT HEIGHTENS LOGIC." Put up notices on your walls to remember this. Then you'll start trusting your own judgement and stop falling prey to this kind of manipulations. Your logic is unblemished. It was only when I stopped doubting the health of my logic that I stopped being used by everyone. One thing is not knowing unspoken social rules, a very different thing is to know what's logical and what isn't in a romantic relationship.