First time rejected on a party because of my autism?

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It is striking that I was rejected when I wanted to participate in a meeting that was organized by two people of a forum whose member I have been for 10 years. The desire to participate is done by mail, but I got the following mail which totally stunned me:

Dear Hans,

Your invitation is remarkable, because of your statement that you mentioned that you didn't want to come. [The appointment was made that I shouldn't fuzz about anymore, and that I forgot the issue which I will tell about later on]. And to be honest, that is the most appropriate. Because of the incidents on the previous parties, but also considering the other incidents that we took notice of, it wouldn't make is feel right, to allow you to come, as if nothing happened. There are women that - consciously or not consciously - have been felt very uncomfortable. Our goal is that everyone must feel right on the meeting. As long as you don't understand, where the problem is, and even when you deny the problem, we don't think it is wise that you participate at the meeting. The risk that you affect women - consciously or not - with undesired sexual harassment, is too big.

We hope that you be aware of it, and that you cancel your participation plan, then we don't have to escalate it. Maybe the situation will be different on a next meet; that would be judged by the organisation of the next party. But on this moment and for the upcoming meet, your first decision [not to come], seems the wisest for us.

That is a load of BS. There were two things I wasn't aware of, and I had no intention to harass women sexually. It is the first time in my life I have been accused of. These incidents were:
- I was standing in front of someone, with my back to her face. I didn't know that she was standing there. That woman wrote on a forum that she didn't say anything because I am autistic. That is a vile excuse because when I stand in front of someone with my back to his face, it is enough to ask to me to step aside, when I don't notice her immediately;
- I was looking at someone's badge on her breast, and only that. I was not interested in her breasts because they are covered of course. I would only be interested in someone breasts when she is naked. I was showing appreciation in the work that she made on her badge, that she was wearing on the party.

My reaction:

I thought the problem was over for a long time. I was wrong. I was forgotten it, and you still consider that as a problem? Ridiculous.

Do whatever you want with my reply; whether you reply back, or not; but I won't send another mail after this mail. I won't discuss about it further, I only want to let you know what I write in this mail, and nothing more than that.

You deny the party because of your ridiculous assumptions without knowing what actually was happening. Do whatever you want.

I won't say it on the forum in the say way I am doing in this mail; about this I am considering

I don't ever, ever, ever had problems with women. Why on earth this stupidity. They have their thoughts and based on that thoughs they reject me on their party? I have tried to say how I thought about it, but how valid is an opinion of an autistic towards an NT? "Autistics always want to be right," and that was used against me. How vile!

I did send a mail afterwards, in which I said I called it a vile treacherous trick.

I wonder if the fact that you are autistic makes some of these people you're capable of "anything" because you're different? So when you looked at that womans badge they automatically assumed you were up to no good. I wonder if an NT would receive the same reaction?

Not only is it a load of BS, they can't even write a grammatical sentence.

Discrimination, period. Sorry they did that to you.

I can barely understand what they wrote. Is it translated from another language or something?

It is written in Dutch, but I translated into English.

Oh.

It's STILL a load of BS, in any language.

I also look at badges on other meetings where it is appropriate to wear them so that they can be more easily recognized. If there is no picture on the patch, I am trying to read the name of the person wearing that badge, regardless whether that is a woman or a man.

And standing in front of someone else? How the heck can that be sexual? It can be tedious for others, but normally I look carefully where I stand. If a person thinks that I don't see him/her while I should, all he needs is talk to me, or push my gently aside. Only a very soft push. Then I will make a bigger step. Me being autistic cannot be an excuse to say nothing. If someone does that to me, I will talk or push him gently aside, and I don't care if he is autistic or not.

Hans, I am an aspie myself but I think I can guess what happened. I have been doing the same thing myself. I agree with your point 100%. Your logic is correct.

Here is the problem. This is my opinon. The thing is some NTs do not go by logic and reason. You went by logic and reason and you were trying to prove your point. They were trying to maintain the harmony of their social group. They are trying to avoid argument and strife. Social harmony is more important than trying to get at the truth.

I believe some NTs go not by reason or logic but by feelings and initial appearance. "Our goal is that everyone must feel right on the meeting." This backs up what I say. What does this mean?

1. It did not matter what actually took place but what APPEARED to have taken place. To these women you appeared to be looking at their breasts. This is what these women felt was true. It doesn't matter what the actual truth was but actually what they felt.

2. In their mind, you did not care about their feelings one iota. These are the set of NTs who do not go by logic and reason. They go by feelings especially the women there. You are angry right now. You feel discriminated against. I do not blame you. This is how they felt. They feel angry, discriminated, and violated whether they actually were or not. This is how they felt. Use your frame of reference to how you felt to try to see how they felt. This is called the golden rule which is Do Unto Others as you would have them do onto you.

3. Ultimately, it does not matter what your logic is. It does not matter if you're right or wrong especially with those who go by more feeling then logic. It does not matter what is true or false.

I have a theory.

Try sending another email to this person. I would say this. Let's see what happens.

Dear Whomever

We have had many misunderstandings over the time we have known each other. I am sorry that I made everyone there feel uncomfortable. I am sorry that I have caused offense to everyone. If there is anything I can do for anyone to make it up then I will do so. I did enjoy the time we all had together. I hope everyone that is there has many successes in their future, with their families and in their careers as well.

Sincerely,



Hans

After that, send the one who wrote this email either a gift basket,some money or whatever you can afford. Once they do that give it a few days like maybe 3-4 days and see what happens. If they say nothing else or is still nasty to you then have no further dealings with them and move on. Don't worry about them anymore because if they're still nasty to you then they're wrong. Go somewhere else.

Very strange.

I don't understand why standing with your back to somebody could possibly be taken as sexual harrassment, unless you were somehow actually touching them in taboo places.

Looking at a badge is OK too, as far as I know. I've always taken it as read that if a woman wears an ornament in public, she wants people to look at it, and if that involves my looking at a restricted area, then maybe she should have thought of that when she decided where to pin the ornament. I can't imagine that looking for a minute or two would normally cause any anxiety.

If this happened to me, I'd be tempted to reply that I was very concerned at the allegations, and to request details so that I could deal with them properly - I might add that I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt on account of my having autism, but I'd labour the point that without proper detail nobody would be able to make sense of it.

Frankly I think that giving vague criticism should be on the list of Deadly Sins. There's never anything can be done with it unless they tell you exactly what you did that they didn't like.

If I got that sort of letter, I'd be very confused because if I don't know what I did wrong, I'm going to not understand it. If I knew who to contact about it, I'd be calling them and ask what it was about and I never did those things because I don't know what is going on. I would just figure maybe I was misread or maybe my intentions were misread. I'd also be asking how did I do those things.

I don't see how standing in front of someone is sexual harassment because everyone stands in front of people and reading name tags? You're supposed to. If you have it over your breast, you should know a man looking at it is reading your name tag. I wouldn't push them out of the way, I would tap them on the shoulder or something and say "excuse me" if they didn't hear me before.

Those incidents you mention don't sound that bad, or at least, not worthy of exclusion, so perhaps there may be some truth in the above paragraph? Maybe you have completely forgotten about other incidents or have not even been aware that they were occuring (staring 'creepily' or being over familiar perhaps).

I reckon you should write back and ask what particular incidents they are referring to. If you are polite enough, they may reply.

You know, this sort of thing has happened to my husband quite a number of times.

Before we were married.

He is from Tibet, and was working as a security guard at a meditation center in India, when he was accused of harrasment by western women a couple of times when he was only trying to help them. Another time that he went out of his way to help a western tourist, she read into it that he was attracted to her.

This is projection. These particular women weren't used to a man being kind just because he is that sort of person. They projected onto him their past experiences and assumed that he wanted something or had alterior motives for helping and showing concern.

This sounds like what happened to you. You were innocently checking out the details of a women's badge and she assumed that you were really checking out her boobs and talked about it.

Unfortunately, women do experience a lot of sexual harrassment from men, often starting from a young age, so if they don't reflect and examine an experience carefully, they will jump to conclusions about a current experience based on the past.

I think that this is the heart of what happened here, not because you are autistic but because you are a man.

The one who wrote you the email about not attending the meeting is trying to be sensitive to the needs of these two women, but in doing so, he's alienated you. Too bad he doesn't have conflict resolution skills, because this would be a great opportunity for everyone to learn something.

You: some women are paranoid about men looking at their boobs, and reactionary about men in general.

The Women: not all men are the same, there are good men who respect women and don't look at them as objects for their sexual gratification only.

The Coordinator: don't make assumptions, use dialogue to get at the heart of a conflict and aim to keep ALL members of a group safe. If, there is discrimination going on here, EXAMINE that.

Perhaps, if you are not too hurt by the whole thing, you could suggest a mediation with these people?

I agree, Especially with the last sentense in which you mentioned the golden rule. Looking at someone's boobs is inappropriate, and I have mentioned that. Vainly because they don't aknowledge that statement. That is getting ignored.


Apparently this seems to be only true on the past few meetings. Not in any other situations. Measures that are taken against persons are based on facts, not based on feelings. It is hard to judge when someone does actually look at someone breasts. It can be anything. I have been on numerous parties, I have walked through the school hall with numerous pupils with hundreds between 14 and 18 years old. I have been in a voyage
group. I have been in Esperanto congresses. I have never got troubles. Again when I am rejected, the reasons are based on facts, not on feelings.





I have said something similar as in the above letter. I had not intention to look at boobs. And I admit that looking at boobs is inappropriate, and I was truly sorry that it was considered like that. To no avail. They won't recognize what I said. It is final. The women felt uncomfortable because of my behaviour and that's it. I said that publicly because the truth must be told on that forum. People were asking whether I come, and I was forced to lie about it. I don't like lying, my preference is telling the truth, and/or my feelings and/or my views. The truth must be told. In the first instance I did it by mail, later on i did it by announcing the truth or perception on the forums so that everyone can give their input to this matter.

To no avail. The decision to disallow me to the meeting is final. I don't it will make sense to apply your suggestion. And it will likely have more consequences to the future meetings. I might not be welcome, because they want to admit that I was looking at boobs. That sounds like lying again.

Only... there was something remarkable happened recently. Other women read about the issue, and they don't like the way I was treated. They said: "The way you treated Hans makes me uncomfortable. I will not come to the meeting, although I previously announced to come. It doesn't feel good." There were four or five women that found that I was treated like s**t, and firmly disagreed to what happened. They condemn the matter and announced not to go to the meeting. That implies to me, that I have these women at my side. Otherwise they wouldn't refrain from going.

I have tried to do the same. Some women have let me know after a few months later after the meeting that my behaviour was not appropriate. If there is anything wrong, the tiniest details go away out of my memory, so that I haven't a clear view anymore what happened.


It would work for my to criticize my behaviour immediately, when it is inappropriate. Why is it inappropriate? What did I do? What can I do to avoid repeating that behaviour? That is not done, because I am autistic, they say. That is not an excuse. I have told to many people: If my behaviour is inappropriate, please let me know it immediately. Until now that didn't happen very often, which makes me think that my behaviour is appropriate most of the time. Not 100 % of the time that I wasn't been criticized though, because a guarantee cannot be given. I have told it to my boss at work, to my colleagues. Just let me know when you feel unconfortable with me. Then we will find a solution. They have chosen to not find a solution, but make me feel worse, also by saying that an autistic always wants to be right. They are calling the kettle black.

Sadly, a lot of people tend to do that.



Well, at least a few of them have some sense.

I agree that you should drop this whole thing. It's become nothing more than a waste of energy. There's just no reasoning with some people.

Take care, and again, I'm sorry this happened to you.

I agree to stop to demand justice. It costs energy, and I probably won't get the justice. There are two parties. I keep telling my views, and they keep considering feelings as facts. They don't want a solution.

Indeed. Every bit more energy into that matter is wasted energy.