Lacking in social instinct, grrr

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I'm angry about this concept of people on the spectrum lacking a social instinct. I think it's rubbish.
If most of the people around me thought like I did, as it is for NTs, I would have an instant "social instinct" too -
it's just statistics.

On those rare occasions when I meet someone like me, I like them and I want to talk to them more. I can't help it,
it's just there. That's a social instinct!

If two people are in a room, and one is NT and one is Aspie, they both have difficulties understanding each other.
Adding several billion extra to one side of the equation doesn't change that.

If NT's really had this mythical social instinct, they wouldn't be so astounded by aspies. They would get us, but
we wouldn't get them. It clearly isn't like that.

What do you think?

They have a common social language, like a wolf-pack. They get along together and are the majority.

I think you are suggesting that they should have increased empathy for us, but empathy isnt their strength. They simply know how to smell each others butts, growl on cue, howl at the right times, etc. If you don't share those instincts, you are non-pack.

This forum is called "Wrong Planet" for a pretty good and often-experienced reason.
Or, to put it another way - how would you begin to socialise with a Martian? A Martian who looked no different to anyone else but didn't have any workable understanding of the social norms on planet Earth.

What simon_says er, says, is about it really: they have a pack society and we're simply not a part of it for diverse neurological reasons. Non-pack members are always on the fringe, irrespective of the quantities involved.

I think that's right on. It's tyranny of the majority (which I don't think is always bad, but in this case it is).

I also suspect that what gets called empathy is a bit of an illusion. People just accept certain signals as indicating that they're being mind-read and understood, when it's really just acceptance of standard social signals as being transparently/absolutely/instinctually/unquestionably true.

I read a comment someone wrote somewhere about learning a second language, and how that caused him to realize that there is a layer of thought that exists before/below words. But before then, he thought that words and thoughts were obviously the same thing. But since that's a minority experience, the idea that "thought = words" sticks around in society as an unquestioned truism.

I believe what they mean is a lack of TRADITIONAL social skills. You may have taken the sentence literally.

Naw, I can "do" a lot of social skills. I am talking about social instinct. I admit I have no feeling for what a group of NTs are thinking, but I deny that this is an "instinct".

I was going to say I don't have a herd instinct, but in the unlikely event that I was surrounded by a mass of other aspies, perhaps I would.

I give you 100 points for this post.

I constantly deal with people interpreting something into me that is wrong and I have aspie friends who I NEED to be around sometimes.

I have also have had NTs saying that they are completely left out when they are around us aspies and nobody has ever known that we are, until recently. With other words: I have seen the other side of the picture, which I think is the reason for why I just didnt get that I was aspie all my life.

I like the way simon_says it,

The NT population of our species are very much pack creatures. They depend on their pack membership, as they work hard to duplicate the behaviour and mannerisms of each other, ensuring their continuing acceptance within the pack. Without their pack they would be exposed and vulnerable, as are all outsiders to the pack. Anyone who dares to be original, or shows they are different is regarded as an outsider to be feared and rejected, regardless of the fact that they may be a better person in general.


NTs have their own social system based on the commonalities they share within their mass produced pack culture.
If a minority of NTs had to live in an Aspie dominated world I am sure they would be regarded as having very little empathy and having poor social skills as they would then be outside of the so called norm.

From time to time when I meet someone I can relate to-although somewhat awkward I feel my social skills aren't that bad at that time with that person, so long as it is one on one. I usually avoid social contact at all costs though, based on past negative experiences. Perhaps the lack of social instinct those of us with AS experience is in part due to being a minority measured against an inability to empathize and socialise with the majority NT neurotype.

To all posters on this topic : I think you are great, thank you. I feel so rewarded and understood by many of the people on this
board, it makes my eyes wet. Bless you all. I felt so alone in my strangeness, before I came here.

You sure aren't alone here.

I'm so damn good at social instincts that I can't tell if you are being sincere or sarcastic.

I don't have much use for sarcasm Wavefreak, but I wouldn't want to use it on this forum. I am sincere in my appreciation of
the support I find here.

Not really lack of empathy, but vulnerable and dependent. My whole world has changed.

Good 'ere, innit?

Funny story, a co-worker of an acquaintance of mine was working in a summer camp for Aspies abroad helping to coordinate and organize so the Aspie kids felt at ease. At the camp the NTs and Aspies had special badges to distinguish them so that the Aspies could talk to another Aspie if they felt more at ease doing that, or if they needed to make sure they were clearly understood. At the end of the first day this poor NT man was practically in tears.

No one had come up to talk to him the entire first day. They'd talked to the Aspie coworkers who were organizing, but not to him and he felt completely alone. Once his Aspie coworkers realized how upset he was they did everything they could to make him feel more comfortable. And people did approach him on his second day, though never as much as the Aspies. But he told my acquaintance that it was one of the more humbling experiences in his life, because even though he'd been learning about AS for years this was the first time he felt he understood what it was like to be so very alone and feel completely rejected by a crowd that didn't speak the same social language.

Cool.

FWIW, while I can be very sarcastic, in this instance I really was genuinely confused. Ironically, for this thread, my confusion is a great example of the differences in social instincts between those on and off the spectrum.