Do you get 100% results when you pretend?

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I read a lot of people on here who talk about how they pretend, how much, in what ways, etc. I'd like to ask how effective pretending has been for you?

I ask because I know there's a big price to pay for pretending, so pretending has to be very highly effective to be worth the price.

The price is, if you fall short of your goal of passing for NT, you'll very possibly be found more weird than if you didn't pretend at all. Another price we pay is the guilty feelings for "lying" about who we are. And the fear of being found out. And the big gap between who we are when we're pretending and when we're too tired to pretend - we can be seen as 2 different people. And the risk of appearing false, phony for pretending so much.

I am who I am. I don't pretend to be anything different. Now that does not mean I have not adapted to work better with society but those adaptations were reached through analysis and logic and trying to make situations work better. What I mean by this is learning how to answer a question with a question to give the other party a chance to feel involved in the conversation. Now I am trying to learn eye contact and body language so that I can read the meaning in situations better still. This is a bit uncomfortable for me, but I have learned a bit from my limited time doing it (about 2 months, or about as long as I have been trying to figure out if I have AS.)

Thank you for this subject. It is fresh and relevent.

I whole heartedly agree with your statement about the pretending being too high of a price. You are exactly right about the risk of being 'discovered' and then losing more than you hoped to have gained.

I have extremely strong feelings about being entirely truthful in my life, I live with my eyes open for anyone to look into to see that truth, and I have eternally worn this ragged old heart of mine on my sleeve. And all of that has always been the source of a lot of pain as many people are eager to survive at any cost to others. I have not lied or been phony...

But, yes, I have pretended. I have done what I've needed to do to survive in this wrong planet, but have always maintained the parameters outlined in the above paragraph. I have not assimulated. To do so would be living a life lie to myself.

But I have managed to use my intelligence to grow, evolve...
and yes.... 'fit in'.

So, I have a slightly different view of your subject, as in from another vantage point....

A few things actually. I live in the U.S. and as you already knew or have read in postings, our health system is tough when it comes to an Aspergers diagnosis. There is also a strong prevailing belief among providers in the Autism field that this Aspergers thing is overated and many openly do not take it seriously. Add to this that I grew up in a time where Aspergers had not arisen on the spectrum. So along with me, the vast majority of NTs had no clue to such a thing.

Lastly... hugely relevent to ME is the fact that I was clueless to why I was (secretly, in My mind) such a weirdo. One night I sat at the computer and typed wrong planet on Google because that's how I felt about this place. And up-popped This Wrong Planet.

Dozens of others here have written about simular happy accidents like this. Happy because there is an explantion for who we are.

I have struggled with these humans, still do. But I have survived with my pretending because I had to survive and did not know another way. You ask 100%? Nope. I've been a pope, a king, a Nobel recipient and I've been flat on my ass in the mud. I'm still here..

And when I was surrounded from time to time with no hope of escape and/or acceptance, my shields have always been humor and music. - - the humor for 'them', the music for private me.

Sorry for such a novel... I must have felt strongly about this..

Oh, here, I owe you an A...

a

... it goes right behind the n in the word explanation.

I don't think trying to blend in and be like NT's is something we should feel guilty about. NT's try hard to blend in with other NT's a lot of the time because they don't want to be different, it's just that they find it easier to blend. You talk, and a lot of people on here talk as if we are different species, AS and NT. We are not. We have differences, profound ones sometimes, but we also have similarities, more similarities than differences. People seem to focus on the differences so much, they forget in many ways we are the same.

A lot of people with AS want to be "normal", but there isn't one. I personally have never looked at a group of NT's and thought, "you are all the same, you are normal" they are all SO different, they all have their own weirdness when you get to know them. What they really want is to be able to communicate and understand communication as well as everyone else, we never will, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't try. NOBODY gets 100% results, because everybody is different. NT's all use different gestures, body language, expressions etc, if it was simply a set of rigid rules I would be able to learn and follow them with ease, but every person you meet is different and you have to get to know them and work out what those expressions and gestures mean before you can feel comfortable with them and communicate easily with them. This is probably why we find it so difficult to communicate with strangers, but not so hard with people we know well.

The price is not always high, I have been found to be different, but I have never in my adult life been made to pay for trying to blend in, but I do know what you mean. My attempts at lying and exaggerating like I knew other people often did when I was a child went horribly wrong, and I ended up alienating all of the few friends I had. This went badly wrong because I was trying to be like others and not just being myself, because I was trying to do something that doesn't come naturally to me, it wasn't because they were NT and I had AS. There are plenty of NT's who don't find lying easy.
I think all children face this problem, not just children with AS. There is a pressure to fit in and conform, some do it with ease, some find it more difficult, some lie just below the radar, and some are highlighted as being different by others and made to pay for it. But there are PLENTY of NT's who suffer just the same because people realise they are different.

I've been thing about this one a lot too recently.

Pretending to be someone I'm not - 100% Epic Fail

However, performing by just letting the more competent and confident aspects of my personality out, while working hard to ensure I am polite and inoffensive 80-95% success rate (a kind of being the best bits of me thing). I can't keep this up for long but it can be very useful in short bursts.

Especially at interviews, where I tend to do really well.

It works best when I'm talking about stuff where I have specialist knowledge, so I can be completely honest and enthusiastic, but also have to watch myself to ensure I remember to stop listen and pay attention to what others are saying and do not over-talk so it is hard work.

However, I've also been really badly caught out by this, as I assumed that following this interview performance, at work I then had to be 100% perfect at doing my job (not socialising - just doing the work) this is of course impossible and has led to partial burn out on a number of occasions.

So now I'm not trying to appear completely and utterly competent either, except for perhaps the part of an interview that is based around my core expertise, or when doing a short presentation or lecture.

Even in an interview, if there is a bit where you are asked about what your weaknesses are, I will be honest at this point - but also point out how I handle the weakness, I said at one interview, 'I have a tendency to panic, but I also have a lot of excellent strategies to make sure I deal with this' - I got the job - I guess they appreciated the honesty.

As for social situations if I generally avoid large social situations most of the time, and only socialise with people I do not have to pretend with (I don't socialise much at all).

If I have to spend time with a large group of people I don't know and I find I have to act polite and watch what I say, I'll either end up in the kitchen where there are less people, find someone I can talk with about a shared special interest, or who can talk about something I find interesting while I listen, or leave quickly saying I'm sorry I'm tired after a long day or need to travel home or something.

So performing yes I do that, it can be very useful, but I'm performing as aspects of who I actually am but possibly leaving out the weirder bits, I'm being a partial me, it is a kind of acting. However, it's also hard work, and it's very important to make sure I get rests in between doing this, and it only works for short term things, not as something I can do all the time. If I perform over a long time it leads to me being very confused about my complete identity - as my complete identity includes the weird bits, so I've realised this behaviour must be used sparingly when I really need to to get through something. It is not something to do all the time, EVER.

Pretending to be who I'm not, I cannot do this, I always fail miserably, so I do not do this any more.

Sorry - this turned into a bit of an essay as well...this must be pretty important to me too...

no. i try to pretend but i always get to a point where i don't know how to do it right and i just stop like i hit a wall(like conversation). and i feel like a sell out while i am doing it. and the stuff i do try to do is not done very well. i feel clumsy whilst acting the motions that NTs do(facial expressions, eye contact).

Reasonably effective.
The cost may be high, but there is something called "making an effort", which almost everyone does to fit in.
Even NT's.

If you can bridge the gap between "creepy weirdo" and "a little eccentric" that's a big win, particularly when in high school where there are bullies.

The less you are like the rest, the easier and more often you will get singled out in bad ways.
Even if it's just being left out of conversations at work, that's where 90% of deciding who gets a raise/promotion gets done.
Your actual work count's for s**** with NT bosses, they promote and favor who they LIKE.
I've heard this from lots of ASD's in real life; when they indulge their natural behavior at work/school it ends badly.

Pretending can be done in many ways, you don't have to change who you are, just work with the situation a little.
It's what NT's do when you drone on and on about your special interest; they pretend to be interested for awhile to indulge you, and be friendly...
Which is the good kind of pretending. Just don't go overboard and try to change who you really are deep down!

PLUS: the "cost" in terms of energy of pretending goes down if you keep at it. You learn this SOCIAL behavior and can autopilot most of it!

Not at all. I get very little results when I pretend. First of all, I have no idear what I am supposed to be pretending or even what results I am going for. Someone needs to give me a rulebook of what to pretend and why I am pretending it. Then, I could try to follow the rulebook to pretend whatever I am supposed to be pretending, but I may not be very successful at doing that. It depends on how much I can eggsagerate my tones of voice and how naturally I can make the facial eggspressions that are required, and I have heard that it is even harder to eggsert full control over your body language than your face and voice, so that might be moar of a problem for me. The most that I can pretend is by purposefully copying others, like a specific person in a group, but that might be a bad idear, because the person might notice that you are purposefully copying them.

Yes, the cost is very high. Furthermore, the benefit is close to zero.

In high school , pretending was my life. I was pretending to be a jovial person. I was making jokes to my *friends*, unfortunately my jokes were far from being funny (yes, sense of humor issues). At least, the opinions were in that way. After hearing my joke, they were usually replying with this sentence: ''Really very funny, ret*d.''.

I had to endure. If I had stopped pretending, I would have been completely detached from their companionship. On the other hand, with my less than successful jokes and obtrusive manners I became a court jester like dimwit in their eyes.

After high school, I just let it go. With being myself, I became more successful in maintaining healthy relationships. Now I remember my high school with remorse and hatred.

In summary, pretending brought only exhaustion and misery to me. Pretending is also a way of self deception. A pretending person can never feel true acceptence, because people accept/like his ''false self'' on the society, not his ''true self''. I realized that I become truly happy only when someone accepts me with my real traits.

I think this link can be helpful for anyone here: link

I'm fine with people thinking I'm just quirky. I don't strive for 100% normal--which would require inventing friends, lovers, normal interests etc. The only thing I manufacture is interest. When someone talks to me about mundane things, I pretend to care. I laugh at jokes that I don't find funny, I ask probing questions that I don't really want answers for, and I make out like I'm listening even when I'm not. I don't even know why I do this, apart from the fact that being a Nice Person is associated with perks (e.g., people bring you cookies).

Other than that, I don't hide myself. I don't hide the fact that walking everywhere is my "thing" or that I'm a compulsive crafter or that I collect facts about crazy things. Everyone I work with knows that I don't have a significant other, and they can probably guess that I don't have a social life. They also know that I'm not the most graceful person and that I even have a movement disorder. There was a time when I could hide my tics, but not anymore.

I do feel weird that I can't be "natural" in the company of others, but then I remember that polite behavior has the same function as clothing. It hides those parts of yourself that no one really wants to see. Everyone pretends to some degree. As long as you aren't always hiding yourself, it's fine.

Somberlain, I did Winnicott-based therapy for years. It was hilarious because the therapy's goal is to free the True Self but in my rare case as an Autistic, the therapy had to be adapted to teaching me to develop a False Self.

Yes. I'm an awesome liar