Social cues, unwritten rules and bullying.

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When people say those with an ASD miss social cues, what kind of things do they mean exactly?

I don't know if I have an ASD but I can read someone opening a door for me, if they want to sit next to me on the bus (may take me a few seconds to register it though) and when its my turn at the checkout in the supermarket.

What I will miss are things like people flirting. I have no idea if they are just being friendly or not so of course I never meet dates off of the internet as I am never sure what to do next. I just assume they are being friendly and be friendly back. The few exceptions were when I was introduced to someone by family and when I met someone at college because they were in the same classes as me and always sat next to me in them.

Also what do people mean by unwritten social rules? What exactly are these unwritten social rules....and why are they so important to everybody?

I always treat people with the same level of basic human respect and I can't imagine treating someone disrespectfully just to increase my social standing. I do not even understand why treating someone badly would increase your cool or popularity factor. The only time I would ever verbally attack someone is out of self defense. The same goes for physical attack...self defense only and even then I prefer to just get out of there if I can, especially if it is in the real world and not just on the internet. I always used to outrun the bullies at school. i was a fast sprinter. I did not stick around to fight as I do not like conflict or physical violence. I am traumatised by it emotionally.

Also I am traumatised emotionally by seeing another living creature hurt or in pain. My impulse is to want to help not to hurt them so I don't understand anyone who gets pleasure from seeing another living critter genuinely hurt. Why? What do you get from it?

Do people really want to hurt others just for the sake of their own social status?
Why? Why do people care so much about social status?

I appreciate you all may want the pick when it comes to mates but really who wants to date an as*hole and most people who got to the top of the social ladder are dick heads basically.

I'd rather date the sweet interesting guy with the low social status as long as we share some of the same passions/interests.

So what is with all these 'unwritten social rules' and 'social status' thing.

I think life is too short to spend it playing silly games.

I wish it were possible to just find a few friends and a life mate you like and whom share some of the things you are passionate about and not have to play social games or earn social status to do it. More time to pursue your passions together (or individually if you prefer) that way.

I have grown tired of society and its game playing. It causes so much unnecessary unhappiness. It makes me feel sad to see the world in the state it is in when it could have been so much more wonderful.

I never know when someone is flirting with me and I just don't understand it.

It always comes as a shock to me when I learn that someone is attracted to me because it's not even something I look for.

I think I'm completely blind to it.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

Unwritten social rules are usually surrounding common sense and boundaries. These things are about not pointing out to a bigger, more round person that they are "fat" ie. "you look like you could lose a few pounds." This may come across as being honest and sincere in your mind, but to the other it comes across as insenstive and rude. Common sense says not to point out the flaws of another person unless you want it done to you.

Of course, I remember my childhood growing up and it could be the same for other Aspies.. I had a nasty habit of pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable behaviour. I was a big lad, so the boundaries consisted of overly aggressive behaviour when playing games. This kind of went with the intensity I showed playing pickup basketball or soccer, and when I was actually playing a competitive organized game. I played the same way no matter what and disregarded the skill level of those playing the pickup games. It hurt other's feelings and left them feeling like I was treating myself "superior" to them.

I could explain how social status matters, but I thought I would make this recommendation: google State Atheism, or State Atheism in the Soviet Union. I was kinda fascinated to read how strongly communist countries supported social status and how against religious freedom they were. China was like that for a long time as well, but has apparently eased off the anti-religion stance a little bit.

Were the people you played games with very insecure?

I am not all that bothered if someone is better at something than me as I see no reason as to why I should always be good at things. I don't know who made that rule up but it seems unrealistic and silly to my mind. Sometimes in life there are going to be those with a greater level of skill than myself. These are the people I seek to learn from.

Yes, as a child, I could get upset if I lost at a game but it only inspired me to want to learn more to see if I could improve my technique. I love learning and am not put off if I can't do something straight away or as well as someone else.

I'd actually be more hurt if they were letting me win by holding back as then I do not get a true reflection of my actual skill level. I am receiving false data that implies I am better at something than I actually am. This is frustrating to me and i wish people would not do this. My feelings are not hurt by being beaten at something by someone. As long as they are not overly showy about it (ie openly stating they are a superior human being to me rather than saying their skills are superior...the latter is true the former is not...) I admire and respect someone with a more advanced skill set.

My brain really does not seem to work like anyone elses, even compared to many on the spectrum.

Ie

I have no fear of failure or of making a mistake...i see them as learning curves and would rather gather data about said failure or mistake in order to further understand it then beat myself up for it. I do not see any point to the latter. It does not help me learn, In fact it hinders my ability to learn and accordingly is a waste of my time as a result. I can find a solution to the problem or develop my understanding without beating myself up in the process so it is an unnecessary process.

I do not believe in worthlessness or bother with value judgements the majority of the time unless I am offended and in self defense mode. Outside of self defense mode I do not concern myself with such things (usually). Spend enough time around other people though and my brain will start to pick up bad habits, ergo there are exceptions (something or someone annoys me enough I call it a jerk until my annoyance passes...a process which may take seconds, minutes, day, months or rarely years).

I don't care for power, I care more for passion

I don't care for dominance or submission in the social sense, I care for living life to the fullest and having adventure.

Social status does not interest me, experience and understanding does.

I do not expect myself to be perfect and do not mind if I am not

I accept myself regardless of my social difficulties. it is others who refuse to either accept me or accept that I should accept myself. They think I should think there is something wrong with me and that I am not worthy. I say poppycock. I am an individual, I am not defective. I do not see NT or normal as being superior or as being inferior. It is what it is..a group of people with different characteristics to me that function better or worse than I do depending on things like the context and environment etc.

I am beginning to wonder if there is even such a thing as good and bad. To me morals are relative. What is moral in one situation may be immoral in another. I also wonder if things are as linear as we like to think they are....

I am not convinced we can quantify some of the things we are trying to quantify in any meaningful sense (such a persons overall worth for example) and it just seems silly to try. I feel it may be limiting our ability to truly understand the true nature of life rather than enhancing it.

And so on.

I always was a strange soul.

I should have probably clarified... pick up games and of course in gym class as well. My Phys-ed teacher gave me a lower mark (normally got 85-95, but one year the mark dropped to 70) for my intensity by saying "insensitive to the skill of others, and didn't do enough to help imrpove the skills of others." So in other words, I was being told "Doesn't play well with others, makes people feel like s**t for not being on the same level."

And there is good and bad. But the standards vary from one person to the next.

I think most people are pretty much the same. The difference is, most people tend to be pretty sensitive, so they become offended much more easily and go into self defense mode much more rapidly.

The other contributing factor is that we now live in a culture that is positively drunk on the positive thinking and self esteem movements. Anything that could possibly harm someones self esteem, especially the self esteem of children, is increasingly thought of as cruel and insensitive. The ego must be protected at all costs. It doesn't matter if what's said is true or not, is still considered rude. We can't call fat kids fat, dumb kids dumb, and mean kids mean. And I don't mean that we should allow kids to be bullied relentlessly for these things; bullying is an entirely destructive activity that helps no one. But we must still be willing to criticize these types of things, even in children. Because living in denial about people's flaws also helps no one.

Oh yeah... good point bringing up the Ego. There are a lot of cultures now that have blatantly mistaken ego for confidence.

i dont quite understand social cues at all, i only learned there were more to communication when i was diagnosed, before that i only beleived there was Facial Expressions and Vocal comunication, (and i didnt know there were more facial expressions than Sad, Happy, Angry, and annnoyed.) but i learned from experience mostly, i know that when someone opens a door and steps aside, it makes rooom for me to go through, and when someone is staring at me they want something from me. my therapist told me that when someone is not looking at me, theyre not interested in me at all, which i didnt know before.

I can interpret many social cues over years of experience but I don't understand them... I'm only now learning that when someones feet are pointed away from you it means they are looking to leave the interaction. So I look for this now, before I could kind of notice people getting frustrated in an interaction with me not knowing that I had overstayed my welcome and they weren't interested anymore.

Beats me. Do you have any ideas? I sure don't! Like it's a big no-no to bully someone younger, smaller, mentally retarted etc but Aspies and other "easy targets" are fair game. In other words, going for an easy victim good unless they are too easy then it's a horrible thing.


I've always said that I will never visit a slaughterhouse because I would die of hunger. I'm a very fussy eater and meat is about the only thing I can eat. It took me a long time to understand many bullies aren't confused, immature, stupid etc but are VERY aware of what they are doing and ENJOY causing pain and suffering for its own sake.


Yes, it was (literally) beaten into me in school. When the 'bystanders' had to choose between pleasing the class a**hole and not beating up a defenseless student, guess what everybody did. I'm sure more than one felt bad about it but that didn't change the fact that social status was more important than fairness of justice. All I can figure is that contrary to the arrogance of humanity, we are barely out of the caves. Let me repeat: NOT ONE STUDENT TOOK MY SIDE EVEN THOUGH THEY KNEW I WAS RIGHT!


Ugh. There's nothing I hate more than these silly wasteful customs like providing WAY too much food at business meetings and never taking any home when people are hungry in the street or pretending to care about someone just to sell them something. I've been depressed for years and I believe much of it has to do with the fact that most of the world's problems are easy to solve.... if humanity can get its head out of the sand.

I think I usually notice when someone is flirting with me. What I'm not too sure about is whether people are sending signals that they're bored with me, think I'm inferior somehow, or find me annoying. It's gone both ways: I've missed the signs, and I've imagined these signs when they actually had no problem. After you miss cues a few times I guess it's easy to become generally paranoid and go too far the opposite direction. The cues I used to miss, but now pick up on some of the time, are things like: when people just want agreement/approval instead of an actual discussion of a topic, when they find a topic embarrassing, how long they feel like talking, etc. Unfortunately I couldn't tell you how I'm (finally) starting to pick up on those things. It's just experience. I'm learning stuff most people probably know in kindergarten, only 30 years late. Half the time I still only realize too late what was going on.

As for bullying, I don't understand it either. I guess I can kind of understand being hurt and just lashing out at bystanders in anger, but the plain old bullying from someone who seems to feel fine to begin with, nah, I don't get that. I just figure they lack empathy (haha). There are more psychopaths in the world than one might think, and they seem to enjoy "playing with" aspies (that is, torturing us). As for the bystanders and the people who go along with it, people are cowards. They're looking out for their own social status. Bullies have a way of coming across as powerful and confident, and thus, someone to latch onto, even if they hate them.