What don;t you understand about people?

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There are a lot of things that confuse me about people, both on and off the spectrum. I often just do not understand their logic. I am not sure which are general human complaints or which may or may not be ASD related should I find I am on the spectrum. I just know that when I interact with people I find myself confused on multiple levels.

Level 1

I don't really understand many of their social customs (ones I am aware of anyway), although I can read some basic body language and facial expressions (happy, sad, anger, excitement combined with other body language like jumping up and down and concentrating, especially if they are holding a book or similar and look busy too). But things such as social hierarchy, or whether or not something is trendy and how that makes someone more likeable as a human being. I don't really care whether someone is trendy or whether or not other people like them. If I like them I like them, it does not matter to me if they are popular or not.

When people tell me about their social stories I don't really feel anything. I am not sure what I am supposed to feel. The fact that they are into something trendy for example just because it is trendy does not matter to me. I don't feel anything when they tell me. I don't think they are cool, or not cool, or good or bad, or superior or inferior, I really just don't care about trendy at all.

I'd be more excited if someone told me they were taking an astronomy class. I really want my own telescope and to learn astronomy so I'd want to know about the class, where it was, what they were learning, how much it was, if there were any more places, how far along in the course are they, are they running any other courses later on, does the person own a telescope, which one is it, can I have a look through it? Can they name the constellations, are they studying anything else....I'd have a 101 questions for them.

But when someone tells me they are going night clubbing at some trendy hot spot..I get nothing, just nothing. I feel nothing, I think nothing...just nothing. And I struggle very badly to muster up any real interest. It's not that I don't appreciate it is obviously important to them on some level but it means nothing to me in the sense that I really really don't care about trendy nightclubs and hotspots.

Level 2

I don't understand why some social rules are in place at all. I mean why is it wrong to be interested in something different? Why is it bad to not know something or not be able to do something (excluding the direct consequences such as not being able to feed yourself if you can't cook...in which case can you find a way around not being able to cook instead?), why does a person have to be trendy to be worth knowing? Why do people bully each other? Why does everyone seem to think in terms of inferior and superior rather than in terms of personal preferences whereby no one personal preference is any more right or wrong than another provided it hurts no one? What is wrong with not being chatty? or being quiet? Ok they read it as unfriendly but can they not be taught to understand that there are many reasons as to why someone might not speak sometimes. If it is taught that being quiet is ok and that it does not make a person unfriendly then being quiet will become more acceptable.


Level 3

What is wrong with not always wanting to socialise or with only wanting to socialise with certain people in certain ways rather than being social in general?
Why should I feel bad about this?
Why should I hate myself? Can't I be ok with not being good at something or with my quirks? Maybe I don't want to live up to other peoples expectations of what they think I should be! I think it is a bit arrogant of them to believe that I am less than them and should feel bad about myself just because I don't live up to some ideal of what they think a human being should be. I think it is also very rude of them...yet this is considered acceptable.

I don't understand why gossip is ok, when it can cause so much hurt and damage to peoples reputations unfairly but my wanting to eat the same flavour ice cream every saturday is pathological and must be changed (what the hell?)

Is the world going mad?

I appreciate I probably lost my marbles years ago.

This whole worthless thing..can;t we find a more pleasant belief system? I means it's a bit mean if you think about it and makes it ok for people to devalue individuals and the life they are living. I hate hate hate hate hate hate it. It causes so much harm and yet again, it is more acceptable than my wanting to eat belgian chocolate haagen dazs (oh god that stuff is an orgasm in a tub...I have sensitive taste buds, the taste makes me feel all tingly) whilst watching a movie every week.

Ridiculous really. I don't get it....why are my routines (the ice cream being one example of) bad when all this other stuff does far more harm to people and too society. I really really don't understand peoples logic at all.

5 Why can't people accept that when I don't have anything to say, I don't have anything to say. It's no good having a go at me, the more they push the more I want to get away. When I have something to say I speak...and if its about my pet subject I will speak, and speak, and speak and speak and speak and...where did everyone go?

6 Why do people expect me to mind read. Once when I did something wrong socially (I have no idea what it was so don't ask me, the person would not tell me) the other person involved responded with "this is not the way to make friends". What is not the way to make friends? I don't have telepathic powers. I don't think I need a therapist, I think I might need a psychic instead...

And so on...those are a few things off the top of my head.

What don't you understand about people?

I don't understand why most guys only go after girls who treat them like s***. I neither look for an answer anymore. I just think they deserve it and should be treated like that by any woman they date during their life. After all, isn't that what they want?
Also, I don't understand why some people don't believe that things that don't concern them exist. I mean, I met some cis people that didn't believe agender people existed, or straight people thinking asexual people don't exist, or men who thought that men couldn't be raped by women just because it didn't happen to them. I mean, all those are dumb. It's like not believing that elephants exist just because there aren't any where you live.
Also other stuff but now I'm too angry to think properly.

I don't understand why people reminisce about things all the time. I know that I can tell a tale but I'll only tell it the once and then that's it, I've said it.

I've known people who tell the same tale over and over again

I think they only got one tale to tell.

A lot of things I could say I don't understand about people, but I actually do understand pretty well, I just don't agree or like what they do. Or sometimes I just can't believe what I understand about people.

The main thing I actually don't understand, is why it seems to be so hard for other people to understand ME. I do make the effort to understand other people, I may not always get it right, but it seems like other people don't even make the effort. Others tend to make very careless assumptions. I just don't understand how a person's mind can work that way.

Well, for one thing, I don't understand how people can be totally comfortable, happy, and at ease in an environment where they're crammed in a backyard for 5 hours listening to rock and roll music played at full blast with people they hardly know and stuck in uncomfortable, tight, scratchy formal clothes the whole time....like at my older stepbrother's wedding.

I'm quite proud that I get sarcasm over 50% of the time, and even use it correctly. I still lag from 10 minutes to days when understanding jokes I just heard, which isn't functioning enough to me to try joking myself. Facial recognition is questionable. But I'm getting reasonably good at recognizing "sad", "very sad", and "fake sincerity" voice changes. It turns out many people use the fake sincerity voice. Keeping all this in check is tiring!

I agree, weddings suck so much. I was stuffed into an itchy pink dress for 4 hours. Small talk is like torture.

I have absolutely no grasp on anything more than basic theory of mind stuff, when people say things like how do you expect a 70 year old Lebanese man to view this I am......................total blank on stuff like this.

Ditto for social identity or cultural identity stuff, I have neither myself and this just mystifies me.

I am blown away by the things people can look at me and think up as impressions, like a bizarro Sherlock Holmes who is 100% wrong.

I'll never understand how certain people reach conclusions.

What don't I understand about people?

Here is a short list:

• That some people will believe a simple lie for the comfort it brings instead of the complex truth that makes them uncomfortable.
  
• That collections of myths passed down to us from ignorant and illiterate Stone-age nomads for thousands of years have more influence on the way some people think than all of the facts that Science has discovered in the last five-hundred years.
  
• That some people believe that getting on their knees and mumbling to the floor for hours with their eyes closed will solve all of their problems if they can only convince enough other people to do the same thing with them.
  
• That some people will see only a moving light in the night sky and immediately claim as fact that the moving light is either extra-terrestrial in origin, part of a sinister terrestrial conspiracy, or both.
  
• That the very same people who dismiss the opinions of well-educated experts will trust the opinions of an uneducated, ignorant, cherry-picking individuals instead -- especially if they are the individuals, and the experts disagree with them.
  
• That the same people who publicly claim that their religion meets all of their needs confess to a "cold, empty feeling inside" when in private.
  
• That some people think that playing video games, drinking alcohol and taking illegal drugs are more important than having a job.
  
• That some people who can't even get a job in their own second-rate countries will criticize a first-rate country's government, its wealth, and its citizens who have jobs.
  
• That some people will ask for the same advice over and over, and dismiss every honest and factual reply with "That won't work for me", even though the advice they've received has worked for countless others in the exact same situation.
  
• That some people will put all of their energy and time into complaining about how no one is interested in them, while putting no time or energy at all into becoming interesting people.

Did I just kill this thread?

Based on my own limited experience of drinking to excess, and my observation of drunks, I believe that the claim that drunkenness causes enjoyment is probably a lie. I do not understand why people think that getting drunk is fun.

I don't understand why people have to stare at you for no reason at all. You don't mind the brief eye contact you sometimes make as you pass someone, but when you give someone brief eye contact, or better yet not look at all, and you can feel their gaze and even see their head turn towards you too as you pass - I really don't see what they want from me. Makes me want to cruel away and die.

I don't understand why some people want their secret kept safe with someone else, but if they are left out of another person's secret, they do all they can to find out, even though they wouldn't want others to interfere with their secret.

I don't understand why men flirt with you and you flirt back and they show they like it and so flirt more and more, and then go and tell other people behind your back that you're the one who was flirting not him, and everyone believes him and makes you out to look a fool.

I don't understand why people tell you and tell you to be assertive and want you to stand up for yourself, but if you're in a situation where you have to say no to that person and be assertive, then that person doesn't want you to be assertive. It's like it's a case of ''you should be assertive to anyone but me''.

I don't understand why people dump a suddenly unwanted item on a shelf in the supermarket (like a pack of biscuits in the fruit and vegetable section), but then if they see something on a shelf that's not meant to be in that section, they go ''oh I wish people wouldn't just dump something in the wrong place when they change their mind!'' Believe me, I have been with people who do exactly that.

I don't understand why most women seem to think that if they go out one day without wearing make-up, everybody will notice and judge them against it (if they are going somewhere far away and busy where they'll never see those people again or not remember them). Some women wear make-up, some don't, others only sometimes, so people who have never seen you before won't know any better, and won't care either. Quite frankly I don't notice whether a stranger is wearing make-up or not, unless I am coming into specific contact with them. I have my own life to worry about, and I'm pretty sure others do too.

I do not understand why people continue to complain about something and not try and do anything about it.

I do not understand why people get upset if you ask them a same question they asked you or say it's none of you business. If it's not your business, then why even ask that if it's not anyone's business if they ask them that same question they are asking you, especially if it's something they don't want to share.

I don't understand how excessive cussing makes you cool. I just think you're a dirty disgusting crude person.

I don't understand how people can make the worse assumptions and conclusions.

I don't understand how people can just ask you for an opinion about someone and then tell that person about it what you said behind their back leaving out they asked you making you look bad.

I don't understand how people can make a rule and not enforce it.

I don't understand why some people are bothered by someone being quiet or not talking much.