Funny Thing about NTs

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Sometimes NT people will tell me that I am too quiet and should try talking more. Then, some time later I will make an attempt to either start a conversation, or contribute to the conversation at hand, and that/those same person/people will look at me like a just grew horns. Anybody else have this happen to them?

The ways of mundies are irrational, myopic and hypocritical.

I figured this would be common knowledge around here by now.

While I resent the 'neurotypical' label, I have experienced what you describe often myself. I call it the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" phenomenon. It's not that you are supposed to say just anything that comes up in your head to break the silence, you're expected to say 'the right thing'. There are a lot of no-go areas in common conversation with the average person, and there are a lot of mannerisms and quirks in our speech that most people will find off-putting. I have tried to adapt myself to the conversation norms in the past, but it was only met with failure. Now, I only bother with people who understand me or who I get along with to begin with. You don't have to be able to have a great conversation with everyone, hell, I'll probably always be seen as an odd and weird interlocutor to the majority of people, but I just stopped caring about that majority. I can communicate the most basic of messages to them, but I know that they are not interested in talking about anything but the most mundane of subjects, which I'm incapable of keeping up for a long time. That's the way the cookie crumbles.

No, I don't think so.

But pointing stuff out is something I think everyone does. It can be annoying, but it's human.

Last edited by Acedia on 05 Jul 2014, 1:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If you're damned if you do and damned if you don't... then just don't. It takes less effort.

No we are supposed to pretend they s**t roses and fart out jelly beans all in the name of being politically correct or some bollocks.

[begin sarcasm] They are normal so they are perfect, remember? [/sarcasm]

Yeah, I came to that exact conclusion in certain situations. I thought to myself: if I invest energy into the whole socializing bit, but get the same kind of rejection and dismissal as I would have when I just act aloof and distant... then what's the point in investing energy in the first place?

Fortunately, not all social situations are like that, and sometimes there's a pay-off to acting more social, however little that pay-off may be.

I second this

Stands to reason... from a more impartial perspective.... that the problem is that we're just calibrated differently to them.
It isn't a matter of right or wrong. We do things one way. They do things another. And the two aren't compatible. We can't understand them and they can't understand us.

BUT because there are loads of them and few of us, they prefer to act like they're right and we're wrong as though it were some sort of objective reality. The best we can hope for is being treated like we're broken... and the worst is that they treat us like villains.

They don't have any incentive to believe differently.
And that is what human nature is all about. If there are no consequences for acting like a complete dick, then people will act like a complete dick constantly (and deny they're doing so, of course).
And frankly, I have no real incentive not to act like a complete dick right back to them. I can't provide much in the way of consequences... but I can try.... not that they'd ever get it.

I was awful at socializing and made it a point to get better, and made a dedicated effort over almost a 4 year period.

After it was all said and done, it actually made me understand why so many AS types don't bother to socialize much. It was extremely difficult and mentally draining, compassion and understanding from others was low or non-existent, and after all that time, I had not expanded my circle of friends, or gotten any closer to my goal of 'truly fitting in.'

I'll echo the sentiments above: I concluded that while it was good to fit in a little better and learn a few more social rules, ultimately my life's efforts will be directed elsewhere, not my social life.

Their sense of humour.

Get it?

Now here's the truly funny part: many eccentric, off-beat non-autistics come to a very similar conclusion. The greater majority is involved in this perpetual masquerade of social conventions, that will frown upon and dismiss behaviour that they deem 'deviant'. It's not just autistics and other neurologically atypical folks that get hit by that.

This is good to know

This has been my experience. I now prefer to direct my energies elsewhere.

Yes, I have that happen to me too! I'm often told that I should contribute more in conversations instead of having my head down most the time writing or drawing, but when I do join in a conversation it's always dead on the wrong time, like if people are listening to the telly or something, and when I ask why I always open my mouth at the wrong time, people are like ''well don't talk then.''

I am usually the one talking the least in any group conversation, whatever the subject is, but like all normal humans, I do like to contribute by adding something relavent to the conversation.

Like if we are talking about the weather, and I've recently heard that it's going to be hot next week, that is a good time to say that, so when I find a 1 to 3-second gap, I would say ''I heard it's meant to get hot again next week'', but the minute I say that one little line, something interesting enough comes on the telly and I can almost feel people going ''be quiet a minute, I've been waiting all day to hear/see this bit!'' I do boil that down to Murphy's Law though, because I know that I am not missing any cue because I say something whilst the conversation is still going (but not interrupting anyone mid-sentence), so it's not like the conversation has finished a minute ago and people have gone quiet to listen to the telly. OK I'm too socially self-aware to have to explain all this in the smallest detail on an Autism site, it's easier for people here to get what I mean if I sent in this sort of thing happening on a video, otherwise I'm just going to get a load of replies with if's, and's, but's and maybe's.

I know what you mean...