Social Etiquette

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Some guy wants to be friends with me. I've seen him a couple times. Since he has Aspergers, he has trouble socializing. I have Aspergers too, but he has nothing in common with me. He thought it would be useful if I told him why. He wants to know why he's not my type.
I told him not to email me anymore. Can I handle this better?

I have no idea.
Is this someone in the real world?
Did he do something wrong?
Why is he not your type?

You could try honesty. Tell him WHY he's not your type. No you don't necessarily owe it to him, however.. it might help to be rid of him. After all, he might be wondering what he did wrong to make you react as severe as you're reacting. Did he do something? There are more polite ways of terminating conversations over email. The best one, just stop writing back. Enough ignored emails and he'll get the hint eventually. Rarely is it ever necessary to write the "stop emailing me" stuff.

However if he's harassing you, you can always just block his emails and/or notify his ISP or the website your on and let them know.

Good Lord!

Good example of why I don't usually respond to posts with any ideas of my own. Thank you.

As in "Good Lord that's a terrible idea!" or "Good Lord I never thought of that!" ?

So much depends on the context, i.e. on the guy and why the association had become undesirable to you.

Did you feel invaded by his approaches? Were they too thick and fast? Long, frequent emails about stuff that was irrelevent to you? Or just normal emails?

It seems strange that two people can have nothing in common. I think you said somewhere that it was just an excuse, and that now he's calling your bluff?

But if you've met him a couple of times, I suspect that it was something (or maybe everything) that happened there. I think sometimes it's just an unconscious chemistry thing. I think a lot of people get those things but never stop to analyse it, and there's no need to unless you're trying to repair social problems or just happen to be interested.

It'd be nice to think that every separation was completely amicable, with each party leaving with a bit of experience about why it couldn't work, and a consensus that it was right to part. But it doesn't always happen so neatly and I think it's more usually a case of one pushing the other away.

I'm just surprised each time again at how different I am from the rest of humanity. Maybe because I so often find myself on the receiving end of this treatment, I know how painful it is to invest thought and feelings in a letter and look forward to a reply, only for it and you to be ignored forever. No, I definitely can't be like the rest of humanity and call it "the best" and "polite".

I am resentful crybaby so I created a user almost identical to WonderWoman.

Have you considered that the fact that you would resort to this that her instincts were bang on?

I'll try again. "The best way I can think of personally is to ignore the incoming emails. I have been taught that this is polite." Do I agree with it? Of course not. Which is why I said honesty would be the first choice. Its the choice I would choose. However honesty should be complete in my opinion. Not telling him the reason isn't being completely honest. Its only saying half of what he's waiting to hear. A reason! Seems you're taking the harder road by withholding a reason. (to the OP)

Thanks, Dragonfly. I agree with you, word by word. There was a time when, being very lonely, I'd contact people from my past, start emailing with them, they'd pretend to be elated to hear from me, answer a couple emails and then that's it, ignore me. I don't try to connect to people anymore, it's just too painful.

Regarding the asking why, I've given up on it too. I never got an answer truthfull and logical enough that I could use as feedback for my improvement.

My social etiquette would probably rate a 1 or at best a 2 out of 10.

I would go with blunt honesty. Once someone said "you can not control others feeling no matter how hard you try, everybody decides how they react".
If he thinks your rude and gets deppressed because you wont hang out with him its his problem.

Personnally ignored e mails hurts more then blunt honesty.

"good lord that's a terrible idea"!

I went to a shyness group and mentioned that I was Aspie. This guy in the group jumped into the seat right next to me, and started talking at like 20 mph about being Aspie and I was like, "Uh...no, sorry, we have nothing in common." So I left the group and didn't return, and I felt that he should've known being Aspie himself, not to suddenly start talking to someone else who's Aspie not knowing if that might freak them out or something. Furthermore, he was a guy and I'm a girl, I wonder sometimes if parents just think everyone will see their child as always being like a boy, so the issue of teaching them how to treat girls in an adult relationship aspect is futile. I mean, you'd think his parents would tell him, "Hey, if you pratically accost a girl cause you're excited to talk to her, watch out for the pepper spray!" or something like that.

I think the worst thing was I felt I couldn't tell him off, cause he might say "Well you're Aspie too, you should understand!", or started crying and acting rejected, then I'd have to feel like a bastard. Like everyone thought I was being mean to him, cause I told him off. It's like, you know when you upset a little kid and as an adult it's always presumed you upset them, and you must be a mean person? It's kind of like that, like what the heck are you supposed to do, the last thing you need is for him to cry and everyone to think you're a cold-hearted *expletive*.

Is there any reason to reply after this little observation? Somebody lock, kill, delete this thread already...

When you don't like someone, just tell them to leave you alone. Don't worry about hurting their feelings. It would hurt their feelings a lot more if you told them you didn't like them after pretending to be friends for a couple years.