Indifference to friend's pain

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Please help me understand, because I'm racking my brain fruitlessly. A quite close acquaintance of mine (many if not most would call that a friend, but I have very high standards to call someone a friend) received an email from me a month ago telling her among other things that my mother had died a week before. I never heard from her till today, she called distressed because she was fired and can't find another job.

With my autism, I have very bad Theory of Mind, meaning I don't understand other people's brains. All I know is if she'd emailed me telling me that her mother had died, I would've been on the phone to her 30 seconds later to ask to come see her and support her and ask her to tell me how I could help her - let alone give her my condolences.

I can understand lack of interest, indifference, etc. But my brain just can't understand SUCH indifference to a close acquaintance's pain...

I'm always utterly baffled when people say that we're the ones who lack empathy.

A lot of people out there do incomprehensible things. I'm not sure there's any value in attempting to understand their thought processes and motivations, except maybe as a survival mechanism, like it's a good idea to know something about grizzly bear behavior if you're on foot in grizzly country.

Sounds to me like that friend is who I would call a "user". She's the type who sees emails and prioritizes her responses. Probably the same type who talks to you on the phone until she gets another call, then clicks over to the other line to talk to whomever's calling and forgets she was talking to you, leaving you on hold, indefinitely.
When she lost her job, it left her in a state of panic, so she emails everyone hoping that someone can give her a lead, maybe help her out in someway. Ideally, she wants someone to give her a job referal. She is in a survival mode and is trying her best to secure future employment or other means of support while unemployed. I've known plenty who take me for granted, too. Usually I brush them off like they did me.

Ana, I understand that part (after much racking my brain) but the part I don't understand is: even if she's the biggest user in the world (which she isn't), and even if she had decided to cut contact with me (which I find strange because we'd had lunch together a couple hours before my email), how can she ignore an email from a close acquaintance saying her mother just died?

I didn't inform her before to spare her the having to go to the funeral, having to come to the shivah, having to spend our lunch talking about death. But after lunch, I sent her the email because I felt she should know.

I didn't make a big deal of my mother's death on the email, but that's no excuse to ignore it, I believe.

Greentea...please listen to me.
We have poor ToM but we CARE deeply about people.
The close acquaintance you are describing is not the kind of person you need in your life.
Because of our autism, we can on occasions, allow people into our lives who are not worthy of the quality or degree of our care or our friendships. IF WE allow these individuals in (because we can struggle to gauge people accuarately and can be a little naive) we run the risk of perpetuating a cycle of being hurt.

My life is littered with similar experiences and past relationships where i have been used and reciprocal care has not been expressed.
Even of late, i think about two of my sisters and how their view of my struggle with being diagnosed and my autism has been met with one call each long distance. Then i think back to both of them years ago with marriage break ups and how i would take their calls day and night and offer not so much emotional, but analytical and solutions based support. I was ALWAYS there when they rang and cared deeply. i know i monologue and yet i feel deeply hurt by their lack of interest.

My point is, if you are autistic, i believe you have to be very very ccreful about who you let into your life.
That "close acquaintance" is not reciprocating what it sounds like you need - which is care.

good luck.
i would give her the BIG FLICK. i mean it.

It was very inconsiderate of her and I don't know why she would ignore your email and then call when she's out of a job. I honestly don't understand why people think someone would respond after being brushed off like that. The only thing I can guess is maybe she didn't get your email about your mother. If she didn't get your email, that would explain. However, if she did get the email and didn't respond and then has the nerve to call you because she lost her job it says something about her.
Well, anyway, Greentea, good luck with her, if you decide to stay in contact with her, the choice is yours to make.

I can't understand why anyone would be so cold. Doesn't sound like the kind of friend you need in your life, Greentea!

This sounds like something very familiar to many of us. A unidirectional friendship, where your friend's needs matter, but your needs don't....

What I don't understand, ultimately, is how these people can be so naive to call after they've done something so horrendous, and not realize that they're now talking to an enemy whose only reason for staying in touch and sounding friendly is the pursuit of revenge and taking advantage of them. This is what I'm asking on this thread. Why people are so naive.

(btw, when she called today she said she hadn't called because she didn't know what to say. Since she's not an Aspie and she's a master at public relations, she MUST know that in such cases she's supposed to say "Ï'm sorry about your loss. Is there something I can do to help?" So her excuse was idiotic apart from extremely cruel.)

Same about my brother. He did something horrendously cruel to me 6 years ago and I told her never to try to contact me again - forever. I would've reported him to the police, but he lives in the USA. Last month he tried to contact me and asked for a truce, because for the first time in 6 years he needed something from me. My response was to yell at him that he's garbage, once and again till he gave up and stopped asking me for a truce. Did he really expect me to help him out???? How.Can.People.Be.So.Naive????????

^ if that is the case...you strategise somewhat more effectively than me. I do not have the capacity to feign any of that kind of thing. Once i realise they are the way they are, THEY ARE GONE and if they ring, my aspie bluntness and honesty comes to the fore...which has indeed been evidenced here on WP also.

As for why she is ringing you...who knows...she probably needs Greentea's articulation and systematisation for a solution to something work related.

She probably doesn't realize it. I try to draw on my own experience with this friend of mine who was sort of like this. I've had more than one who's like this. They get used to taking us for granted, doesn't occur to them they might aggravate us to the point we want revenge.
Your brother might have been hopeful you and he could have a relationship of somekind. A lot of times, they convince themselves they are better for you than you are for them. They say to themselves we are alone and need them in our lives so it's like they are doing us a favor because we are so alone. That's happened to me before too.

A friend once expressed what could only be described as pity for me. "You need someone," she said. I was like, WTF? And she said, "You need a friend." And THAT's about the time I told her where to go. I don't need pity friends, thank you.

That's why I've stopped being friends with certain people too, Gina. It's because they don't like me that much, just felt sorry for me because I had no friends and meanwhile they are hypercritical, try to drive me crazy by pointing out every little flaw.

Ana, that's indeed the explanation I usually give in these cases, that they're not naive but they think WE are the naive and lonely ones who'll take any treatment. However, the things this acquaintance and my brother did were so bad...they should've known better than come asking for help afterwards... Maybe it's indeed desperation that clouds their thought, coupled with the taking us for granted. I don't know...

Have you considered the email might have not gone through? I can't comprehend that she'd do that, seriously.
If she wasn't going to support you, then she probably would have stopped talking to you full stop.
I seriously think that she either totally forgot about it, or there was a problem in the emailing process. Did you mention about your Mum in the phone call? I'm sure if she heard she would have showed empathy.
Unless she's deliberately messing with you, which, I don't know why she'd do that.
EMZ=]

That sounds very logical too. However, they probably know the reason we're alone is largely because we don't put up with crappy people...

All these explanations sound logical enough, and yet I have a feeling that a piece of the puzzle is still missing... Like, was it such hard work to just email back with the words "sorry to hear about your mother, hope you're OK"? I think at some point people feel not that we'll always be there for them no matter what they do to us, but that they'll never need us anymore so we're not worth a minute of their time. And then they realize, a month later or several years later, that there's actually something they need from us. I know I'm a person who causes people to believe that they'll never need anything from me and that it's a waste to invest a minute in me.