The Dino-Aspie Cafe (for Those 40+... or feeling creaky)

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TRUE, I'd like to jump on our little bandwagon here and assure you, you are safe in here. Don't know for sure about elsewhere in the site, even, but in this forum, nobody gets to bash anybody. (And nobody over about 25 is going to take that crap seriously, anyway - remember, until 1994, self-diagnosis was the only diagnosis).

SeriousGirl, I think after your husband calms down (depressives get these moments when they think nothing can ever go right, and start looking for evidence to support that position, but in my experience, it usually blows over eventually) you should encourage him to avoid the General Discussion area here. Between TRUE's nemesis and the Bitterness Parade of people who fall into the trap of lumping all NTs together, it's really not a healthy place to be sometimes - for any of us. <insert rueful grin here>

Denial? He's known about it for 15 years.

It was very nice of you to post all of that, though. *sob*

True,

I just wanted to add something that may make you feel a little better, at least about me. I'm the polar opposite of you when it comes to emotion. I've tried to be careful posting to you and not because you are doing anything wrong, let me assure you of that. It's just that I know from being a manager that my personality being so detached and unemotional and logical comes across all wrong to people on the opposite end of the personality spectrum and causes big communication issues. So when you ask me what I mean, I understand. This has happened to me plenty of times and it just has to do with how we communicate and take in information, nothing more.

I have a serious tendency to hurt peoples' feelings unintentionally and make them feel like I am judging them. I also tend to come across like I don't care and it should be easy for everyone to just turn people off like I do. I don't really feel that way, but I do know that I come across that way even when I am trying not to (and I have been trying not to with you and you see how well that worked out! not!). That usually never changes until some incident happens where the emotional person is hurt by someone else or otherwise needs help and I just step in and do it or go after the person who hurt them. Then they finally see that I really don't feel badly about them at all, it's unfortunately just my personality that makes it all come across wrong to a personality like yours (and with you and I, probably AS doesn't help us one bit with that!).

So I don't want you to feel as though asking me what I mean is something that will upset me at all. You go right ahead and I'm glad you do. This is something I know happens with me with some people and it is okay. It doesn't mean anything is wrong with either one of us.

On another note, I do think Sophist's Aspie/Psychology forum might help you in addition to this one. Maybe it would be a good way for you to find ways to help you deal with people who pick on you and ways not to unknowingly play into that game with those people. She may have some good ideas that we here in the dino cafe don't know about. In any case, it can't hurt and it sounds like, from what you posted, you might enjoy it. I do hope you still come here!

SeriousGirl, it's sometimes difficult to communicate what we get out of this forum. The other day TM saw me typing away, and leaned close to see it was WP. "Oh, that site just re-inforces the negative traits!!" I attempted to explain that on the contrary, I learn a lot regarding our similarities, and then I can work on coping skills to get around those problems. She wasn't having any of it, so I just post when she's not about.

I think part of the problem with people wandering into this site is that there is a lot of the negativity being displayed. Also there's a lot of silliness in some of the threads which I guess doesn't always come across well to visitors.

On some of the forums, there is also a lot of teenage angst, which I'm sure is the usual everyday teenage angst, oftimes tinged with the problems of being AS as well. I think if people wandered into a lot of sites they'd find something similar. In fact, on some of the very few (non-AS) sites I've visited in my on-line life (very short compared to my real time life lol ), there is even more negativity and bashing of other groups of people, or even flaming of individuals.

The NT bashing - well I think a lot of the time it is because people don't normally have a safe place to vent, and think that the world of WP is somewhere where some empathy can be found. Everyone does it I'm sure - NT, AS or whatever - we all hit out metaphorically at what we see to be causing our problems, and the struggle of living in a world coloured by the majority i.e. NT leads people to NT bash (really it's the frustration of the expectations of the "NT world" rather than the people themselves).

I had forgotten about this, but something brought it to my attention tonight/today, what ever the hell it is. I think it's funny and maybe someone can relate to it, or get a chuckle.

When I met my Wife to be, it was in a lab at the local university, she had come back to school after raising a family and I had come there see what was going on in the world. One thing lead to another and I sort of got adopted, by the PHD running the show, felt pretty nice as I wasn't a student. Now understand all of us were about the same age, the future wife being the older. Ok so any way, we're doing this archeo/anthro dance and finally I noticed this woman. She had fantastic legs (she just snuck up on me, scared the s**t out of me and said to say she still does, hate it when she does that, no damn wonder I need drugs), was good lookin, smart and liked what I did and she liked the same thing. I wasn't looking for any relationships, I had a love affair going full blown with what we were doing. So anyway, after more field and lab work, I finally asked her if she would be interested in doing more then we were already doing. It was still very innocent on my part, I later found out not so innocent on hers. I had a list of sites I had found and very little was known about them. Actually when they were all turned in for the New York State side it was around 120 or so unrecorded sites, I had been a busy boy. I had been married to this obsession for about 15 years already. So off we went and I started to teach her about how to find them, the lay of the land and what to look for that would indicate they had been there. This went on and it became more and more obvious to me that it wasn't just the Native American sites I was interested in looking at. So yeah we bedded each other after much hesitation, stuttering, stalling and stammering and a lot of words on my part. I get that way with some, not a lot, but the special ones. Didn't matter she was determined, my fate was sealed. Well I knew I was in love at this point, our good friend thing was still there, but this was a whole new ball game, I knew I was going to marry her. Except this is the part, I knew it, but she didn't, I never bothered to ask. It's like why in the world would you need to speak the words, it was already a given, didn't everybody know it? Apparently not. When she finally got me to hold still for a second, she asked me to marry her. I was thunder struck. I was dumb founded. I mean I was in a panic, why would she even ask this I thought. She may regret that little question, I don't know, but I said yes and laughed at myself for being such a dolt. When I explained it, she laughed too. I don't know it just strikes me as funny. Now that I can understand me a little better, it makes sense. We went on to do pro work together for a number of more years. Traveled a lot and met a wonderful group of people, just as strange as we were, before we both had to leave the field. She was the only person I ever saw find a post hole feature in a test hole, trust me, there aren't many that have ever done that.

Too true, Cernunnos. I used to post at a well known movie website. They're famous for having the first reviews of movies before they get to theaters. The flame wars there were ridiculous ! ! Schoolyard bullying, and 'I can shout louder than you can' stuff. Not to mention the language ! !! No censor on that site, and whew ! ! they not only knew all the words, they invented new ones ! !
Very negative, and very un-productive ...