What makes someone creepy? An article

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Gain confidence in other areas of your life; develop physical skills and talents that will benefit others and maybe even allow you to earn a living from them.As I have said in other threads, "If you want to attract others, be attractive; If you want others interested in you, be interesting; If you want friends, be friendly."  Simple.

This is where I expect to see a lot of "Yeah, buts" and "What ifs" from a lot of other people.

Don't.  Please don't.

Isn't it the very definition of Asperger -- having difficulties in these three areas?

some people subscribe to horatio alger. some don't. there is no common ground between the two groups.

What does "horatio alger" mean?

some of the high functioning types on this forum believe that we can just simply jerk ourselves up by our own bootstraps [IOW just willpower our way to success in all areas of life] and that those of us that cannot are either just lazy bums or are not worth thinking about. iow some here are ableists.

Start with neutral and non-committal scripts that are designed to engage an NT without opening yourself up for scrutiny. When you get an idea what the NT is saying then make your move to sync with them and draw on standard scripts to go further.

I think for people on the spectrum its particularly important when conversing with NTs that you don't know to spend more time listening...stay on track and then prompt the NT to go further

I wouldn't call myself creepy but I know that I scare people. Credit union manager once hit the panic button because she was sure I was coming in to rob the place. Used to get followed around stores. People describe me as very Clint Eastwood like, I don't get it.

i'm used to parents watching their kids when i walk by.

I think maybe there's a certain (unconscious, or subconscious) demeanour we hang on to from years of bullying, harassment, short-fused toxic behaviour etc., from others that we've had to endure - and that sublimates in our nonverbal presentation. (Being ASD/HFA, we are intuitively less aware of this, of course.)

I don't think that sort of presentation is entirely from ASD/HFA alone.
Just my 2 cents

LOL that's actually a great point. i know what you mean, for instance the middle point would/could apply to interests that don't translate to general population's (including maybe other ppl on spectrum)
interests and not presented/communicated in a way they would find interesting...or perseveration on a few topics to the exclusion of all else which is seen in severe autism to a severe degree, and not something they can shake off, even with therapy, so why think we can? permanently? no. with great effort and a day you aren't having meltdowns/shutdowns/imminent sensory overload/executive dysfunction/inconsistent manifestations of overlapping mental or physical health issues etc
and very real scientifically confirmed things - reasons like lack of synaptic pruning, underdeveloped hippocampus and amygdala (not curable), neural connectivity or lack of, - etc


and then someone trying to be friendly would come off as 'weird' or 'creepy' to others, even perfectly innocuous people and even kids , like my elder reaching out to shake hands with people (because they dont expect it) in a new environment, trying to be friendly and not feel lonely basically. like introducing himself. and adults even sneering at him and looking at him with disgust like he committed a crime for smiling at them and extending a hand (this is prior to covid19 btw and at places like special needs kids' hospital!). he's 10 times better than them in spirit and character- they prove it behaving like that.

apparently there are some who have overcome these difficulties...


thinking everyone else can too. because you know, there's no spectrum, there are just some not trying hard enough.

Tadah!

Pepe jumps out from behind some bushes without any clothing, but surprisingly, without any genitals either.



Now, *THAT'S* creepy.

I find it hard to believe people see you as a creep.
Perhaps you are seen as "odd" rather than creepy?

Creepy is overwhelmingly something that men are, not young women.

Erm,
Your real name isn't Wednesday Adams, by any chance?
If so, then you *could* be seen as "creepy".

I think, at least in my case, its a feedback loop that goes both ways. Yes, perseveration on narrow topics drives people away. But, at the same time, it arizes in the "context" of other people ignoring me. So maybe if other people stop avoiding me, I would stop perseverating. I can think at least four ways in which being ostracized creates my fixations:

a) In order to cope with ostracism, I am trying to figure out the logic of "why" I am being ostracized. This makes me obsess with the aspects of social psychology that -- in my mind -- are relevant to this. In other people's minds they aren't, so they look like narrow interests out of the blue. But in my mind they are very much related.

b) One other obsession that I have is myself and talking about myself. Once again, thats because I am trying to make sense of why people rejected me. But if I had "new" set of friends, I wouldn't care so much why I lost some old ones back 10 years ago. See what I mean?

c) Since my email box is constantly empty, I am seeking ways of replacing it with something. So I go to COVID 19 chart to see the latest updates on what states are ahead of what (since I can't get a new message, lets get some new numbers). But that is just my desperate attempt to fill that empty space that my empty email box has created. Similarly, I might google stuff or watch some youtube videos on politics and religion. But that is again me trying to fill in the void. If I can't send an email to someone and get a response, then the next best thing to this is to put something on google or youtube and get a response.

d) Since nobody talks to me, I am not actually aware of things that "might have" interested me that I am not exposed to. So I am stuck with the very few things that I know. Case in point. My second ex introduced me to some movies and video games that I ended up liking. But if she didn't introduce me to them, hearing them on a say-so would have sounded quite boring. So how many other things are there that I would have liked if only I was exposed to them? And no, those movies and video games didn't become my obsessions (I wasn't doing them ever since she broke up with me) yet I enjoyed them back then. So that is an example of "healthy" interest. So how many other "healthy" interests I could have had if people were to give me a chance? Once I had enough of them, I wouldn't have a need to use my obsessions to fill in the void.

So I actually disagree with a lot of people in the wrongplanet: I think the idea that "I have Asperger so I will always be that way" is what is holding me back. I wish people didn't think that way. I wish they could realize that I could become a different person with some outside help. I mean even if you take an NT and put them in isolation for months and years on end -- they would go crazy. So maybe my "special interests" is just my way of "going crazy" in response to all that isolation.



I am sorry it happened to him. But I was just wondering: could it be an age thing rather than a disability thing? I remember, 7 years ago, when I was a postdoc in India, there was a coffee shop on campus where I would come buy myself a drink, and one of the ladies that worked at that coffee shop had a son who was probably around 10 or something, and he kept saying hi to me. I was finding it annoying and I would just give him dirty looks. But my sole reason for doing that is that I was thinking "hey he is just 10 and I am a lot older, what does he want?" I guess now looking back I realize that I could have been more friendly than that, but I am just saying maybe thats what happens to your son? What do you think?

That really depends upon mind set and locational setting involving context, atmosphere and all that. There is though a book called Games People Play: The Psychology Of Human Relationships, by Eric Berne, M.D., that covers all the script styles and the objective of each involving Life Games, Marital Games, Party Games, Sexual Games, Underworld Games, Consulting Room Games and the most useful of course Good Games ~ with the book sometimes being referred to as "The Manual". And of course any book bearing the title of The Art of Conversation can be very helpful - of which there are so very many to choose from. I got one by an authoress called Judy Apps.

Adams Family song lyrics:

They're creepy and they're kooky
Mysterious and spooky
They're all together ooky
The Addams family

Their house is a museum
When people come to see 'em
They really are a scream
The Addams family

Neat
Sweet
Petite

So put a witch's shawl on
A broomstick you can crawl on
We're gonna pay a call on
The Addams family

They're creepy and they're kooky
Mysterious and spooky
They're all together ooky
The Addams family

Strange
Deranged
The Addams family

Not to mention no pants