Furious with girlfriend - or am I being stupid?

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I never said they shouldn't, however not eating or drinking anything can be used to show annoyance or in a spiteful way. My point is, every behaviour projects information. In the context of the situation, his behaviour was projecting spite. Wether he intended this or not isn't the issue. The issue is that, when you project spite unintentionally or intentionally people will react to it. For diplomacy sake, he could have got a coffee, took little sips without really drinking much.


As i said in my first post, i accept that it might cause anxiety. But if someone has told you there is nothing bad about said meeting and you are in a relationship with them, you should extend trust to them rationally. If you choose to place your anxiety over trusting your partner, then the relationship will never work out.

Dang! I think she was cruel and annoying. I would be in a lather (like the OP) if somebody cryptically told me they had something to tell me- but couldn't give any hints- and then once I met with them, they said "never mind, I won't tell you after all".

It is such a mixed message.

The girlfriend acts as though she has some important information to impart. That sets him up to be in suspense. Suspense translates as anxiety if it could be bad information but she assures him it isn't. Ok, so she has some good, important information to share.

They get to the coffee shop and she won't share it. Why not? Because he won't order a drink. So....this important information that she needs to meet with him to tell him is important enough to arrange a meeting but not important enough to tell UNLESS he also orders a drink? That really is a mind game.

The OP is right to be discombobulated. This is mind game behaviour deliberately done to keep the OP on his toes and not let him get too settled or comfortable. This is manipulative and mean. It would be mean if he were NT, too. This is not acceptable NT-NT interaction either.

studentM wrote:

Point taken, but that's why I qualified it as a gut reaction. I agree it's not possible to know how you come across to people all the time. I frequently don't.

You're completely ignoring his behaviour and the signals he is unintentionally sending out. Although the partners of aspies need to know that aspies are clueless in said area's and may project the wrong things, it doesn't mean that aspies should not try to do it correctly. It's called meeting in the middle for a reason. I don't want the OP to fall into the same trap many aspies fall into whereby they expect everyone to approach things from their perceptive.

And that would stand if she then shared whatever not-bad thing it was she wanted to share. But then she snippily went on to tell him she wouldn't share this information after all, whatever it was. That really is a manipulative mind game. If it was important enough to give him a heads-up that he would be told something, it should also have been important enough to tell him even if he wasn't ordering a drink and even if he was unnerved by the nearby knitting circle. To withold whatever information she'd been planning to share on those grounds just shows that keeping the OP in a state of anxietous suspense was more important to her than actually sharing the information- if there ever really was anything to share in the first place. It was spiteful and she shouldn't have done it.

I wouldn't put up with that sort of behaviour from a partner (not that anybody has ever tried). I've been told in the past "I have something to tell you, but don't worry, it's not bad." But then these people went on to TELL ME. And that's the important difference. The information shouldn't be withheld to punish the OP for not ordering coffee or disliking being near a knitting circle.

I'd recommend that, too. You were, after all, anxious because you cared about what she was going to say, right? I don't know... she seems like she was being irritable at that particular time, expecting you to get a drink because it's expected in a coffee house.

(Incidentally, a good "out" if you don't want a drink when other people are getting it is to get water--you don't even have to drink it. From what you're saying, I wonder if it's NT protocol to have a drink--whether that's coffee or beer--whenever the people in your company are also having one. I think this may be the case because it seems like whenever you read those "how to prevent drunk driving" pamphlets, they always seem to advise the designated driver to order a soft drink or something, rather than advising him not to drink at all.)

I'm not ignoring his behaviour. I think his behaviour is perfectly rational and reasonable withing the context of this anecdote. His somwhat jittery behaviour sends the message that he is in suspense. This is perfectly reasonable given that she set up the meeting so she could discuss something with him. She assured him it was nothing bad. Fair enough. But even the promise of good news not yet shared will leave a person in suspense. What is it? Did she get a promotion? Win the lottery? Buy a new car? Wants to plan a vacation with him? She needs to TELL HIM and end the suspense. But she won't unless he complies with her wishes to order a drink because they will be sitting there for an hour. Now the suspense has been ramped up another notch. What on earth could she be holding back that will take An HOUR to discuss? There is a knitting circle nearby. In his suspense-filled state, this unravels him firther so he clams up. Now she punishes him by simply refusing to tell him whatever it was that she called this meeting to discuss and that could have taken a hour to discuss.

His behaviour is understandable. I'm sure that being AS ramped his anxiety up several notches. An NT person wouldn't have been so het up. I wouldn't. However, I would have been plenty pissed off that this supposedly important (but not bad) theoretically hour long discussion was cancelled because I wouldn't order a drink and didn't like the knitting circle. It was her that was spiteful. That $%$#@ wouldn't fly in an NT-NT relationship either.

She is not obligated to share the news, and the value of the news is completely subjective. She may not veiw the information as being as important, as the importance the OP has projected it having.


As i said in one of my last posts. If someone is sharing good news, they may with-hold it if the listener is upset. People like to see a positive responce to good news they share.


Every single behaviour he exhibited could be seen as manipulative as well.


He was projecting that he wasn't interested in the information, but then demanding on hearing it. That must be confusing for anyone to listen to.


You think she was purposely with-holding information to make him anxious? How about you consider this, his behaviour made her anxious and she with-held said information in response to her anxiety.


He's not being punished and the fact that you believe him to be is merely an example of why people with aspergers can struggle in social situations. You have placed an higher value on his emotions than on her emotions and this is a very unfair thing to do. Not to mention the fact that people are not mind-reader, yet you seem to be treating this girl as if she is one.

2 years of relationship.
She could know about him.
He could know about her as well.

I would be curious to hear how she, from her side, would describe the scene?
We all could be surprised.
And also to know how often that happens and had already happened between them?

Well, maybe we'll know later on how it went this time.
Fine for both of them I hope.

Point taken. I agree that behavior projects information, but ultimately, each person, whether AS or NT, is responsible for their own actions and reactions, and NOT the behavior of another.

BadPuddle is not responsible for the behavior of his girlfriend, but he does have control over how he responds to her now. And if she wants to get ticked off because he didn't order coffee, then that's completely her problem. She's not in a position to dictate what he does or doesn't do, but she has full control over how she reacts to what he chooses.

To say that he should have ordered a drink to be diplomatic is, in a way, saying he should be a puppy doing tricks to elicit a specific response from her. In it's purest sense, it's manipulation, and that is a mind game.

Last edited by studentM on 17 Jul 2009, 8:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

But he is responsible for his behaviour, which quite frankly would have come across as nasty and rude to most NT's. Instead of being hurt, considering ending his relationship... he needs to accept it was a misunderstanding. He needs to sit down and anaylse his behaviour and think to himself "What could i have done differently". I would suggest the exact same thing of his girlfriend, she needs to analyse her behaviour and think of what she could change. She needs to remind herself that the same rules do not apply when talking to her partner.


Just like people expect you to take your muddy shoes off when you enter their house, scheming manipulative sorry excuses for human beings!

When you agree to meet someone in a coffee shop it is contextually assumed that you will be drinking, failing to do some will be seen as a snub. This can be covered however by "I don't really feel like having a drink" when you are asked to goto said coffee shop in the first place. The person then might reply "Oh well, we only need some place to sit down, i'll meet you there anyway or may change the plan.

She called the meeting to discuss something with him. Doing that obligated her to discuss this thing unless he did something really awful that would negate that obligation. Not ordering a drink and clamming up around a knitting circle shouldn't be sufficierntly awful to negate that obligation. If in her mind it is, she has very skewed priorities. She is the one who put the "important" label on the information by arranging a meeting to discuss it. If she had nothing important to share, she should never have brought it up in the first place.

I'm not treating the girl as a mindreader. I'm treating her as somebody who didn't fulfill a social obligation that SHE set in motion by arranging a meeting. To back out of that social obligation needs a far better excuse than "you didn't order a drink".


On the one hand I agree that people prefer to share good news with somebody who is in a good and receptive state. On the other hand, once somebody says "I have news to share/something to discuss" they have taken on a social obligation to share that news/have that discussion regardless of what state the other person is in. She took on a social obligation and she did not fulfill it. Witholding good news from a person in a bad mood is fine if and only if that person has not been summoned to your presence with the promise of some sort of news. If you summon them (arranging a meeting at Starbucks to share news is just that), you have a social obligation to disregard their mood and reveal why you asked them to meet you.

Last edited by Janissy on 17 Jul 2009, 8:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

I absolutely agree. That's what gets my goat in this anecdote. That type of controlling, manipulative behaviour is appropriate for teaching a puppy how not to pee on the rug. It has no place in a healthy relationship.

And what is she manipulating his to do?

She is manipulating him to obey her and allow her to set the terms of the relationship. Just going by this anecdote, it's working.

Or perhaps she was gauging his response to reveal information about his inner state. Even if he had of relented after initially saying no and got a cup of coffee i doubt she would have told him anymore information. Because it wasn't about forcing him to do anything, the whole situation was about anxiety and emotions, not personal gain.