I feel humiliated

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Yeah. I was drunk too. I feel maybe I should have opened with a different question, but my friend had introduced me to her so I just asked about work. Didn't think there was anything weird about it! For her to respond saying that's weird is the worst thing it put me on the defensive. Then my friend has to go on about it too. Oh well.

They sound like reasonable questions to me. OK, maybe "delivered many babies recently?" is a bit of a silly question when you think about it (because obviously a midwife would have), but NTs usually don't think about that. They say plenty of things sillier than that in conversation, even when not drunk! So I'd say your questions were fine. Either there was something strange about the way you asked (timing, tone, facial expression, whatever...) or there was something going on with her that you had no way of knowing. I probably would have tried to make the most of this by asking the guy why he thought I was weird, but it's too late for that now.

She probably was out for a good time and found your serious questions a drag.

Probably.


I tried to make the most of the evening, I got really drunk and got on the dance floor which is kind of a first for me. A couple of girls approached, I wanted to dance with them, but they left pretty much as soon as they came up to me. Either I smelled or my dancing was crap or I should have made more of an effort to look at them and smile. I'm not really sure. Maybe I was supposed to approach them. But I'm conscious of not coming off as needy so I just continued dancing where I was and let them wonder off.

That seems like a normal enough question to me. I think your brother was overreacting.
"What do you do?" is standard small talk, and asking a midwife if she's delivered many babies isn't weird at all (even though the answer is probably "Yes, obviously".).
Is your brother autistic too? It sounds like he's got some rigid idea of the social rules and freaks out at any deviation from them.

Yes. If you want people to stay near you, you have to look welcoming. If you don't look at them, and don't smile, it looks like you're deliberately ignoring them for the purpose of making them go away.

Assuming that she has no trouble with communicating herself then she is just a nasty person. Even if someone does say something 'weird' it is rude and mean to point it out like that. And your school friend had no right to tell you what you should have said without being asked.

My brother is on the spectrum too but it wasn't him who was making an issue of it. It was my NT friend from school that I hadn't seen in 10 years, introduced me to this girl, then after she found me awkward or whatever he started offering his "advice" but it felt like he was laboring the point a bit. I'm sure he was just being friendly, but it didn't seem that helpful.

I think I briefly smiled at them but I felt a bit shy and probably came off as such.



Yeah, I think you're right, they're both rude. I'm the one who went out on a limb to try something new, I shouldn't have to get shot down. I guess because this sort of thing was always happening to me at school, I automatically feel like I'm in the wrong when actually, I'm not.

Last edited by jerry00 on 25 Dec 2013, 6:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't think you did anything wrong. People are always asking me what I do. It's basic small talk. They were just being mean. Please don't let two rude people make you feel bad about yourself.

I wonder if there was something off about the whole introduction... I can't remember what she looks like at all, did I even look at her? Or did I just look in the direction my friend had gestured and blurt out a random small talk question? I'm not sure. If that's what I did then I can understand how it was weird, but even so their reactions were rude.

OP: It might not be the question you asked, but some other facet. You might have asked it in a strange way, weren't making proper eye contact, etc. Otherwise, I'd have given her a weird look right back. "This...uhh...is a pretty normal introductory question?"

That's what I was getting at in my last post. Seems likely.

It's generally acceptable as a normal question to ask someone you've just met socially what they do for a living; it's an ice breaker and just a polite question to start or keep up a conversation, and find out more about them so that you have more to talk about.

However, some people may be unemployed, or working in a boring job that is not impressive but they do it just to pay the bills, or as a stop-gap, or even because they are dealing with depression and can't motivate to really do something with their life.

In those cases, it can actually be a "sore point," to be asked what you do to pay the bills. You can hit a nerve without even knowing that it's going to hit a nerve. Sometimes someone might hate having to fess up to just flipping burgers for years, or something else mundane, because they are already struggling with not being able to do something they really want to do, or get a better education, etc.

Thus, what someone does for work can actually be a minefield of "it's complicated." And no, not necessarily because it's "seedy" -- it can just be of the "flipping burgers" variety but the person has issues about it.

I'm not saying everyone will feel all weird and embarrassed about something they do that's ordinary, but some people do (I'm one of them), and perhaps this girl has that kind of situation going on in her life.

When you feel a bit "complicated" about doing something uninteresting, you can feel a bit sensitive about the question, and wary about being "defined" by the answer you give -- even though it's usually just a polite question, some people who ask it do pigeonhole people by the response, and that too can be a bit of a minefield.

That's just the other side of it though; I'm just trying to explain why certain people might hate that question. It's still no excuse to be rude, though, as she was to you.

.

@birdinflight, That reminds me of a thread that was on here just recently which was about how it's considered taboo for men to say/imply that a woman's a "loser". Perhaps the two things are related?

I have found when getting to know people, they usually don't like talking about their work or jobs, especially on a bad day. They like to talk about other things instead that consist of small talk ie, the weather, where you come from, how you know the person you were introduced to (usually consists of an interesting story.) etc.

Yeah. Now I am actually curious how they met eachother, I wish I was at the time.

I would have to say that based on how quick your old acquaintence was to protect her when she felt "upset" with you, they would have dated at some point.