[Moderator Note (MrXxx): This was intended to be a reply to a fairly old thread from 2006, but was mistakenly posted to an unrelated thread. After a little sleuthing, I found the thread Aud intended to reply to here:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt9946.html (now locked: please post replies to this thread)
The link is there for those interested in reading the background behind Aud's reply here. I thought it best in the interests of continuity to create a new thread with Aud's reply here, rather than tag it to the end of the old thread, where non active users might be quoted or addressed by members posting new replies, expecting replies from old posts that likely would never come. That said, here is Aud's reply.]
THANK YOU, CHAIN! Seriously. Long or not your post is incredibly informative. I have had the advantage of very advanced CBT and Neuro Linguistics and Body Language training; I have observed every one of the N traits in precisely the kind of NT men who have (and this is not arrogance, this is a morbid complaint because I find these horrifying folks) CHASED me, specifically in my 20s. Now that my looks are fading with the onset of my 40s it isn't nearly as bad. That was also a connection I made early, they were after my looks combined with my academic and later professional success, they are trophy hunters. All.
This Trophy Hunter or Big Game Grabber mentality is pervasive among Ns. WHY, I have often wondered, out loud, in therapy, sometimes and often to the N A-Hole themselves, to their face, WHY do these so clearly knee jerk motivated and easy to manipulate people chase Aspergian females? I see it a lot with other women, and watched many marry these guys only to end up paying palimony to them later... buying their way free, so to speak. WHY, when Aspergian women with any training at all and even those without can often detect everything you wrote, purely analytically, and we certainly do watch the world around us very carefully, having been burned early in childhood and the maturation process by assuming we have intuitive skills we often utterly lack. The survivors learn to use their analytical observation skills. We are very adept at it, "thinking" through social interaction in every arena because we must observe and think to understand what NT women gather through whatever their innate radar is. I have seen some serious thinking women derail their entire lives by tangling with one (or a succession) of Ns.
Again, possibly I have aged enough and seen and experienced enough interpersonal agony to have started to form an opinion. I will address it from a personal angel. Or rather "How I Was Had By A Garden Variety N:"
These Ns are the GREAT manipulators. They are first and foremost looking for a partner who will reflect well on them; a trophy who will ADD to their BS self created "mystique" as someone far more accomplished and powerful than either their efforts or abilities allow them to be legitimately be. They spot prey- an attractive, driven, atypical female; one who does not engage in psycho-sexual attention getting behaviors so endemic to NT women in American culture; they go after that quirky female; the one many men admire and none can seem to get a date with, or even eye contact from outside of structured situations (Board Meetings, WORK, classes at school, etc). They spot that prey, and then the chase begins.
Ns are very adept predators. They typically approach the situation from one of social dominance from the start; they pay more attention to your friends' opinions of them than yours, for instance, because they discern socializing is not your forte and you may rest more on the opinion of friends than a typical woman of like intelligence and independence. They are very charismatic, these Ns. They buy gifts that will seem too large, too showy, and then literally SHOW the gift to your circle of friends, sometimes before YOU even see it. Also, the gifts will almost ALWAYS be something THEY like alot or can share. If you like rubies, this guy will buy you sapphires, if he likes them better. When you look at the rubies you are wearing, and eye the gift with confusion, he will explain all about why your favorite isn't as relevant as his gift ("But you have blue eyes, sapphires look better on you..." etc.)
They are adept communicators and build a knowledge base of your specific interests (in my case, if a man can't speak to any of my specific interests where I am comfortable in discussion, I ignore him straight away, no interest; the N discerns this; he has scoped you out before ever making a move toward manipulating you into his fan club).
Example: Never let one into your home early in knowing him. He will peruse your extensive...say...library, discern you have an interest in say... Epistemology; and the next time he sees you he will have a verbal working knowledge of the subject which he will use to engage you, as well as entirely false reference points for when he too, came to love the subject (it is amazing how far Ns will go with this. I have egged them on to proportions rarely witnessed, seriously, they will even do so in mixed company, if you set them up, company that KNOWS their lies are simply lies...!)
This is how it starts. It is a rather complex process, most involved. The kind of Ns who excel at this are located in enclaves where there is an oddly high number of concentrated Aspies (Silicon Valley, for instance, and Cambridge, MA); in my experience they work in talking professions (litigators; corporate middle management, often reporting to CEOs but never truly making it to their table-types) and many started this fun game in college, where they were popular with the drunken frat crowd but in their spare time hounded the stand-offish but attractive academic female. They are notorious date-rapers in college, think the type that claims "she didn't say NO, so I just did it" when really the poor Aspina was suffering selective mutism from STRESS (seen this, too, in the ER!).
I think Aspies should be aware, male and female alike, that we have VERY opposing skill sets to these N types. Where they are all inference we are all fact; where they are utterly self aggrandizing, we tend away from hyperbole and see mainly flaws in systems. And case in point, most of these N types wave in and out of honesty with an ease that is absolutely so pervasively aggressive, and dazzlingly bold, we often wonder if we are the ONLY people who can see this person is completely full of both s**t and themselves; same fodder, truly.
In grad school I researched heavily WHY liars and Ns do so well in American society; it is because excellent liars are rewarded with more income and advancement than any other skill-set baring workers. TRULY! Liars succeed in this culture, beyond your wildest dreams... which is, I suspect, why Aspies, regardless of ability, often prefer think tanks to corporate structures: it is PURE in a think tank; it is only the application that dirties the beauty and grace of the ideas, of the science. In my research I found this spit in politics too-- the Aspies gang up in highly ethical non profits; but they rarely run for office; and if ever there was a prototype for the N. Liar who succeeds, it is The Politician.
I have seen friends lose everything via marrying an N. Their careers, their homes, their self respect, sometimes their children. I have seen Ns reduce Aspergian Women I once admired and respected to neurotic, self loathing, socially paranoid recluses (because their warfare when you turn on them and explain the facts to them and their proverbial "gig" is up is to attack you socially, to demolish your reputation, to use specifically LOUD noises and screaming to back the Aspie into a Neurological Corner which, once slumped in that corner, having given up, sometimes having attempted suicide, usually from just the thought of facing the social malestrom this N has created around her...) the N is banking on total submission... they view suicide as a threat (they love to level it, too, Ns, although hurting themselves is beyond them)... and they view its failure as a vindication that they were RIGHT, you are abnormal and malfunctional without someone like them to lead you.
The N then offers to HELP! "Let me help you, stop being so hateful, I can right all the wrongs, trust me, just give all the power to me and make sure everyone knows I am in charge of your fate now, that I AM THE MOST IMPORTANT..."
This is not a joke. I have literally stood in Emergency Rooms during intake and listened to these N jerks trying to explain why the woman with the slit wrists and the PhD after her name "isn't insane, she just overreacted, I can help her, she knows this, she wants to come home"...and here it is people, wait for it...
They almost always say: SHE JUST WANTS ATTENTION!
I think I have heard and seen it all in the ERs in a city the size of San Francisco (where there are a high concentration of Aspergians waiting to be tortured by Ns).
Ns also play on the fact that no, not many people DO like Aspergians. Most people live in full o'crap land, where their version of things is indistinguishable from the actual "reality" they share with everyone else. Aspergians have a tendency to call people out on their untruths by simply stating fact; plain observable fact; because we do not know why this person is saying untrue things as if they were fact and we have an innate need to draw those kind of lines.
Pity is, Ns are often charismatic and smart enough to keep their games deeply private; they present to the world that they are long suffering misunderstood NICE guys; and sadly, other NTs cannot seem to ever SEE beyond these peoples' facade. I have seen many a PhD/MD doubled degrees psychiatrist believe the N. Because the N speaks the language they want to hear. Pathetic!
I believe ALL Aspergians can see beyond ANY facade; we just need to use our analytical super power. Watch others, carefully. LISTEN, carefully. Look for books to educate yourself re: Body Language, Autonomic Nervous System Responses (I have been called a Human Lie Detector and I am proud of that; I worked on studying other humans for the entirety of my life; they are not so hard to read, most of what they can't control is the most telling, anyway).... And if a person "seems" too much like you, too much in common with your weirdness... they are constantly listing commonalities between the two of you, however thin...
RUN. Run away, Aspie, and get thee to a LIBRARY and start edifying that magnificent analytical mind of yours with the arsenal of understanding it takes to shoot these N suckers down. They are blocking your LIGHT, seriously, and also blocking your view. The very most perfect and loving person-- just right for YOU-- that person may go by unnoticed because they Ns are such attention hogs; they eclipse even our own dignity if we let them.
Whatever you do, DO NOT hurt yourself over it. This N has hurt you enough. There is one medical provider in 5,000 who will admit to being Spectrum and jump to your defense or even try to help you. Don't look to the establishment for help. Ns ARE the establishment, isn't that clear? The way we hold court in the sciences and theory; in highly ethical callings; in the arts; these guys literally RUN the corporations that you call society. Don't doubt it for a moment.
I left medicine, disgusted. Too many of my own kind stood by and watched our own suffer indignity such as this and offer pills when advice-- advice from someone who shares their experience, and CARES, truly-- could have prevented a second (and successful) suicide attempt.
The only way to practice avoidance of this dominant and prevalent predator is to KNOW THEM, to educate yourself. Which is why I responded to this Chain's post. Chain, you're a hero, in my book, for breaking it down the Aspie way, my friend. I respect your efforts very much. And thank you wholeheartedly.
08 Dec 2012, 7:09 pm
