Shut out of conversations

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I happen to work at a job site where they are under contract with a not for profit organization that sends a job coach out once a month to see if there are any problems on the work place. They know that I have Asperger;'s Syndrome and often view me as the girl who is off in her own world and doesn't seem to grasp reality. So when it comes to conversations, the CFO of the company tends to have no problem talking to other people like they are normal human beings and talk to them as if they can handle such a situation. However, if it's me, she tends to shut me out of conversations and goes around and treats me like a half a person with a phoney painted smile on her face and says, "I'm good, how are you?" She also seems to act as if I am some kind of freak because I sometimes get so focused on something else that I do not pay attention to what she is saying because I might get caught up in a magazine or in a text message on break.

I was wondering, does anyone else in here ever experience the same type of situation and how do you handle it?

I have had this problem even when people DON'T know I have AS... I can't even imagine the stigma associated with that attitude. I have had to actively INSERT myself into the conversation with as intelligent and thoughtful a comment as I can come up with in order to remind them that I'm a human being who deserves equal attention when it comes to such things. In some cases though, I've found it just isn't worth the effort.

I insert myself in conversations by asking what everyone is talking about and pretending i understand, i was stuck this one time when the subject was something to do with biology so i just did a Joey from friends and nodded along.

It's really hard for me to jump into conversations. It's even harder to get more than a few words in before the other people there go back to talking to each other. After standing there for about 5 minutes doing nothing but listening to them, I just leave them and find something else to do.

A big part of it for me is that I'm afraid I'll offend someone with something I say or that they may challenge a point I make and I won't be able to back it up. I'm just instinctively a nice guy to the point where I would rather harm my own feelings instead of harming someone else's. I do get frustrated by it at times, but I don't know any way of getting around it.

I almost hate to say this, but this is not "nice guy" behavior... it's non-confrontational behavior. The difference is that you are not okay with it, and eventually build resentment over it as evidenced by your admitted frustration. The key to overcoming it is to walk through your own fear and just get practice getting your own needs met without intentionally harming others, but still allowing them to be responsible for their own needs. You are not responsible for someone else's feeling... I mean don't be a complete jerk, but don't tiptoe around people at the expense of your own feelings. So many people think they are being "nice", but in the long run, this perception leads to more hurt feelings and misunderstandings than just biting the bullet and bravely facing your fears to communicate what you need in a respectful, but firm manner.

I'm the same way. I'm very passive most of the time and would rather let my classmates think of me as stupid than risk a debate I'd lose. They will right-out ignore me a lot of the time. My best friend with ADHD handles it by endlessly repeating herself or trying to be funny (her idea of funny is telling stories about what she did last week) until somebody acknowledges she's alive, but frankly they go right back to what they were doing anyway. One of the best ways to fit into a conversation is to be assertive and topical, and frankly that's hard to do in my case.

Another problem is that if people don't respect you, they probably won't want to hear what you have to say. Trust me, I can attest to that. Even if their intent is not malicious, these people are not interested in me as a person and won't even give me an opportunity to speak. I doubt that this really applies to the OP's post; it's just something that I've observed.