do people think you're "stupid"?

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i get called stupid all the time by people i'm just getting to know. no, they don't actually tell me that they think i am stupid. but the less polite people will make jokes or use subtle sarcasm to convey these feelings of superiority.
here is an example. some guy that lives down the street from me who harasses me says things such as this:
"what does nostalgia mean?"
"you know, you're really smart"
"i have a crush on you"

and i've heard people say things like "i'm surprised you would know a word like that"

... and then there are the people who got extremely impatient and annoyed with me.
or those who feel the need to explain things to me like i'm an 8 year old child.

it's all because i just sit there in my own little world, overthinking things. i seem "gone" and scatterbrained. and i have horrid social skills.

does this happen to anyone else? does anyone else get treated like they are stupid?

The guy that lives down the street sounds like a sad individual who has nothing better to do with his life than harrass others. He is the one with the problem

"I am surprised you would know a word like that". Pretty insensitive thing to say, but then, on the other hand, Aspergers can be a difficult thing for an NT to understand, so it is probably just a sign of their ignorance about the condition. They probably don't mean to offend.

As for the people that get annoyed or impatient. Is it possible for you to come up with a "one liner" that you can use for people that are clearly "not getting it".
eg: you could say something like "can I come back to you about that in 5 minutes?"

To be honest, I am probably one of the guilty ones who has been impatient with my husband who is an Apsie. Mind you, I would never be like that with a stranger.

Of course, I think at a certain age it's easy for people to equate quiet and wooden with stupid. Happened to me for a couple of years there. Though I don't know if they actually believed it. It might have simply been an additional brick to throw.

As you get older the cliche will switch to, "you're really smart", even if you don't feel that smart.

Whenever I hung out with certain individuals, they played this game I call "I love you." Whenever I tried to talk to one of them their response was a sarcastic "I love you." It was so repulsive and annoying. I guess they thought it was so cool but they just came off as insipid. It was actually one guy in particular who would only do it in the presence of a mutual friend who I'm sure had some sort of talk about me when I wasn't around and thought that would be the appropriate way to handle me. It wasn't appropriate, just ridiculous.

Last edited by ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo on 12 Mar 2011, 7:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

People say to me 'ahhh she is sweet' and 'wouldn't it be nice to be that innocent' errrm well I don't fell that I am any of those things.

Maybe it's a female Aspie thing. I'm male and get told I'm very smart, intelligent, etc but never quick witted or street smart. I do get called stupid on occasion, or looked at as less intelligent because of my lacking social skills or inexperience. Sometimes it seems like I act stupid to other people without even knowing it, and make a fool of myself. Sometimes when I'm under pressure or stress because of the social interaction, I get a block in my brain that stops my thinking, and I don't know what to do next or say, despite how
much I try to concentrate, and this also makes me seem stupid.

I was at my niece's birthday party last year and two of my sister's friends said to each other, "That's Erica's older sister. She seems very innocent." The other girl said, "She has a lot of that unworldliness to her." I take such comments as compliments, because I want to be sweet and innocent.

Probably. It's all relevant though, like size. Most people in my year are smart. Beside them, I often feel like a moron. Back in High School, I was the class nerd...

no, they call me smart and crazy instead,haha

My stepfather treats me like I'm stupid whenever he gets the chance. I don't even know what his problem is.

When I worked at a machine shop there was a new guy who would ask me questions then giggle when I would answer. It didn't piss me off because the guy was a little slow and I thought he was laughing at my cross bite. You don't notice it until I talk. We were in the breakroom and he decided to do it in front of my co-workers and he started laughing at me they started asking him why he is laughing. He wouldn't say anything except smirk at me then my co-workers started to tell me all the things he was saying to them behind my back. The floor manager looked at him and said "We have known him for 9 years and you for two days why wouldn't we tell on you?" He told another co-worker he thought I was stupid because one of my nicknames in the shop was "The Dope". My co-worker laughed at him telling him they call me that because I smoked so much marijuana that my memory is bad. (Thats what they thought caused it) Two days later the as*hole was drilling a part that was in a small machinist vice. His hair got into his eyes so he removed his hand from the machinist vice to wipe it away but he had the drill still in the part causing the machinst vice to spin extremely fast. This is dangerous beyond belief when you do something like this you should hit the emergency stop button its a big red button right infront of his face. What does this genious do he lets go of the drill causing this five pound vice to go flying across the shop then smashing into a computer screen attached to a CNC machine it took us four days to get a replacement. He quit because he did not like the nick names of "flinch" and the one I gave him "Vicelord".

I guess I do not come off verbally as being too bright but when I write I come off more intelligent.

I get it when I'm at a loss for words. I know it's not true, and that I'm going to get stuck at times.

To V.,

You can act as though he's going deaf or senile whenever he pulls that stuff.

My father endlessly referred to me as "Stupid."

Oh yes, many people I encounter probably leave with the impression that I’m quite dense; which might very well be true, lols. However, I do think that the impression might be a little inflated as a result of my difficulties with real time communication.

I guess one recent example I could give comes from my new job, which is working in a coffee shop (OMG!!, worst decision ever, but desperate times.). So, basically when making coffee we are supposed to put a timer on the pot for one hour right after it begins to brew. Well, during a particularly busy portion of the day I forgot this detail and my boss steps over to point out the error. To which I reply, "well, this pot was at 52" and then she says "thats good, thats good". Only later do I find out she thought I was simply stating that the pot with the timer already in place was at 52 minutes; rather than my intent which was to say that the elapsed time could be calculated from this other pot which was at 52 minutes when I began brewing this other one. I seem to do this “stating a thing for what it is and assuming my drift is apparent thing” pretty often.

Regardless of whether or not this was a simple misunderstanding, for her to come to that conclusion she must have some awfully low expectations. The funny thing is that I was able to learn nearly everything about the job in that first day and reveal my understanding through correct responses to verbal and written questions and follow through in most action; this apparent "quick to catch on" trait must seem strange with my lack of ability to multi task and spontaneously socialize. I try to compensate by doing one thing really fast, this sometimes includes customer interaction if I don’t catch myself. We’ll see how I hold up but I’m pretty sure everyone that works there thinks I’m a total knob.

Only idiots call me stupid. They just don't understand me.

Mostly I just get mad at him and can't speak to him as a general rule for reasons I don't even fully understand.

Also, he is going deaf, and he may have had brain damage a few years ago when he had a drop in blood pressure due to a bleeding ulcer.