An Aspie who likes to feel they are in control and who gets frustrated at the apparent irrational decisions and behaviour of the people they interact with???
Good heavens to Betsy! Have you ever heard of such a thing?!?!?!
AWOOGA
AWOOGA
ESSAY ALERT!
THERE'S AN ESSAY COMING!
AWOOGA
Onna - you are not a control freak any more than any of us is, but I think what people have been saying, quite rightly too, is that it's easy for our behaviour to be perceived this way by others.
All you have done is try to relieve your uncertainty and anxiety over an unexplained apparent lack of interest from another party. Any one of us could and would have done similar. Even if we didn't ACT on the impulse to contact the guy, we would likely have thought about it and wanted to.
His misinterpretation of your interest and desire to control your own uncertainty is a risk we always take and one of which can have very little control of the outcome. In essence - if he thinks you are a pushy cow then that's on him - his take on things. You know your intentions were far from pushy and motivated by vulnerability, not a desire to be possessive.
This is kind of what I was saying above which you asked for an example of. The opinion one has about the actions of another can be either emotionally driven or rationally driven. In most people there is a balance between the two although biased in one direction. It is not unusual for someone on the spectrum to be biased towards rationality as it is not uncommon for NT people to take the emotional route. Neither is a given rule and the approach will not only vary by person but by the nature of the situation in question and the personal history of the person making judgement.
Part of the function of natural "Theory of Mind" (ToM) and "Cognitive Empathy" is to make unconscious judgements of the intentions and future behaviour of others based on learned experience. It amounts to snap judgements - decisions made in an instant that govern our reactions and it is human nature to rely on and abide by those decisions. It is a contiguous property of ToM to also believe that your interpretation of another person's motivation is correct and would be shared by others.
An Aspie who may have a less effective facility for ToM will either make emotional decisions which appear flawed and sometimes childish to others (lashing out, refusing to take advice they asked for, never admitting to being wrong etc.), or is fully aware of their lacking in this department and makes up for it in conscious evaluation. It is the latter type which I believe you, me and a significant number of people in this community who have expressed their own inability to let things go, their constant reevaluation of past events, their confusion at the irrationality of others and many other problems, are a part of.
The common perception of autistic people is that our lesser degree of ToM is the former type - that we make immature, poorly informed decisions. The truth seems to be that whilst some of us do, others are making very carefully considered (and slower) decisions based upon deep thought and calculation that may be far more balanced and rational than the "usually right" gut instinct decisions made by our NT peers.
In your situation, a person with a fully functional ToM may have just thought;
"Bugger it - he's clearly not interested" and moved on. They would not have spent days poring over it, thought of all the possibilities, doubted themselves and then come on a public forum like this and discussed it at depth. They wouldn't need to. ToM makes the decision for them, they know they are right and they would tell their friends of their decision in the full belief that those friends would agree with their take on events.
As I said in the ToM video a couple of months back, an Aspie who doubts their judgement due to a lesser ToM and tries to compensate through systemising situations, has a kind of emotional "pause button" that causes them to stop and rethink before reacting. It's slow and infuriating to some NTs but it helps us make better decisions.
If you have perfectly functional ToM you may make some poor decisions, but you are unlikely to blame yourself and can "breeze through life" happy in the knowledge that whatever you do, it's what "everyone would have done". Having a poor ToM backed up by rationality means having doubts but always being safe in the knowledge that whatever you did, it was for the right reasons, and you can explain those reasons when challenged.
I'll stop for breath now.....
Instead we have our own purpose, like the universe is trying to rebalance or something. Our skills, xxxx xxxxx xxxxxx, could prove useful in future generations.
there is a lot of conflict in this typically NT world, the average NT like you said ‘breezes through life’ compared to us. To be blunt (and with no judgement intended) perhaps it’s the ‘art of not giving a sh*t’? I sometimes feel that it’s their world that we get to observe them living it. We can try join in, but it’ll never quite feel the same.
This!, This!, AND This!
As I have been in relationships with NT's, am a "people watcher", and generally analyze things with great accuracy,
I'm just going to drop this here.
One who acts on emotion as a principle driver cannot be trusted.
Every single time I have entrusted my...
"emotional wellbeing", to whatever degree, to an "emotive", "allistic", whatever, I have been hurt purposely and correspondingly. They seem to be perfectly happy to act on the roll of the dice that determines their emotions, the one that determines how extremely they act on them, the one that includes whether to hurt a loved one intentionally or not, and to be likewise subjected to the dice rolls of all the rest of those like them, and what
they "determine".
There have been times that I have been hurt unintentionally. Far and few between.
I worked through them in a more or less healthy way, but invariably, the one careless enough to not consider that you may be hurt inadvertantly, ultimately
is hurting you purposely, because they
purposely do not consider you when they act. This may be considered by some to be passive, but after hurting a loved one
one time, it is proof positive that actions based on their emotions can unintentionally hurt others---
to not change the state is
active, period.
And, it is
most definitely possible, easy, even, to stop acting on emotion principally,
if you wish to do so. You simply have to care about someone other than yourself.
I will also admit, that by almost every person I was "unintentionally" hurt by, I was eventually hurt fully
intentionally by.
It seems as if they live to hurt and be hurt by one another. Oh, there may be a kindness thrown in, once in a while, but it is with unpredictable frequency, and doesn't alleviate the danger that continuing unpredictability causes. There are also those "others" that are kind, and conscious of the effects of their actions-- there are a few amazing individuals here-- but they seem to be exceedingly rare.
I'm tired of rolling in the mud with the hogs, and turning around to ask why I'm dirty.
It is this "down and dirty"-ness that I will not
submerge myself into, again.
Those ruled by emotion will not willingly be entrusted with my emotions again, if I can help it.
Rationality is paramount.
Everything else follows.
Oh, I won't stop
entertaining the idea, nor will I discriminate(unless the red flags are waving, and the klaxon is sounding,) against someone that shows interest based on their respective "neurology", I just don't see my happiness and comfort(or another's, hence
my restraint) as worth risking in "the roll of the dice". I'll watch and listen.
As for myself, having learned what I've learned, knowing that I have been more or less faultless beyond the breaking point,
loyal to the end, kind, accomodating, understanding, I am considering that I need to seek the same.
I want stability, and promise the same.
I'm still hopelessly resigned to the belief that there is someone out there, to love and be loved by, should we happen to meet.
If rationality is the approach taken by most/many Aspies, then that is where I will focus my search.
How the hell I do that seems to be
another issue entirely.
May you be well.
sidd
