What are the barriers to acceptance and understanding?

. said:

In an Aspie sense I am able to perform well in some contexts (for example, following theories, recognising patterns, lateral thinking etc) but poorly in others (such as small talk, perceiving the wants and needs of others when presented in certain ways that I can’t always read).

I am not overly clever but have been told that I can come across as aloof or arrogant and there are many articles on this particular trait in that we can come across as self interested and also narcissistic.

Maybe it is the way that I convey myself that creates the barrier?

Interesting points, Ellie.  Very similar with me.  I'm not overly clever (in spite of a high IQ and a degree) and I think the ways that I tend to try and compensate for that - i.e. make myself seem cleverer than I am - can, when I look at them objectively, make me seem big-headed, arrogant and aloof.  I wonder if it's the case with many people - Aspies or not - who are, at heart, deeply insecure.  My sister-in-law, for instance - the narcissist.  To anyone with less intelligence than she has, she is a figure who is regarded with awe.  She is forthright in her 'opinions' and attitudes.  If she doesn't like something, it's not just that she doesn't like it.  It's because it's not worthy of being liked - and anyone who does like it is foolish.  The thing is, she can't back up most of her arguments with facts or reasoning.  She blusters, shouts down any nay-sayers, etc.  To anyone with more intelligence than she has, it's patently obvious how stupid and insecure she really is.  But trying to tackle a narcissist is definitely to be avoided if you wish to cling on to your own fragile esteem!

I can be opinionated.  I can come across as arrogant in the way I speak and write on certain things.  I have strong personal convictions about many things - politics, religion, art, society, culture - and I naturally rise up if I feel my positions being attacked.  I never used to be like this.  For perhaps the first 35 years of my life, I was afraid to open my mouth.  I was eaten up with insecurities.  It was getting my education, and having my brain reset to a certain degree by it, that gave me the confidence to speak up a bit more.  That and writing, where I found a voice.  Alcohol, too, brings things out that might have stayed inside.  Certainly, it makes me ruder and more abusive towards others - something I don't like to be.  It's a double-edged thing, though.  Part of me enjoys that catharsis!  The bottom line is, though - I'm horribly insecure.  And anything that threatens or challenges me leads me to back off and run away.  Which then makes me seem weak.  Like I don't have the courage of my convictions - or they're made of fluff, anyway.  That's always how I've been, though.  'Fight or flight' has always been the latter, from the playground onwards. 

So yes - maybe the way I convey myself creates that barrier.  Either people think I'm too arrogant, or too weak.  In my defence - and, for me, a rare moment of self-praise which is again going to come across as arrogant and conceited - I think I have a unique intelligence.  I also think, and I've been told, that I have a unique talent.  The thing is, I've never been able to make anything substantial out of these qualities.  Perhaps it's those insecurities that hold me back.  Self-doubt.  And maybe this stems from a lifetime of being put down by others, dismissed as a fool, laughed at, told I'd never amount to anything.  Many would use that to double the effort and boost themselves forwards to prove those others wrong.  But here I am, 60 next year, with no money, a small rented flat, a minimum-wage income, and seemingly very little to show.  I don't feel self-pity, though (contrary to appearances).  At risk of sounding arrogant yet again, I feel (part of my Aspiness, maybe) above it all as well as being apart from it all.  Superior?  I wouldn't go that far.  But my intelligence enables me to see through so much of what is supposed to constitute 'a happy and successful life'.  I want very few of the things that others crave.  I'm not interested in material things.  I see 'civilisation'., such as it is, heading for disaster in the quest to fulfill its selfish desires.  Apathy abounds.  Which kind of contradicts the Darwinian model of evolution.  Humanity is slowly destroying itself in this supposed bid to 'survive' and doesn't seem to realise or care.  Why should I want a part of any of that?  And coming from that position, is it any wonder that people don't really relish engaging with me at anything other than a phatic level?  'How are you today?'  'I'm good, thanks... but did you know that the North Atlantic Garbage Patch is now twice the size of France, and eight men control more personal wealth than half the planet's population, and mobile technology has turned us all into addicted zombies?'  Okay, maybe I'm not that extreme in exchanges.  But that's the stuff in my head all the time.  So I see phatic conversations generally to be a waste of time.  They're not, to me, about bonding with others.  They're more about testing limits of patience.  And as soon as my interlocutor brings up one of the current bogeyman subjects such as 'flaming immigrants' or 'welfare scroungers', I no longer see the point of continuing with the conversation - or the person.  I can't be bothered to try to argue.  I shut off.  And if I've had any kind of negative altercation with a person, I shut off from them even more.  So my attitude towards them must carry a vibe.  I can seem unforgiving.  And I suppose I am.  Yet I try to live by the principle espoused by Kierkegaard: 'I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.'  I try my hardest to always look past what may be ignorance, stupidity, lack of education, lack of understanding - any of the reasons why people might behave the way they do.  But I struggle with it.  I'm human, I guess...

I'm rambling, sorry.  The other stuff, of course - body language, gestures, eye contact, the subtleties of human communication... I see now that these are all things I've missed during my life.  And sure, they're bound to have helped create that gulf.  What's a gesture of friendship in one culture might be regarded as an insult or a threat in another culture.  So it is, perhaps, with NT and ND communication.  I don't 'get' flirtation signals at all - though I've been taught a few things over the years.  I've probably missed out on an awful lot in that respect!

Or maybe not!

. said:

Neurotypicals (NTs, i.e. non-Aspies) often feel uncomfortable around Aspies because Aspies and NTs have different styles of communication, and NTs expect Aspies to conform to their style of communication.

Yes, probably - though I'm not sure what an Aspie style of communication might be.  Forthrightness?  Bluntness?  A perceived superior attitude which may come across as smugness?  Everyone at work knows I'm an Aspie.  I have different levels of interaction with my colleagues.  Some are friendlier than others.  One or two say they 'get' me and accept me as I am, and I warm to them.  Others seem very wary around me.  One guy in particular has had very little to say to me, and when we've been working together there have been a lot of very uncomfortable silences.  He's gay, as it happens.  Anyway, on Friday we actually had a conversation and I found myself spilling out a lot of stuff about my past and my problems.  He reciprocated.  And we found a level of understanding that previously I'd thought wasn't there.  I think the basis of it is our own experiences as minorities in an culture that's often hostile towards us.  And I think his previous reticence around me is grounded in his own insecurities, and his perception of me as someone who could see through his superficiality.  He admits that he is quite superficial.  But I think that we're more on a level now that he understands I'm not someone to be feared.  Because, in many ways, I'm quite superficial myself.

So I see phatic conversations generally to be a waste of time.  They're not, to me, about bonding with others.  They're more about testing limits of patience.  And as soon as my interlocutor brings up one of the current bogeyman subjects such as 'flaming immigrants' or 'welfare scroungers', I no longer see the point of continuing with the conversation - or the person.  I can't be bothered to try to argue.  I shut off.  And if I've had any kind of negative altercation with a person, I shut off from them even more.  So my attitude towards them must carry a vibe.  I can seem unforgiving.  And I suppose I am.  Yet I try to live by the principle espoused by Kierkegaard: 'I have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.'  I try my hardest to always look past what may be ignorance, stupidity, lack of education, lack of understanding - any of the reasons why people might behave the way they do.  But I struggle with it.  I'm human, I guess...

Yes the phatic exchange is a bore and because I cannot chit chat about soap operas, fashion, shopping, the weather etc I also shut my brain off into my own space or do something that I perceive as more interesting instead. It is not to demean such topics it is just they draw a blank to me...

That is NOT to belittle others, or borne out of snobbery it is a fact of different wiring.

if I do engage, I ask questions about what has been said as a way to seek clarity about points raised so that I can best understand and “read” the map of someone’s conversational trajectory... I do this so I CAN participate, not to belittle or demean, or shut down the person or the conversation.

The thread is intended to probe this idea of are we ok and acceptable, or, is it just the way we present ourselves to others, our manner, also a possibile difficulty to be understood and explain who we are and our needs and aspirations.

it could just be down to the fact that we take more time to be understood, were a bit more of a challenge to unpick... and bottom line that takes persistence, time, understanding and bother..

. said:

The thread is intended to probe this idea of are we ok and acceptable, or, is it just the way we present ourselves to others, our manner, also a possibile difficulty to be understood and explain who we are and our needs and aspirations.

Yes - sorry, I know I go off at tangents.  It's the way my thought processes work! 

It's a two-way thing.  Presentation and perception.  The way we present ourselves, and the way that presentation is perceived.  Our modes of expression may seem perfectly alright to us, and based on our understanding of things.  But to others, they may be perceived as rude, arrogant or righteous.  Maybe this is because we often struggle to see another's viewpoint. Since my diagnosis, I've taken time to think more about some of the things I say, and to try to understand how the other person may respond.  I took my car in for repairs a little while ago.  At the place I went - a large establishment - I saw a mechanic who used to work for a smaller outfit I used to go to.  I said to him, quite innocently, 'You're moving up in the world, then.'  He gave me a look that I didn't quite understand.  It was only later, when I thought about it more (it bugged me) that I realised he must have thought I was taking the mickey out of him - based, perhaps, on a false idea that he thought I was regarding him as someone doing a 'low-level' job.  Quite the opposite.  I don't judge people in that way.  But I realised that if someone said to me - now working for the same low wage, but in a bigger establishment - 'I see you're moving up in the world', I'd construe it as belittling sarcasm.

I think I'm 'okay and acceptable'.  Whether other people think the same about me depends very much, I think, on how I present myself.  The language I use, etc.  The fact that I don't make eye contact, that I often barge in on a conversation before the other person has finished speaking, that I will shut off altogether once the subject turns to something I have no interest in - this must all make me seem a challenge to others.

. said:

The thread is intended to probe this idea of are we ok and acceptable, or, is it just the way we present ourselves to others, our manner, also a possibile difficulty to be understood and explain who we are and our needs and aspirations.

Yes - sorry, I know I go off at tangents.  It's the way my thought processes work! 

It's a two-way thing.  Presentation and perception.  The way we present ourselves, and the way that presentation is perceived.  Our modes of expression may seem perfectly alright to us, and based on our understanding of things.  But to others, they may be perceived as rude, arrogant or righteous.  Maybe this is because we often struggle to see another's viewpoint. Since my diagnosis, I've taken time to think more about some of the things I say, and to try to understand how the other person may respond.  I took my car in for repairs a little while ago.  At the place I went - a large establishment - I saw a mechanic who used to work for a smaller outfit I used to go to.  I said to him, quite innocently, 'You're moving up in the world, then.'  He gave me a look that I didn't quite understand.  It was only later, when I thought about it more (it bugged me) that I realised he must have thought I was taking the mickey out of him - based, perhaps, on a false idea that he thought I was regarding him as someone doing a 'low-level' job.  Quite the opposite.  I don't judge people in that way.  But I realised that if someone said to me - now working for the same low wage, but in a bigger establishment - 'I see you're moving up in the world', I'd construe it as belittling sarcasm.

I think I'm 'okay and acceptable'.  Whether other people think the same about me depends very much, I think, on how I present myself.  The language I use, etc.  The fact that I don't make eye contact, that I often barge in on a conversation before the other person has finished speaking, that I will shut off altogether once the subject turns to something I have no interest in - this must all make me seem a challenge to others.

Isn’t that just a form of masking in order to make the self palatable? Mars and Venus eh?