How do neurologically typical people feel & experience life?

Original Prankster said:

some NTs don't enjoy the stuff you list any more than we do.

For sure. What I was trying to understand was what it might be like for people who *do* enjoy it. Maybe people are right when they say that I think too much. 

Eye contact varies wildly based on culture though...

Western/European = sign of confidence/engagement & is deemed 'necessary'

East Asian e.g. Japanese = disrespectul for someone of 'lesser rank' to make eye contact with a superior & expected that sustained eye-contact is not made

Middle-Eastern = eye contact between sexes is 'forbidden' in many countries hence the extreme form of the Burqa which has mesh across they eyeholes

African/Latin American = can be seen as a 'challenge' to someone's authority

Also take sub-sets e.g. I bet in a prison setting most NTs would avoid making eye contact unless they wanted to challenge someone

Think of it as the same as a firm (rather than limp) handshake as a way of projecting confidence or like a subtle *ahem* to catch someone's attention... or like a shared whisper or a passed note of shared understanding... it's *just* a type of non-verbal communication... almost like if you knew sign-language you could say something with your hands without speaking or modify what you said with a hand signal...

I think the wider world really needs to get over its obsession with eye-contact (or lack thereof) and what it 'means'...

As an experiment, next time you see someone trying to join a queue of traffic observe the forcible resistance to making eye contact the people already in the queuing cars make to the person trying to join & the desperation of the joiner trying to 'connect' through their eyes!

Interesting thoughts - thanks. Yes I could well be starting off from a false assumption, resulting from me realising that I'm atypical and then wondering what typical feels like.

My bullet list did get progressively more tenuous as I struggled to come up with more examples :-). But what really sticks with me is eye contact; I get nothing from it and find it uncomfortable, whereas as far as I know many/most(?) NT people get something positive from it that is enough to draw them *to* it - so genuinely opposite.

I know this all varies across personality types too......

Yeah I've been told that when I talk that people just switch off. 

Wish I could do that when they talk. 

I to ruminate on thoughts and things people say and 10 minutes later I coment on that thing and everyone is annoyed that I've brought something irrelevant up in the conversation.

• It's my go to alienation moment. 

This... I'm done with Christmas Cards - I think your premise that NTs are 'opposite' to us NAs is flawed and as NAS64857 says, some NTs don't enjoy the stuff you list any more than we do.

FWIW, my musings...

• How does the world *sound*? Is it muted, filtered by attention etc? It just sounds the way it sounds, they are just better able to 'tune in' to sources of interest and/or 'tune out' background noise...
• How does eye contact *feel* when experienced as something that you *want* to do? Even with strangers? It doesn't feel like anything, but it's absence is noted - like if there was a reassuring background sound (I like the tick of my watch) and it was absent, you'd notice the absence...
• What's it like to be drawn to want to be with a group of other people? The same as being drawn to a 'special interest' for us I's guess...
• What's it like to enjoy a day out with friends, and not be exhausted (except in a tired & content kind of way)? The same as for us to enjoy a day of undertaking something we were interested in...
• What's it like to be thrilled at the prospect of going out every single evening for days in a row? I suspect very few NTs are and the ones that are have some kind of neurological disorder of their own!
• What's it like to want to ask other people where they went on holiday, and be interested in what they tell you about where they went and what they saw? Most of them them don't - do you 'want' to breathe? No, you do it by reflex... it's just 'social noise' like monkey's grooming each other's fur...
• What's it like to say the opposite of what you mean, because for e.g. you're being polite, and yet know that everyone knows what you actually mean? They ARE saying what they mean, just they don't say it with the words themselves so as far as their concerned they aren't saying the opposite of what they mean
• What's it like to wish that you had more time for travel, seeing family members, more face to face meetings etc? Same as wishing you had more time to do anything you couldn't do as much as you wanted due to time constraints...

I think you're ascribing too much difference to NTs... they're more like us than you think - just 'diluted' and more their interests tend to be 'odd' from our perspective...

Not enough programmes radio or otherwise specify that clarification! 

Hiya. Yes LOL 'just feels right' is the answer. 'No eye contact' is uncomfortable for them if they aren't aware of any spectum disorders. 

Flint. Thought of you today :) Was listened to a Radio 4 podcast called Crowd Source. This one was about an alt. reality if Dinosaurs never went extinct. Right near the start they wanted to make clear the distinction between Dinosaurs from millions of years ago and today's Dinosaurs- which they termed 'Avian Dinosaurs' through the programme

That sounds painful to me. I hate stuff like that, contradicting signs and stuff. It doesn't just irritate me, it also feels...odd. I can't describe the feeling but it's not pleasant and if enough contradictory stimuli is out there it can lead to meltdown or shutdown for me. 

I don't understand how NT's shut that stuff out at all. 

I know people that believe certain stuff that may be considered 'spiritual' or 'supernatural' and then when/if you point out flaws some of them are able to accept those flaws in their belief and admit it makes it seem 'unlikely' yet they'll also turn around and say, "But it's still my world view" And it blows my mind every time that happens. I understand cognitive dissonance is hard and people can double down on their beliefs to begin with, and I'm fully aware I'm not always right either and that I can and do fall prey to this too. But from what I observe in NT's i'm much less casual about it. I can't just turn around and say, "Well I still believe X Y and Z" even if I really, really want to believe something. Once a flaw or a potential problem with my belief has been pointed out I can't not focus on it!  

If I ask the same 'NT' person the same question about their belief say a few weeks later, they'll have returned to their initial belief and seemingly have forgotten the flaw, or if not forgotten it have somehow managed to convince themselves the flaw doesn't matter. I just don't understand that. 

I assume it must be a much more peaceful life inside their heads to be able to do that. (I don't' wish to say NT's have complete peaceful lifes and no troubles. Just that certain things they seem more able to let go of and probably are more at peace for those specific reasons) 

I love to head out, but not for too long. Next Saturday, I plan to spend an entire day in Belfast; leading up to a Christmas Dinner at Windsor Park's Hospitality Suite. There's a disco afterwards, but I'll only be staying for the food. Then I'll get the 11 pm bus back to Tomme park-and-ride; and a taxi home. (I'm doing the same for this evening, as I'll be heading to a Musical Gig - but I'll probably shy away from the more intimate crowd)

I think normies manage because they have less sense of time than us. They can get lost in a bottle of wine, spliff, etc. I, for one, feel that the last few hours before an event is excruciating.

Be prepared for the same response as when you ask native speakers of a foreign language about the rules for the finer points of their grammar "Dunno, we just *do*, it feels right" :-)

“since dinosaurs when extinct,” and then later on in the same documentary say, “birds are dinosaurs” don’t say “since dinosaurs went extinct” earlier on then!

I get this too. It's like our brains are tuned to spot this stuff. I get a similar annoyance about speed limit signs not adhering to the design regulations. Some councils seem to put them up randomly (big ones where they should be little ones etc & even some with the wrong numbers on!). One that I find really annoying is where a speed limit change is *moved* and they leave the old signs in place - from their design you know that they are not *reminder signs* and it causes confusion because say you're in a 40 and see 30 signs, then further along see the old set of 30 signs, you then get confused about what limit you were just in (if it's changing to 30, was I in a 40?) - obviously, the answer can be "if you're paying attention you will know" but this adds an extra cognitive burden to the driver which can only mitigate *against* safety.

You know what. Today, I'm going to ask these questions. I'm seeing my family today. I will grill them

So, to amplify one of my own questions a bit, it was a revelation for me when I discovered that many people get an oxytocin rush from eye contact (& not just with their love interest!). This is what trains babies to do it as I understand & it persists into adulthood.

So my second bullet above was enquiring about how this *feels*, and I wanted to attach the same type of enquiry to the other bullets - do some people thoroughly enjoy these things? And how does it *feel*?

Thanks :-). Yes this is an interesting subtopic - how much pain do NT's (I'm using this as shorthand for "more neurologically typical") feel from social expectations? Which is what NAS64857 was saying.

Hiya, I'm not sure if I saw this question some time ago or whether I've been thinking it since dx'ed earlier in the year. I am looking at NTs now and thinking what is going on in their minds; how are they coping with daily life. Very timely though, thanks for bringing it up.

TBH, I'm feeling more alien than ever now I'm watching the NTs :) A little knowledge, huh! Just the healing process I'm going through I guess.

I wonder if all the NTs would NOT like to do all these things, but are bound by social expectations?

From my experience with ‘NT’s’ they seem much more able to ignore cognitive dissonance. Or maybe they don’t even feel it as much as I do, I don’t know. 

For me, it’s a really painful stimuli for me. Trying to balance out ideas and facts, beliefs etc. I hate it. I really find it very painful. Yet I talk to people who seem to be able to hold two absolutely apposing views yet they don’t appear to get any cognitive dissonance from it. They seem able to chalk it up to, “well it’s my own personal belief” and be at peace with that despite their contradictory ideas and views. 

I find it very painful for reasons I can’t fully describe when there is a fact that people still refuse to take as fact and continue to believe whatever they wish. Or when people misrepresent facts and people seem happy to use such flimsy language to explain these facts. 

For example someone on a documentary will say, “since dinosaurs when extinct,” and then later on in the same documentary say, “birds are dinosaurs” don’t say “since dinosaurs went extinct” earlier on then! I know, always bring dinosaur facts up in posts like this but that’s because that’s stuff I know about and can use as an example. 

But NT’s don’t seem as bothered about how facts get misrepresented, or at least they don’t seem to find it as painful as I do. 

whaat? that's what headphones are for yes? how do you just not hear things? There is a noise in my car at the moment that no one else is bothered by and the mechanic can't find or fix - my response? time to get a different car/ walk more so as not to be driven demented by a sound I cannot unhear. 

I'd add to this, what's it like to recognise someone and it actually be the person you think it is and not someone else entirely ....... I make such a twit of myself because I get people mixed up or just don't recognise people.