Trust and Social Naivette

Hey don't worry. Often I look at my own threads a few days later and think... why I am I so serious all the time?  I struggle with being light hearted I think. I could do with mellowing out man.

I don't know how to answer...

But I'll try. 

I think, I was once more interested in people, than now - although never that much. Did I trust people? Sometimes, perhaps. I have to say it was rarely merited.

I had a few good friends, all the same, most of whom are now dead, through accident and misfortune...

I don't really involve myself much, now - I don't know, maybe it's a brain damage thing, or loss, or both. 

So trust isn't an issue, so much. 

I tend to take everyone at face value, respect all, assume all are good, until I learn differently.

That seems fair. 

I've just read a bit in Septology by Jon Fosse involving Catholic faith+practice, it's interesting to me although will mean more to you: '...I think that I want to say a Salve Regina but I haven't managed to make a good enough Norwegian version of that so I can only say it in Latin, I think and I move my thumb and finger down again and I hold the cross and I say inside myself Salve Regina Mater misericordia Vita dulcedo et spes nostra salve Ad te clamamus Exsules filii Havae Ad te suspiramus Gementes et flentes In hac lacrimarum valle Eia ergo Advocata nostra Illos tuos misericordes oculus ad nos converten Et Iesum benedictum fructum ventris tui Nobis post hoc exsilium ostende O clemens O pia O dulcis Virgo Maria and I hold the brown wooden cross between my thumb and my finger and then I say, again and again, inside myself, as I breathe in deeply Lord and as I breathe out slowly Jesus and as I breathe in deeply Christ and as I breathe out slowly Have mercy and as I breathe in deeply On me...'

I used to be extremely trusting. I have trouble working out people's motivations and take things at face value, and I expect people to behave like I do.

This meant I have been scammed and bullied a lot so eventually (by my thirties) I learnt not to trust anybody. It's just the safest option because I don't have any techniques to tell whether someone is lying. So I just assume everyone is trying to trick me now.

With a new person I start with the assumption that they are honest and with good intent, I am honest myself, never consciously lie. Many times though people subsequently prove themselves to not be entirely honest and sometimes without good intent, at which point I detach from them they become history. 

Im never taken advantage of these days but that’s I think the result of a lifetime of experience and learning. 

I see my favourite Grandmother when I think of Christianity. She was a private individual who held her faith in solitude. The Church of England was very unkind to her in her younger years.

Allyboo said:

I've explored Christianity quite a lot in my time, as usual it was chaos e.g. they'd say 'we always encourage questions+questioning'. I'd think to myself 'great, sounds like I'm in the right place here then!'. Before long I'd get into problems with my questioning ('calling out', like Jesus did) resulting in them telling me 'you can't ask questions like that!' (but I just had/did) i.e. hypocrites/contradiction...and I'd leave/move on inevitably eventually

That's really interesting as my autistic friend spent years of his life in a church where he would mix with the community and asked 'awkward' questions and was ignored or ostracised, which caused him a great deal of frustration, social isolation and, I think, bitterness.

My own experience comes from years of working in the Catholic Church.

I've explored Christianity quite a lot in my time, as usual it was chaos e.g. they'd say 'we always encourage questions+questioning'. I'd think to myself 'great, sounds like I'm in the right place here then!'. Before long I'd get into problems with my questioning ('calling out', like Jesus did) resulting in them telling me 'you can't ask questions like that!' (but I just had/did) i.e. hypocrites/contradiction...and I'd leave/move on inevitably eventually 

I can have a go at answering them.  But my answers would probably be the ones that you'd expect to hear from me.

I've often thought that about Autists and all or nothing thinking.  So thank you for expressing that. Now I feel less alone.

Have you read Marc Segar's book?  It's called A Survival Guide for People With Aspergers Syndrome.  It's an old book from the 90's and Marc is long dead but it's the best book I've read on navigating the Uk Social scene.  Of course it's only helpful to you for as long as you are socially active.

How trusting are you?  I

Not as trusting as when I was young.

What I found is that as you get older, you start to judge people more and you learn by being hurt.

I had better not quote you again, or I will be thrown out by the spam monster.

So, if someone presented themself as a good person I wouldn't take their word for it.

I always judge people by their actions, not their words.

I have worked with some very malicious people who presented themselves as Christians.

I think I'm only easy to manipulate when I'm in love.

I remember saying to a guy once 'if you had nothing to offer me, why did you get involved in the 1st place'?

He was completely stumped to give me a reply and I was naive not to realise the reason myself.

I don't know if I present myself as honest as I don't think I really 'present myself' at all - I just am, and people take me as they find me, warts and all.

I don't see other people as being the same as me - heaven help them if they were.

I suspect that autistic people are 'easier to take advantage of' as we are literal and if someone says something, we have a tendency to believe that they are telling the truth, I think.

Therefore we can be manipulated, emotionally and psychologically etc, by lies and half-truths.

I think you should answer these questions yourself.

Me too. I haven't discriminated, I used to trust absolutely everybody then trusted absolutely nobody. Hopefully I'm slowly experiencing something more in-between (with a little more discernment capability these days) 

When I was younger I was very naive and far too trusting. People used that to their own gain, often just for the fun of it. I have had to learn the hard way how manipulative and deceitful people can be.

I've probably gone too far in the other direction now and find it extremely hard to trust anyone. Maybe it's the autistic tendency to all or nothing thinking that there isn't a middle ground.

I'm very wary generally + vigilant hopefully too.

Yes, a middle way would be good imo

Myself, I was betrayed by my closest friends and family. I had not trusted anyone in 20 years, and I do not know if I would do that again.

All the other aspies I met were either totally untrusting, or naïve and trusting in a childish way. The last "job coach" I met had the ASD and was so naïve that he would never had survived more than a week in a real job environment. There ought to be a middle way

That’s rather profound, lovely and sad

How trusting I am depends on how well I think I know the person, and also how I know that person (i.e. family, friend, or someone I have just met for the first time).

If someone I did not personally know presented themselves as a good person, for example by telling me I could trust them, I would wonder why they felt compelled to tell me that. Telling me they are trustworthy is not the same as me knowing they are trustworthy, so why should I take them at their word? To be honest, if someone I don't know tells me I can trust them, it causes me to feel suspicious of them. For me to trust someone, I need their actions to consistently match their words.

When I was younger, there were instances when I could be gullible and taken advantage of. However, I have always been somewhat headstrong, so I'm not so sure that I was ever easily manipulated, but maybe I was. Now that I'm middle-aged, I have become more cynical and less trusting.

Do I see other people as being the same as me? It's unclear if you mean people in general. All I can say is that it varies. It's rare that I ever consider someone to be exactly like me in terms of how I think and see the world, but I do encounter people who I perceive as being similar to me, along with people I perceive as being not at all like me.

I think I have a strange situation with it—unless it is someone nice, then nope, no trust. It's strange, considering that I haven't been able to form any meaningful friendships in-person, yet I'll trust someone online as long as it is not an offer of some kind—as long as I don't give into my thoughts saying that I should do an almost-paranoiac investigation of them. For the part about Autistics are likely easier to take advantage of, I think I agree with that.