Cutting unpredictable people or people not conducive to an autistic lifestyle out

Dragon of the Night Star said:

I trust my instincts when it comes to others

This is generally not a good idea if you are autistic. For me I  use some sort of well tuned machine learning in my head :) and pattern match attributes to certain hypothesis and then either confirm or deny conclusions after some time and when I have built up enough confidence int he conclusion. I look at it objectively. The way you seem to approach it just sounds like a neurotypical approach.  How people handle that is a key indicator that someone might be autistic or not. Its just too sophisticated for autistic people in general to approach that using "emotional intelligence". It is a spectrum but it doesn't extend to infinity on either end. 

Personally, I only do so if I begin to dislike them. I trust my instincts when it comes to others, and I do not believe so. I do not think in black and white, nor emphasize rules, or prefer predictable people. In fact, I love analyzing others, especially those who are unpredictable, although it does tend to throw me off track when they are especially so.

This one is a tricky one for me and depends on the individual really but you make some excellent points to discuss on. Being a person with autism I tend to prefer a small group of friends and family I can talk to but appreciate my own space just as much.

DIDDO 

NAS71674 said:

Can autistic people have a tendency to cut other people out of their lives if they negatively impact their autistic tendencies

Yes- absolutely!  I do it, and am rather pleased to have learned from this thread that I am certainly not alone.

Ben

I have in many ways.  I havent ripped any family out yet.  I am ruthless about it outside of my family.  I also dont expend any energy on meaningless interactions with people unless it has some benefit to me.  I dont really care what others do, as long as it has no impact on me.  I guess that would make me ruthless.  But I realised some time back that it was draining trying to micromanage other peoples affairs and lives when i quite frankly didnt give a ***.

Maybe I will change again, but for now its not likely to happen.

Plastic said:

I'd rather have no friends than bad ones.

Couldn't agree with the sentiment more.

Sounds great. Autistic people often do get treated like rubbish and its about time more of us just don't accept it anymore and consider our own health and well being. Sounds like you've learnt that and are putting it into practice which is great to hear.

I'd say my life is pretty peaceful now because I only kept several people who genuinely care about me around, and we accept each other for who we are, listen to one another, and help each other grow, and I'm happy because when we do talk, we always have interesting conversations about creative and complex topics, and we just have fun and humor each other, but there's also a lot of personal space to just wonder around and do things freely. I love the life I'm living right now.

There were certain people who put me down, got angry at me, tried to change everything that they considered wrong with me, who tried various ways to fix me, but they just broke me, humiliated me and made me the butt of jokes, and it was just a lot of hostility, stress, negativity, and I don't think it's a situation that anyone would like to be in. Some of these people were considered my family and friends. All I would do is give to them, and they'll just take until I had nothing left. I learned later in life that relationships are a two-way street, and based on their treatment towards me (which wasn't very good) I decided to cut contact with them so they can life their life, and I could live mine, but separate from each other. I mean my logic is that if they were nice and respectful I would enjoy their company more, but if they're mean and negative why would I want to be around people like that? I don't have to be. 

No - it's not that hard - if people to not 'add' positiveness to your life, in whatever form, they will drag you down.

I'd rather have no friends than bad ones.

I have some 'negative' friends - like dealing with Eeyore all day.   I don't see them very often - and never on their own - I just can't give that much in one go.

Its not about giving up on people, they will still exist even if they are not in your life and do just find in most cases without us. Its about vetting who you allow into your life as an aspie for your own good as NT people and their often toxic tendencies can do us alot of damage and be a bit like playing russian roulette. Its not about them its about us. I mean this is even more of a test for people, than the standard NT test, to show that they really care about you. If they make the substantial effort to learn how to handle you then that is even more of an indication that they should be there. If you think about it its a good approach too because you will only ever have to deal with people that care for you and respect you so you will in the end have much fewer problems (in theory. TNT (Toxic Neuro Typicals :) ) will always find a way to do damage so you can't guard against them all) 

Its more than just this. I mean this applies to everyone. There are additional constraints that I feel alot of aspies need to consider with people that they allow in their life for their own sake. For example if someone is deceitful that can pose a risk for alot of uncertainty in dealing with them and potentially for your life and for some aspies thats just too much to bare. Also some aspies often think in black and white so someones either all bad or all good (even if this is not true, its still a natural and honest view that is taken but alot of aspies even if its subconsciously thought) so alot of us can't deal with what NT people would call shades of gray. 

I'm the same. I rarely give up on people, even though I sometimes should. 

I never ever do this. If someone leaves my life, it's because they have decided to go. I don't cut people out my life.

Yes, my daughter has done this to her sister & stepfather. Makes life really hard going even though I can see her reasons for both. 

They say you become the average of your five nearest people.     It's best to have positive people - negative people drag you down.

I had to learn this as a necessary survival skill. And only as a final straw. It's rare that it's happened. My instinct is to continually give someone a chance. I'm perpetually misunderstood, It would be incredible to be helped through a complexity, so my bias - or unchecked assumption - is that others feel the same. But this is not the case. Ghosting or stonewalling someone is normal immature NT behaviour in my experience.

It's important to cut everyone out of your life who does not support, or empower or enhance you. Every negative person in your life, takes up a valuable space for someone wonderful.

DaveAsperg said:

but it is not intended to be ruthless and cold bloodied

I don't mean its intended to cause pain or suffering to others just that there are rules being in an autistic persons life that need to be adhered too and if you don't you are out for good and so from an outside observers POV that would appear ruthless and cold blooded. I think its related to black/white thinking and a serious need to minimise the unpredictability of people in your life and hence in your journey through life as the people you have around you directly affect your life and hence the predictability of it.

The sorts of rules that I am talking about are there so that the autistic  person isn't put in situations or environments that will negatively impact their autistic tendencies.

Its not intended to be aggressive. So the two terms I used are ruthless (having or showing no pity or compassion for others) and cold blooded (without emotion or pity; deliberately cruel or callous - I think this is certainly something that autistic people do not do, the second meaning.) and a situation I envisage is say someones playing games/causing trouble/being two faced/being unpredictable etc just things that cause uncertainty/unpredictability in dealing with that person and you just cut them out of your life and never speak to them again, maybe it starts with a total shutdown first then comes that. I have chatted with NT people and they usually first check the motivations of the people and or see what they call shades of grey and still keep them in their lives. There's not meant to be any connotations of aggression. I am autistic myself and when I encounter NT people doing their usual NT things I just cut them completely out and they effectively don't exist to me exactly due to their unpredictability. It might be related to black/white thinking. Someone is all good or all bad. There doesn't seem to be shades of grey for me. When I say good/bad I don't necessarily mean that in a moral way. You could say autistic friendly/unfriendly in certain cases if you want.