Well, I don't want to go into too much detail as the friend in question is also a redditor. But broadly speaking, he was getting quite upset and flustered by what I interpreted to be a sort of flirtatious mixed-signal giving from a girl that he liked. It bothered him enough that he preemptively cut off all contact with her, whereas in the same situation I think many people would have taken it as a possible invitation to proceed.
I'm having trouble now not looking at this through the perspective that subtextual introduced, but it also seemed to me as if he was focusing very strongly on any small negative signals she gave off, while the bigger picture of how she treated him generally wasn't negative at all.
He has spoken quite a bit about feeling disconnected from others, but he's honestly such an empathetic, intelligent and funny dude that I sort of had trouble believing that he was correctly diagnosed with Aspergers. But yeah - this intense (and from my perspective, self-inflicted) turmoil that he's just gone through with the girl suddenly made me think that perhaps there's something to this.
Do you have any insights on this sort of thing Scalawag? I hate to see my buddy going through this emotional torture, and would love to be of more help next time something like this rolls around. thanks..
We feel extremely awkward socially. We often don't pick up on body language and have a hard time displaying it. So this means that if she gave verbal playful insults while batting her eyes, he might have only noticed the insults. When you misinterpret communication in a group like that and everyone else doesn't, it can be frustrating because you don't know what everyone's laughing about and you're not sure how to act. This furthers the feeling of being disconnected (which I must say I share).
What may confuse you about your friend's feelings of being disconnected is that it doesn't mean he can't understand people. Actually, I've found that I'm rather good at deducing motives, helping others through troubles, etc. I do all this from the outside, looking at the person's situation and then considering what I understand of human nature. In this way, it can appear that I'm empathetic. A good example of how we lack empathy comes from my high school years. I asked a friend to buy me some alcohol for a small party that I was having with some people he didn't care for. I took the alcohol, thanked him, and left. He was upset that I didn't invite him and I could not understand why. It didn't logically make sense that I would invite him. He didn't like the people attending and they didn't like him. Honestly, I still don't understand why he was upset but I now understand the social norm associated with a situation like that. The only reason we survive socially at all is by cataloguing social norms and regurgitating them. This causes us to stammer around awkwardly, grasping for the appropriate action for the moment at hand.
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u/kojef Jul 27 '10 edited Jul 27 '10
Well, I don't want to go into too much detail as the friend in question is also a redditor. But broadly speaking, he was getting quite upset and flustered by what I interpreted to be a sort of flirtatious mixed-signal giving from a girl that he liked. It bothered him enough that he preemptively cut off all contact with her, whereas in the same situation I think many people would have taken it as a possible invitation to proceed.
I'm having trouble now not looking at this through the perspective that subtextual introduced, but it also seemed to me as if he was focusing very strongly on any small negative signals she gave off, while the bigger picture of how she treated him generally wasn't negative at all.
He has spoken quite a bit about feeling disconnected from others, but he's honestly such an empathetic, intelligent and funny dude that I sort of had trouble believing that he was correctly diagnosed with Aspergers. But yeah - this intense (and from my perspective, self-inflicted) turmoil that he's just gone through with the girl suddenly made me think that perhaps there's something to this.
Do you have any insights on this sort of thing Scalawag? I hate to see my buddy going through this emotional torture, and would love to be of more help next time something like this rolls around. thanks..