To think of you're going to answer questions with "yeah.." or "no...." At a social event, then fuck offfff

[fanaticalfairy]

Why bother coming out to meet people if you can't even engage in basic conversations with people who are all there to get to know each other?
We were out for a birthday brunch this morning with about 20 people, some we knew, some we didn't as it was for a mutual friend (Graham)
Me .. spying someone unfamiliar at our table..."hi, I'm Fairy, what's your name?
Him: "John "
Me: "great. How you know Graham "
John: " through a friend, Steve"
Me: "oh, yes I know Steve, he's lovely, how do you know Steve?
John" work'
Me: "So, what do you do with Steve?"
John: "Software engineer"
Me: "great what kind of thing? Im a software engineer too..."
John: "Nothing interesting....'
Me: "Oh... Ok. So ... Got any holidays booked?"
John: "No."Tumble weed

"Ok, lovely to meet you ... I'll go and see Graham is okay "

Ugh

There is so much heated debate around this John character on the basis on him having some type of neurodivergence, or mental health issues. He could just be a bit of a miserable bloke who couldn’t be arsed. Not everyone who behaves in a socially unusual way has a disorder or disability . Some posters are responding like not only does John have a disability, but the OP knows this and is therefore being horribly unkind. She is not being ableist or discriminatory - it’s all become ridiculous and some posters are making this all about them and their experiences.

It was ok for you to ask the questions and try and engage in conversation and it was also ok for him to answer briefly and not want to talk.

People are different and we don't know anything about what's going on in a stranger's life when we try to connect so, having tried, thinking the best and simply accepting their non-engagement would be the kind thing to do.

My friends invite me, and I go because believe it or not I don't have to be ultra sociable to enjoy myself. Plus there are always accommodations made for me (somewhere to.escape for a few minutes).

And someone was wondering about why I said there were ablest comments on this thread. Guess what this is ablest, and thankfully my friends aren't ables. think I'm worth the effort and realise that I'm making the effort too.

Maybe he'd overheard you talking to other people earlier at the event and already decided that he didn't want to know you any better? Just a thought.

You seem to think you're the only person in a room who is autistic and finds social situations stressful and difficult - you're not. And your behaviour affects the people around you, many of whom will also be feeling overwhelmed and self-conscious. Other people have feelings, just like you do. What you do with that idea is up to you.

Of course we don’t know, but OP doesn’t seem to have even considered this as a possibility (and it’s not clear whether she’d make allowances anyway - which is of course up to her). It wouldn’t be unheard of for a software engineer to be neurodivergent and some of his responses don’t seem untypical of some ND people.

Not so much OP, but some of the responses about people not going out if they can’t meet what some people on MN declare to be “basic social obligations” are over the top and frankly hurtful to posters here who do have genuine difficulties.

Indeed and as I’ve said before, it’s infantilising and a bit problematic to assume that because someone is ND they aren’t capable of being polite or conversational or sociable. Many ND individuals have worked very hard on their social skills in order to connect and engage with people in social settings. If one of those people tried to engage with ‘John’, imagine how they may feel? Empathy should go both ways.

Er, where did you get that from.

I literally live with 2 autistic children, I have autistic friends, I have NT friends. Unfortunately the 2 friendship groups don't mix, but if anything being autistic with autistic childrenmeans that I'm more likely to realise that someone at least has traits.

Anyway I really don't get the last part, seems like yet another way of saying that I need to hide away from everyone in case my autism affects them.

And that's been the nasty thing all through this thread. Those of us with actual social difficulties have been subjected to name calling, been asked why anyone would bother inviting us to parties. Called rude because we struggle with interaction.

If he's autistic.. which we don't know but that might explain this.. then it may not have even registered on him that this would be an issue.
Some autistic people won't even notice the discomfort. He may be that matter of fact that he thought the interaction was fine. He was asked questions, he answered them. He may not have even questioned sitting next to strangers.
Not everyone who is autistic is anxious about masking. And even some people who are anxious, might completely miss the social cues in a situation anyway so won't even realise it was a point at which they should have been anxious.

And if he's not autistic it could just be that his mood changed for some reason. He was at the party wanting to meet new people so sat next to people he didn't know.. but then something happened that brought him down. Sad news, an argument etc

Or it could be that he was trying to talk to new people and that he just didn't take to the OP or she was coming across aggressive.. perhaps he could tell by her tone she was getting annoyed by him and he's naturally a reserved person so closed the conversation even more.

There's hundreds of things that could have gone on here.
To jump straight into thinking he's a twat is a bit silly. Based off five mins interaction. The anger and judgement here is silly.

Try talking to him again. He might explain and apologise. He might turn out to be a lovely person.

Dunno why people waste their time being so nasty over what is essentially a snap judgement.

If there was definite evidence he was a terrible person like he swore at you or refused to speak to you at all or whatever.. then yeah fine..

But this is nothing and could be explained by so many reasons.

Maybe it's the people who can't give other people the benefit of the doubt and who get so easily offended, that shouldn't be out at parties.

This has certainly ruined the party atmosphere for me

That is a stereotype and an assumption though.

Many of these posters haven’t been very kind to the OP either who has been accused of being many things, including ableist. There’s been lots of very dramatic hyperbole about the OP’s conversational style. Again empathy should go two ways.

It’s also problematic to assume that because some ND people can emulate NT social skills that all ND people can.

Yes. My point is that posters on this thread seem to be assuming they can’t at all.

How would you have started a conversation with them? If not asking their name and how they know the host ...?

Point is she doesn't know.
Yet she's just jumped to telling him to fuck off and suggesting he shouldn't have been there at his friends birthday.
Yes he might just have been being purposefully rude because he thought he was better than her. But that's one of hundreds of explanations.. and the majority of those explanations are actually that he might be nuerodivergent or just struggle socially.. on balance of odds there's more chance of that being the case.
So do you think OPs anger based on this short interaction is justified? Or is it judgemental and unkind?
Coz i think the latter.
He wasn't overtly rude. He just didn't meet her social expectation. I just don't think it's justified to tell someone to fuck off just for that actually.. unless you really know they were doing it on purpose

Would have been worse as I'd have been stuck there in awkward silence for the majority of the time just waiting for the bell 😂

But if you are quite happy to say you don't want to 'speak to strangers at events' then how do you even make any friends to start with? That was my point. If you expect to be invited to things but only want to talk to people you already know, then how did you ever reach a stage where you got to know those people in the first place?

If I were planning a party or coffee morning or whatever, I'd be unlikely to invite a vague acquaintance if all my dealings with them so far had left me with the impression that my trying to chat and be sociable made them either deeply uncomfortable or just plain bored. Whether that was their attention to give off those vibes or not, who can know? But why would I bother to try to find out? Life's too short to keep flogging a dead horse. I'm not a masochist and I don't owe you anything.

Apologies for not being clear - I was not saying I think you should shut yourself away. I think you should try to remember the people around you are also people with feelings, and can also suffer emotional consequences in situations like this.

I'm also autistic btw. But I try to remember that I'm not the centre of the universe.

OP, this is one area where MN is vastly at odds with reality.

John was rude - a birthday party is a Social Occasion, and turning up whilst being recalcitrant about the core activity is rude. Like going out to a restaurant with friends and drinking tap water. John, and those on this thread of his ilk really should stay at home.
As you’ve discovered they have no interest in others beyond their performative horror that they spoke to me😱. They’ll never actually speak their minds and say “I’m waiting for the earliest occasion to leave, I’ll leave you to enjoy speaking with the others’
You can console yourself that there is nothing special to see anyway if you ever miraculously became their friend.

John is tired
John had a bad day
John is heartbroken
John is not in the mood to socialise
John has social anxiety
John is ill
John didn't like you for some reason
John is rude and not worth chatting to
John has anger issues

I have a family member like John and impossible to chat to, it feels like an interrogation. I gave up trying. Retired software engineer.

My take as someone with a lifelong social anxiety disorder, who can not predict how I’ll respond in a social situation from being able to mask how I’m feeling and take social confidence, to basically being unable to talk and wanting to run out of the room.

But I still occasionally venture out into social situations, sometimes cos someone I care about wanted/needed me there, or because I was trying for the 17,472nd time to be a functioning human.

If I’d been the person you’d approached (unlikely as I have a massive RBF, which my wife knows is actually Scared Shitless Face, bot others would see as Go Away Face) I might have been able to sync up and go through motions to please the social norms, but equally I may not have been able to and could have been as limited in my responses as he was, or worse.

As I said I can’t always predict how I’ll respond, thinking that someone (I’m not saying you or them mean to) is judging me on how socially skilled I’m not being, will always make worse.

The thing is, as difficult as you found it, I would have found it 100 times worse. You didn’t, OP, doing anything wrong, but equally I dont think he did either. You both didn’t match up in regard of social interaction, and went your separate ways. No home, no foul.

Where I disagree completely with you, is in the judgement and ‘fuck of’ nature of your appraisal of the encounter. In those sort of situations I have no right to expect people not to talk to me or ask questions, but equally you have no right to expect a particular response from me.

You asked for a tip or ice breaker, well I can’t give you that, but I can share what’s more likely to make things easier for me, if you really do care about engaging with ppl with social anxiety disorders like me.

Ask fewer questions, and talk more about yourself, the pressure is lowered for me to ‘engage and share’ and I can learn about you, which I do genuinely enjoy, and warm into the interaction, and gradually share more of myself.

if you don’t want to, fine, I don’t think you should, I don’t expect that, but for me, and I’m sure others like me, that would have the best chance is success.

Like going out to a restaurant with friends and drinking tap water.

What exactly is wrong with that??? Surely the main point of going to a restaurant with friends is the food and the socialising, not what someone is drinking?

Bit ironic considering you think "fun" is essentially interrogating another guest 😂. I think you were the rude one in this situation, not John. He wasn't there for you or your interrogation.

Wait, what? Shit, I always drink tap water when out to dinner with friends or family (I rarely drink alcohol and really can’t stand soft drinks).

Is this some social faux pas I’ve completely missed for the last 40 years? What’s rude about drinking tap water?

I’m genuinely not trolling, just sat here panicking that I’ve missed some basic social norm because I didn’t know about it.

Ah yes we have the if only you try hard enough you can pretend the nasty old autism isn't there.

That's called masking, it's something that females are especially good at. It's also something that can lead to burnout, mental health issues, self harming and suicide.

I can mask, I mask at work, I am not going to mask in my downtime. I masked for 45 years, I pretended I was the same as everyone else, I pushed down the sick feeling walking in a room full of strangers, in fact no I just refused to go in that room. I conciously stopprd myself from rocking and stimming, I also had massive meltdowns because I couldn't self regulate and nearly ate myself to death.

Btw autism is not only a spectrum but every autistic person is different, and has different difficulties. Some people with autism are more social than others. But it is literally part of the diagnosis that we have social and communication difficulties.

Oh and just so you know "therapy" such as ABA, which tries to change autistic behaviour to fit in with societal norms, is widely disliked by much of the autistic community. (There are still some that think the approach is great, but more that dont).

We don't want to be cured or changed to fit in to societies expectations, we want to be accepted for who we are and accommodated where possible.

Oh yep I'm on one this evening, but this is obviously something that genuinely affects me.
But if anything, as an autistic person I would have got the message quite quickly that John wasn't interested in small talk. I know that if someone doesn't want to talk to me they don't have to and how it feels to be sat there while someone tries to get into a jolly chat with me before I know them.

I think statistically he is more likely to just be a bit of a rude, miserable bloke - there’s plenty of them around! The OP didn’t tell him to fuck off. She’s said she’s just expressing her frustration at the exchange, and people are perhaps reading a bit too much into it and projecting their own experiences.