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Original poster

Anyone else feel some NT's actively dislike you for no reason?

56 replies

Mrspepperpoi · 05/04/2022 19:24

This is something that I have struggled with sometimes and it seems to happen especially with some NT women. My main case is in a job I worked at, this particular woman who was a customer and about the same age as me was incredibly rude to me for no reason, yet friendly to other staff. I never did anything to this person only be perfectly polite and professional. Saw this woman just today and again, daggers looks thrown at me for no reason. This has happened quite often throughout my life and I have never been able to understand it especially when I am not hostile or rude to these people. Can anyone relate?

OP posts:
BarrowInFurnessRailwayStation · 05/04/2022 20:34

I think we prick their spidey senses and they can't figure out why so it makes them dislike us. We also tend not to fit into a box very well and people feel insecure when they encounter an outlier. I'm also find many women to be competitive and we tend not to be so they don't like it because we won't play their social games.

If NT women are like a group of hens, we're the random duck who waddles over, splashes them with water and quite happily eats their food 😄

ofwarren · 05/04/2022 20:36

It happens to me a lot. As Barrow says, they realise something is different about us but don't know what.
I can see it the moment it happens. Their faces change and from then on they either ignore me or talk about me behind my back.

Bergamotte · 05/04/2022 21:23

If NT women are like a group of hens, we're the random duck who waddles over, splashes them with water and quite happily eats their food 😄
I LOVE this metaphor!

JohnMcCainsDeathStare · 17/04/2022 14:02

I've had that all the time at school - usually girls since boys seemed to be either indifferent or a bit more chill.
It's like I literally only have to say a couple of sentences sometimes and their eyes 'switch' and they decide I am either the buttmonkey or the comic relief. I can say a normal sentence but they will laugh at me as if it is comic gold.
There is also the wierd effect in that I am hierarchy blind and also talk to men no differently to women that also fuels resentment. I do and still do have no idea about who is 'popular' and who isn't so I talk to all the same - this apparently makes me worse than Hitler in some girls/woman's eyes. It's like normal conversation with men when you aren't assuming they fancy you/want to have sex with you = Error 404 file not found.

However, I actually think hierarchy blindness has helped me in my academic career even if it somewhat hindered me in the corporate world...

So yes, there is a subset of NT women that see ND women as wierd robots or possibly rivals to them - at least that's what I think.

Mummiepig · 17/04/2022 17:31

What's hierarchy blindness? I have asd I've never heard of I before
But I get what you mean, sometimes I don't even have to open my mouth and someone already hates me and if I dare to speak I get the death stare, eye roll or made the butt of a joke

Clarice99 · 17/04/2022 17:56

Yes, this has happened (and still happens) to me. I believe NT's pick up on differences that they can't work out.

I'm not competitive, I don't gossip, pander to egos, engage in lots of other 'NT behaviour' like ganging up on other women, bullying, make comments about people's appearance - by not doing these things, I don't align myself to groups, nor do I want to.

This 'stand aloneness' seems to bother others, it confuses them and I become their chosen outsider.

Did I mention the word bullying? Grin

XDownwiththissortofthingX · 17/04/2022 17:59

I don't mind, because to quote Douglas Jardine, "It's fucking mutual".

AprilShortbread · 17/04/2022 18:02

Yes.

NuffSaidSam · 17/04/2022 18:02

I think there was a study that looked at this and found that NT people did indeed judge ND people negatively, it was a subconscious dislike I think.

I'll see if I can find it and haven't just imagined it!

NuffSaidSam · 17/04/2022 18:06

I think it might be this one:

www.nature.com/articles/srep40700

Mummiepig · 17/04/2022 18:21

That's a really interesting article,
Can some one explain the hierachy thing to me, would this be an example,
My husband sent me a funny tiktok about being lazy at work, doing the absolute minimum and if you get run over by a bus your boss will just replace you, I thought it was so funny I sent it to my online friend and she thought it was funny, then I showed it to my boss, he didn't find it funny at all it was so awkward, I wanted the ground to open up
Is that an example of it? It happened last week I'm still cringing about it now, oops

Ikeabag · 17/04/2022 18:29

Oh yeah, absolutely. Usually older women in care roles, but also those who dislike the ignorance of hierarchy and the comfort around males. People just read nonsense into behaviours.

JohnMcCainsDeathStare · 17/04/2022 18:32

For me, hierarchy blindness is either not knowing and/or not caring about anyone else's status, or perhaps more significantly your status in their eyes as it where. Consciously, I aim to treat everyone the same in that I treat everyone the way I would want to be treated in that situation and I don't care if that person is a child, an elderly person or a CEO of a multimillion pound company. Treating people decently means treating them the same. For me, I can be sitting next to some teens on the bus with my boys one day then sitting next to a Lord and a Fellow of the Royal Society (on either side) the next but I will still treat them as I would expect to be as it were.

Thing is, when it comes to social status I literally have no idea most of the time of someone is a high-status or expects to be seen as low-status, or perhaps more relevantly see me as a high or low status person. This was perhaps more of a thing at school and at University, since it was quite an elitist University I went to. Social climbing went over my head most of the time. Still, I would sometimes find out the hard way that my friends did not seem my friendship with them as important as I did with them when a 'cooler' kid came along - they probably didn't notice that I'd then go cold on them.

Not sure if I've managed to explain it from my POV but here it is. And the Nature article is probably right about empathy blindness.

HighLifeNotEver · 17/04/2022 18:33

I have the hierarchy blindness, and it took me many years to figure it out. I’m often well regarded by senior leadership, even when they are many levels above me. They will greet me individually, stop for chats etc. it’s really weird.

I eventually realised that when I first meet an individual, it doesn’t occur to me to figure out their job/level, I just treat them like anyone else. Then when I do realise it’s the big boss, I don’t change how I treat them. I do try and not put foot in mouth, but I have to watch out for that with every one anyway.

Sometimes my colleagues, or managers between me and big boss really don’t like it. There’s sometimes an assumption that I’ve done something to cause this, especial from women who hate me anyway for no reason.

Mummiepig · 17/04/2022 18:49

I suppose I do see and treat everyone as equals, I don't understand fame and celebrity, they are just people to me

Clarice99 · 17/04/2022 19:07

@Mummiepig

That's a really interesting article, Can some one explain the hierachy thing to me, would this be an example, My husband sent me a funny tiktok about being lazy at work, doing the absolute minimum and if you get run over by a bus your boss will just replace you, I thought it was so funny I sent it to my online friend and she thought it was funny, then I showed it to my boss, he didn't find it funny at all it was so awkward, I wanted the ground to open up Is that an example of it? It happened last week I'm still cringing about it now, oops
Hierarchy blindness would fit the example you used.

The video - fine to share with a friend, not so good to share with your boss (depends on your relationship I guess, but most bosses wouldn't want to see it).

I have hierarchy blindness. I have learnt the hard way from decades of doing and saying the wrong thing that there are boundaries, but these boundaries are not easy and I still don't always get it right. Partly due to NT's moving the goalposts.

Mummiepig · 17/04/2022 19:20

@Clarice99 thank you, damn it, another problem I didn't know I had!
He knows I have ASD so probably just put it down to one of those things I do! Oh well 🤣

crackofdoom · 17/04/2022 19:26

Oh yes. I actually got an accidental insight into this, as I mask quite well:
Me: "I hear you went to Sally's daughter's birthday party, did your LO have a nice time?" (Sally being quite a good friend of mine).
Friend: "Yes, but don't you think there's something a bit....off about Sally? She strikes me as a bit weird".
Me: "Well, she's autistic. As am I 🙄"

I often get accused by working class people of being "posh" and "pretentious" (I'm lower middle class in origin), because I'm not interested in, for example, Strictly, and won't fake an interest in it, use a lot of long words etc. But as I have pointed out on more than one occasion- if I'm pretentious, what the hell am I pretending to be??? For me, to be pretentious would be to fake enthusiasm in Love Island, football, Pontins, getting my nails done, wouldn't it??

I have also experienced women getting weird with me if I so much as talk to their husbands. I must be using misleading body language somehow, or maybe it's because I'm a single mum and there's some unwritten code I'm not following. It really boils my piss, as I'm rigidly moral, and the thought of flirting with an attached man is anathema to me. I even had a fellow school mum ask me straight out if I was sleeping with her husband- I genuinely haven't exchanged half a dozen sentences with the bloke except when arranging a playmate last year 🙄

crackofdoom · 17/04/2022 19:27

PlayDATE!!! 🤦‍♀️

Scautish · 17/04/2022 20:24

I think some NTs are so conditioned to conform to society’s unspoken and inferred rules that they pick up on anyone who does not automatically follow these rules (whether by choice or obliviousness) and immediately reject them.

I do think some (a minority) NTs however are very perceptive to us feeling vulnerable and can be really caring. But they are the exception I’d say.

The worst thing is when the former group then deny they are being in any way exclusionist. They’re the big problem for us being accepted by society.

HighLifeNotEver · 17/04/2022 22:16

@Scautish

I think some NTs are so conditioned to conform to society’s unspoken and inferred rules that they pick up on anyone who does not automatically follow these rules (whether by choice or obliviousness) and immediately reject them.

I do think some (a minority) NTs however are very perceptive to us feeling vulnerable and can be really caring. But they are the exception I’d say.

The worst thing is when the former group then deny they are being in any way exclusionist. They’re the big problem for us being accepted by society.

Weirdest ever work environment, lots of the women wore designer clothes and heels. A lot of the outfits seemed to me to be very expensive compared to the salary for their jobs. A lot of those women hated me. I was part of IT, and did the IT casual, after all that’s what my male colleagues wore….

One or two were nice, one or five hated me, several just didn’t get me. The men were all fine, their responses were based on regular interactions, like they agreed/disagreed with the project I was on, my opinion on meetings etc.

I remember one meeting, one woman said to another, “you see what I mean about her?”. This woman was actually a supportive person, so I couldn’t understand why she said that. It was as if she thought of me as a cute pet who could perform.

HighLifeNotEver · 17/04/2022 22:19

Also, I didn’t know I was ND at that time. I’m still not diagnosed, not sure if I want to go there, but clearly so many indicators.

BlackeyedSusan · 17/04/2022 23:25

Yes. Especially at school.

And probably a bit of hierarchy blindness going on too.

JohnMcCainsDeathStare · 18/04/2022 08:09

Sometime with men its a bit different. I had some boys unconditionallly hate me since I never did anything to get their attention and generally responded negatively or grey rock if they attempted to get mine. I think me not behaving like a girl on the bottom rung of their social totem pole and a super ugly flat-chested glasses wearing ginger one at that caused them such distress.

(I never felt ugly BTW - it was a badge of honour to be ugly to them)

Still am ginger, flat chested but jacked, wear glasses and still a weirdo.

Bluebellfae · 18/04/2022 09:39

Yes,especially in jobs. Really struggled and ive had issues with bullies, being targeted by specific staff members in about 3 or 4 jobs and ultimately ended up leaving
All of them were very loud extrovert type NT women targeting me
Its put me off going back to work in a few years, im dreading it (currently carer for son) for these reasons.