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

[Mrspepperpoi]

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?

@BarrowInFurnessRailwayStation

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 😄

Absolutely love this xx

BarrowInFurnessRailwayStation

I also love this - it's like we are like them until we move or talk - then its uh-oh they aren't like us - she's an Outside Context Problem.

Drives me nuts. I’m undiagnosed but pretty confident I’m on the spectrum… friendships with females tend to just disappear unless they’re also ASD.

Seems like from that Nature paper it’s an uncanny valley thing… we’re almost normal.. sooo close but sommat is just Not. Quite. Right.

Maybe I should tell people I’m ND.. anyone know if that helps?

I don't think there is anything to lose but some people still stigmatise anyone different - more so if it is an 'invisible' disability.

Yup! And heaven forbid you break rank after years of being low key bullied and tell them to f**k off.

They really don’t like that, and will literally steal all your so called friends and remake the group WhatsApp without you in it.

Anywho, I think ND people are very subversive without consciously realising it. We’ll talk to all and sundry, we don’t play games, we generally exist on the fridges of groups. We don’t really have time or the inclination for BS, we’re just trying to live our lives without falling off the edge of the proverbial cliff we’re balanced on.

They don’t like that.

Yes.

I've had this in several jobs. But I have 300 working days until I retire ( and counting 😊) and then I won't need to mask any more. I can't wait!

Ah yes, I have always been "weird" or "stuck-up". Some people at work really (really) dislike me. But I have a lot of colleagues who find my "quirks" kind of fun. I haven't really noticed a difference between men and women though.

This is an interesting thread. I’m going to don my hard hat here. I believe I’m NT but who really knows. Certainly, my understanding is that you’re considered ND if you have identifiable traits that have caused you difficulties or challenges in day to day life. Am I right?

Anyway, I used to have a colleague (teacher) who said she was ND. She claimed to have been bullied in her last workplace and was now being bullied in the current one. She was being bullied by both parents and children. I don’t want to victim blame, but from my perspective, the way she interacted with both parents and children provoked several initial negative reactions. She said and did things which got backs up. However, the parents and children were both very much in the wrong because they saw her vulnerabilities and pounced and it became a hideous situation.

I liked her and I tried to support her, as did management. However, her perspective on things were so very different to mine, that I found it became increasingly difficult to support her. So I started to distance myself. She then started to hound me and tell me I was unsupportive and that I should be more understanding because of her ND. I tried to explain that I didn’t agree with her viewpoint and I was sorry, but I wasn’t going to agree with her. I was going through my own personal difficulties (dying father) and she had no empathy or Interest in supporting me.

I have never argued with another adult other than DH, so I found the whole situation incredibly overwhelming and told her I didn’t want to talk to her. She persisted and so I told her to leave me alone. She told everyone, including management, I had bullied her. Management, after reading the text interactions between her and I, agreed that I had been professional in my responses. She moved to another workplace.

I still feel guilty about the whole interaction. I get that she sees the world differently and I really did try to be a good friend. I could see that people picked up on her vulnerability and walked all over her, but at the same time, I also found it very hard to get on with her. Ultimately we had such different perspectives on social situations and how to behave in society. I did find her inability to conform to social norms in a professional situation difficult to accept or feel comfortable with.

I don’t know what the answer is, I try to do better and be better every day. I reflect on how I treat others. I don’t think I treated her badly, but I think from her perspective I did and I feel bad for that. I’m not sure I should have continued to make myself feel uncomfortable to facilitate the relationship though.

I’m willing to be told differently.

Currently experiencing this in work and have just raised my second grievance (first upheld) as I'm being"othered" so much and being treated differently to my colleagues.

Apologies for my post. I’ve just noticed that it says these boards are primarily for use of ND mumsnetters. I clicked a link onto this thread from the Active page. Please just ignore my post.

I'm not sure I'm ND enough to really post - just have dyspraxia though family members are increasingly are looking into and going down ASD digsnosies routes.

I've encounted this throughout my life and thought it was me even - I was certainly told this by schools and parents even post disgonisis.

I spent many years at toddler groups with my children - and I think there a very odd environment that do tend if you become a regular to more open and diverse conversations - and I found that many of the women I'd had issues with many NT mothers had as well. Subsquent conversations with collgues suggested similar.

I think the difference is that NT people identify quicker it's the external this woman, this workplace that's the problem not "me" - and I do wonder about social conditioning playing a role there. I think they were also frequently more able to be two faced/game play back.

I wonder if it's something about being ND that highlights potential victim. I know my very socially adept MIL was bullied - socially ostracised - in in her last job as her options to leave just before retirement was clearly limited - she'd struggled due to age to get it in first place.

Certainly I found it help me realise I don't need people to like me - I can ignore the looks but I will demand politeness and professionalism and will react if I don't get it.

@Goatinthegarden you know I struggle with this a little as well. I don’t if it’s internal ableism or social conditioning, but I really struggle when people don’t follow the more commonplace social rules.

This may or may not make sense, but I had an interaction on Twitter a while back where an autistic man completely took a very vague tweet about my children and expanding their food options, and practically accused me of child abuse.

I didn’t go off on one as a, I’ve not got the time or energy for Twitter fights and b, why bother. However, taking that somewhat extreme example, an unwritten rule would be that you don’t accuse someone you’ve just met of child abuse.

We shouldn’t have to mask, but there are times when you have to meet others half to three quarters of the way (and it does suck) in order to get things done co-operatively.

I don’t know, these are all very much thoughts here.

@gwanwyn dyspraxia has social communication difficulties to it, so more the merrier I say.

I'm slightly new to MN and I didn't know a ND mums category existed so I am SO EXCITED because I've been feeling very alone with my Asperger's Syndrome lately and how people interpret me.

That said, yes! I do think people dislike me! I know it's something I'm doing wrong to come across badly in their eyes, just can't figure out how to force myself to always remember to put on a show to please them.

V interesting thread!

@EliyanahM

Hello and welcome.

Full disclosure: not diagnosed but am sure Im on the spectrum - ds is diagnosed. I recognise everything thats been posted. Love the duck analogy. Ive come to the conclusion that I get judged by other people's standards. I say x in no uncertain terms, and others think I mean y. Because when they say x they mean y.

I live abroad. A lot of people assume Im a snob because Im British. Also I work at the jobcenter which means lots of people dont like me for that alone. So a whole culmination of factors for why people dont like me.

How do you know the other person is NT?
it struck me that someone has said that ND people aren’t competitive. Now a lot of ND people around me are ultra competitive-Is that a trait of ASD specifically?
Other thing is whether it’s the reality that people don’t like you? Is it noticed by others?

Yes a very interesting thread, it’s something that I’ve realised is very true that for some reason many people find me unlikeable.I spend too much time wondering why,as I look perfectly normal and try my hardest to say appropriate things but continually find no one really wants to bother with me.I’ve also suffered from very poor treatment at work.
The people I would get on best with are the rare genuinely kind people or people who I suspect are neurodiverse too.
I’m really curious though as to how people must know that I’m somehow different!

Yes. I've experienced this.
It was worse when my children were primary school age.
I struggle with agoraphobia in addition to having high functioning ASD.
Some days it was really hard just to leave the house to take my children to school. Standing in the playground waiting amongst the NT mums was a daily nightmare.
One day my daughter came out of school in tears saying that another girl in her class had said to her "My mum says your mum is weird because she doesn't talk to anyone".
It broke my heart. They had no idea how hard it was for me just to be there.
Funnily enough when those mums got to know me (well the ones who took the time to dig a little deeper) they discovered that I was actually a really good friend who listened and chatted,and that I wasn't rude or weird or any of the other things they had perceived me to be.

I accepted my lack of social success years ago but I am still genuinely puzzled why people think I'm posh. I come from a free school meals family, no smart university, very average income and I'm a single mum.
Is it just because I find Love Island mind numbing, and I like doing crosswords? It can't just be that.

probably just other and to them other is posh.

the other in our case being neurodiverse and not quite fitting the NT pattern so we must be something else. Theyve decided tthat it must be posh as they are not educated enough to think ND

Thanks - I've never sure the extent of how it effects me or if I have more co-morbidities lurking.

The sounding posh things interesting as I get accused of that and I don't seem to pick accents up but as a child I had a fair bit of speach therapy.

There was an interesting thread about accents here a while ago :Have people commented on your accent?

Yes I know it because I’ve been referred to as weird; fussy; irritating my whole life by peers. It’s exhausting. Also, I have never raised the issues I’ve had, never said to people oh you’re really boring/ you’ve talked about yourself all evening/ I don’t care about your dog etc. But it’s ok to criticise me because I’m different?
i can’t tell you, even now at 50, how I’m not like the others, what vibe I give off but it’s a clear signal. I spend a lot of time in panic mode.