Since my diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome (AS) there are a few things I've been second-guessing myself over. There are some AS symptoms I read about that I've never consciously thought myself as having (pre- or post- diagnosis), but now I'm going back to re-evaluate. Things like missing non-verbal cues and talking without knowing the other person is not interested. How do you know you're "missing" something you can't see, like a "non-verbal cue"? Surely to know you've missed something you must recognise the something you've missed…but then you haven't missed it. Am I making sense? And as for talking without knowing the other person is not interested…how can you know you do that? As if you knew you wouldn't do it. Right?
There was something my ex-girlfriend would do that I didn't really like, in that sometimes if I'd talk about certain things (mainly to "make conversation") she'd over-exaggerate boredom by rolling eyes, audibly yawning to her hand etc. Now it would really annoy me, as there were things she'd talk about that I wasn't interested in but I listened anyway as I was trying to be a "good" boyfriend. So obviously I would quite resent these actions and feel quite hurt by them. Especially when I was just trying to fulfil one of her many other complaints about me regarding "never talking". Yet when I did try and talk it would sometimes be thrown back in my face.
So now I'm wondering if it is normal for NT's to non-verbally indicate when a subject is one they are not interested in talking about, however as I was missing these signals she was getting fed up and frustrated and thought that the only solution was to be obvious and, frankly, rude. Then the fact that there were things she talked about that I wasn't interested in…maybe there were signals I should have been giving off to register my disinterest in the particular subject to stop it coming up again, but as I wasn't giving them she didn't know I wasn't interested?
Or maybe I'm just over-analysing this and the fact of the matter is that she was just a selfish bitch? I'm now left in a quandary where I don't know the answer; however it is planting a fear in me and I am getting paranoid that I'm exhibiting this behaviour regularly without knowing. When I have a conversation and it breaks down I keep going over everything that was said in my head, analysing if I was boring them, or if I could have done things better or differently. Was the reason they said they had to leave genuine or were they just making excuses to get away from the boring guy?
It's why I much prefer communication by e-mail, which I'll cover in my next blog as it's getting slightly off-topic here.
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2 comments:
According to a reliable source, some women just want to control you by exactly how you described!
She was a selfish bitch. My son has AS and he talks non stop about stuff I don't care about. Star Wars and video games. He talks to everyone about them. We have come up with a code... well not so much a code. I just say "Joel, I don't want to talk about video games or starwars right now. I want to talk about what you,. ....... " He seems to be ok with it.. I feel rude when i do it though.
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