this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2024
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Anything that makes you apply your hand to your face.
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Yes I very well understand its a spectrum but that doesn't mean you can write a blank pass for yourself and claim 'it's just a special aspect of my autism so I can't be blamed for objectively bad actions on my part'
If you have difficulty understanding emotion then use logic and analytical thinking to help. and to help you understand I'll be very clear and direct - I am telling you this because it's practical and useful advice which will improve the quality of your life.
Deaf children have to be taught that farts make noise, likewise in think maybe you don't realize how obviously manipulative you're being in telling this story and how you're arguing about it - this is what will drive people away and make your life harder, like the deaf kid might not know that people can hear him coming but the noise is loud to other people, you might feel that people can't tell you're trying to be manipulative about it and logic her into having to be nice to you but to her and her friend it's as loud as a moaning orgasm.
Logically you can devise simple heuristics to determine appropriate actions, s good one is to consider the actions of the other person and how they compare to the easiest path towards their possible intent. For example in any conversation the person will either want to continue it or end it, however they likely will want to remain polite and kind so won't be pushy or rude - are they adding to the conversation, continuing it, picking it up when it flags or are they giving short answers, mostly answering rarely asking?
The way you describe your conversations with her sounds like you're trapping her with her desire to be polite. For example 'do you want to talk to me' is a question most people wouldn't ask because it forces the person to pick beteeen two potentially negative options; yes or rudeness. It's why you'd generally hear it couched with a soft exit or left unsaid and replaced with an open invitation like 'oh maths is next, the homework was so boring' allowing them to end the conversation with something like 'yeah...' or start it with 'yeah, I didn't even read all the questions it was so boring...'
Of course it's not an exact science but it's very easy to see trends, if you saw a graph with all the conversation trajectories overlaid and it was all one person starting them and the other person taking the path of least resistance and rudeness towards ending them then you wouldn't need to know anything else to know she's not interested.
From her perspective you're seeking her out and trapping her in conversations that she can't politely get out of - especially because she likely doesn't want to hurt your feelings and likely has genuine affection for you as a human and a friend - however that affection does not mean she wants you stalking her or constantly popping up with 'hi, do you want to talk to me' traps.
So to go back to where we started, you can say that you weren't being creepy but what you mean is you didn't intend to be creepy. Seeking her out and trapping her in conversations feels creepy to her, to her it feels annoying and awkward because she doesn't want to be direct but you push her into it time and time again then even when she does you make it more awkward by trying to litigate it and argue your point and telling her that she's wrong about her feelings - people hste that, I bet you would too.
And here's an elephant in the room I'll make explicit because I know you might overlook it otherwise, when you're so ready with a link to Wikipedia explaining how your actions are justified by your autism it makes it very obvious that you're using this to explain why she's wrong to feel like she does. This is one of the many reasons that she's uncomfortable saying no to loaded questions like 'do you want to talk to me' no one wants to look like the assholw who's rude to the special needs kid. Yeah that's a hard pill but it's reality, if you want her to think of you as a nice, interesting and not creepy guy then you have to act like that - you can't use logic and manipulative conversational tricks to force her into emotions.
And yeah don't worry if you try a bit people will let you off a huge amount of mistakes and cringe but not because you're autistic, just because you're interesting and fun to know without being too much of a burden or bore.