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Najakcharmer -> RE: D/s and Asperger's Syndrome (6/29/2007 2:10:00 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Calandra
In the Deep South we use "genteel" language, specifically designed to make wants and needs known, but not pressure others into fulfilling them, then the one with the want/need feels hurt or angry if the other person does not immediately fulfill it. I can see where that form of communication would be frought with confusion between an NT and an AS.
Yes, it certainly could be.
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We say things like "I would like a glass of tea." rather than "Would you get me a glass of tea?"
One is simply a statement while the other is a request for the person to do something.
That one's easy enough that even a middle-functioning AS could probably figure it out. The logic here is this: I have been clearly informed that I am expected to behave in accordance with my domme's desires. She has just informed me that she desires tea. Therefore I should go and get tea. Some rote words and phrases are very possible to recognize situationally. I'm quite aware that no one is likely to announce their enjoyment of a beverage for any reason other than requesting that beverage.
Now if you remove any more steps from this chain of logic by making the hints any subtler, it can indeed fail to work. A murmured wistful comment that appears to be an invitation to factual discussion, like "Orange Pekoe tea certainly is tasty; I like it much better than iced tea," works very well for starting a conversation with an AS about the history and manufacture and taxonomy of Camelia sinensis and what produces subtle taste differences in grades of tea. It doesn't work quite as well for getting you a cup of tea, especially if the tea currently available is not authentic Orange Pekoe.
From my personal perspective, I'm good enough at analyzing human social customs and faking them that most people are unlikely to notice anything very unusual about my behavior during casual social contact. Basically I'm high-functioning enough to fake it in most situations that don't require really extended or intimate contact. But there's a very good chance that I'd still be caught out by a subtle, hinted request or a joke that closely resembles a factual communication. The key for me would be mistaking a social gambit for an attempt at straight fact exchange. In short, if you use words at other than face value to convey social hints rather than their literal factual meaning.
In the situation above, I would probably respond with some facts about Orange Pekoe tea, for instance that it contains no oranges. You have successfully conveyed that you would appreciate a cup, perhaps in the same way I appreciate such things, with discerning perception and interest. If I had any to share I would certainly offer to do so. You might however be sorry that you requested it in such a manner, because instead of simply bringing you a cup of tea, it might occur to me to offer samples of several varietals along with a discourse on the history and origins of each since you had indicated a specific interest. If you are not a "geek" about your tea, or anything else, you should probably not engage an AS person in conversation on the details of that subject. We can be amazing fonts of information and intelligence, but don't turn that fountain on unless you want to be pretty well watered.
I generally know better than to over-water people whom my deductions suggest would do better in a more arid environment. Eg, if I've already deduced that I'm talking to a non-intellectual who isn't going to be interested in anything except how to wax his car and get dates with chicks, I will stop at "there are no oranges in Orange Pekoe" and refrain from detailed commentary on tea grades, sinensis taxonomy, historical and socioeconomic impact, etc. However I will *not* be able to tell if an intelligent-seeming person who is making polite noises of encouragement is actually wilting under the information barrage rather than being really interested in the esoteric nuances. If you keep indicating that you want information even if you really don't, I will keep delivering it.
Now if you do find yourself the situation of being information-barraged by an AS person who is under the mistaken impression that you are interested in the most esoteric details on a subject you are bored with, the best thing to do is to respond factually. "Thank you for telling me that, but I really don't want any more information on that subject since that is not my field of interest. That is too much information for me to process right now. I don't want to talk about X any more." The AS person will probably take that statement at simple factual face value and change the subject, rather than having his feelings hurt, as you might expect from an NT person who would tend to read social implications into factual exchanges.
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We say "You should______" rather than "If you do ____, it will benefit you in _____way."
One is an observation with no supporting facts, while the other is a logical conclusion that shows the person's reasoning.
Bingo! Excellent observation. If a monkey tells me I should grimace and hoot and scratch my armpits, my response will probably be to smile and nod until he goes away and stops bothering me. He's making meaningless monkey noises and I don't care. I might humor him by making the attempt, once, if it will get him to go away faster. More likely I'll think he's being a silly monkey and ignore him. Now if a monkey stops hooting and starts making sense by telling me something logical, I appreciate that data and can then apply it. "If you grimace, hoot and scratch your armpits in exactly this way when you are participating in a mutual grooming social situation, that puts other monkeys at ease and they will not make threat gestures when you approach within their social distance, which in this culture is about 2.5 feet"
All the grimacing, hooting and armpit scratching still doesn't mean a damn thing to me intrinsically. As far as I'm concerned I'll still just be mimicking meaningless monkey gestures. But given this information I can mimic them better, and closer to "on cue" in the appropriate situations, so that I look more like a "normal" monkey.
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Am I on the right track? Is this an example of what you refer to as "monkey rituals"?
Can you give Me specific examples that I can use to adjust MY attempts to communicate with toad?
It's all pretty much monkey rituals to me. Table manners, wearing clothes, making or not making eye contact, shaking hands, everything other than straight fact communication looks to me like bizzare and arbitrary superstitious rituals and taboos. You can't touch food with your hands why, except for specific food items under ritualistic circumstances? Spoons for soup makes practical sense, as do serving utensils for common plates where cross contamination may be an issue. But the rest of it, hoo boy does it ever look silly to me. I can and do mimic this monkey behavior perfectly in public, and I can even appreciate it as a type of meditation in motion similar to the Japanese tea ceremony. But it's still monkey behavior. Honestly, the rest of the world looks completely OCD to me with all their bizzare compulsions to repeatedly perform these impractical ritual behaviors.
The evolved primate compulsion to perform ritual social behaviors are shaped by hardwired social hypersensitivity, including the constant perception of feedback on "proper" group behavior. A primate band constantly sends signals of comfort, reinforcement, reassurance, group identity and physical safety to one another in subtle ways through body posturing, vocalizations and other social signals. A "normally" wired primate, including a human primate, is literally compelled on an instictive level to constantly perform ritual behaviors that reassure the rest of his group that he belongs and that the group is in a state of normalcy.
I am not bound by any of these compulsions. Most of the time I literally cannot see or hear the monkeys encouraging me to act as if I am. I can pretend to some extent, if I feel like it, to humor the poor monkeys who are effectively prisoners of their compulsive monkey minds. Despite the fact that this set of wiring is far from optimal for socializing with monkeys, which does cause occasional difficulty, I'm actually deeply grateful for it. I am free. I am not constantly compelled to chatter and hoot and dance like a monkey. However I can put on a fairly good chattering and dancing act when I have to, though I greatly prefer to arrange my life so that mostly I dont have to. Best of both worlds I'd say. [:D]
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