Aspies For Freedom

There were 2 copies of this thread, so I deleted one...

I am near enough to NT to feel qualified to try to answer this (though I am not sure it is an NT-only phenomenon).  The fact is, there are a few people I totally love, even fewer I fully despise, and about everyone else I have mixed feelings.  I have a coworker in mind, just as an example...it took me awhile to get used to this guy but I have become very fond of him and am more likely than anyone else at work to defend him when others complain about him.  BUT if he says something arrogant or does something thoughtless, I momentarily will dislike him for his bad behavior (sometimes quite intensely) and I will vent about him...to discreet friends, because I just want to vent, not hurt his feelings or disrupt work with a confrontation that I will probably regret.  (I am NOT confrontational by nature; when face to face with the object of my anger, I usually find I can't think of anything to say!)  Then later, after he makes amends (or I get over my bad mood), I remember the good things about him again.  I am not lying at any point, just reacting to whatever this person is doing at the moment.  All my expressed opinions of him, both positive and negative, are parts of the whole truth.

Sounds like convenience to me.  Trying to "fit in" with the crowd you are with.  

If it was mood swings, to me, it would not have anything to do with the crowd that was sharing your space.  

I can second couldbecousin as well, but I lean more towards the need to be accepted.  

But you can answer that one, was the person that they were "hating" and "liking" regarded differently by the two crowds of people?

Good answer. I think this is very true for sincere people.

Insincere people, on the other hand,  may play the game for manipulative purposes, or they may pretend to like you (or not like you) because that's what their peer group expects of them.

Couldbecousin's explanation is a realistic way of looking at people in their three-dimansional complex nature. There's a psychological process called "spilitting" that means you look at people as either 100% good or 100% bad.

I do have to admit to being somewhat influenced by the people around me...if, as Alias Pseudonym points out, someone else vents about my coworker first, I will feel comfortable saying similar things because I will know that we are in agreement and I won't alienate the other person.  Yes, I do care what others think of me, so I watch what I say to whom.  I will complain about X to other people who find him annoying, praise him in the company of others who like him, but everything I say will be, as I said before, part of the whole truth.  By the way, very often I share the complaints and the praise about X with the same people, because they, like me, have mixed feelings about him.  

I'm at least somewhat closer to the AS line than the NT line, and yet, couldbecousin's explanation works for me as well.  I do sometimes vent about people when they are not present, but it's just to vent.  I don't do namecalling and I rarely say "I do not like this person" to anyone else, unless they are a bullying personality (but wouldn't most Aspies be the same on this issue?)

What I cannot do is confront the person causing the problems for me (esp. if they are a bullying/narcissistic type), that just "hurts" far too much--it's like I have a neurological blockade to doing such a thing.

I think it is because a lot of people like to have a semblance of harmony.  It is considered rude to create disharmony by actively disliking someone in front of someone who likes them (a friend, a member of their family).

In young or weaker people it may be peer pressure in that liking an unpopular person might make them unpopular too.

Even though I'm NT I have problems with this area.  I cannot bring myself to say I like someone if I don't and although I won't be rude to them (usually) I can't bring myself to be nice either.  Civil is probably the best I can manage.  This has brought me problems through my life even though, fortunately, I don't dislike many people.

The herd instinct to have surface agreement is very strong I think.

I'd like to know too...

I used to get myself into trouble until I learnt to keep my responses to myself!

I heard person 'A' say to person 'B' that they hate person 'C'; and then a few minutes later say to person 'D' that person 'C' is wonderful. I would then turn on person 'A' and ask them (in front of person 'D') why, if 'C' was so wonderful, they had said nasty things about 'C' to 'B'.

And then I would have no idea why all of them would get angry with me.

I still don't know why.

I can understand the idea that, if you cannot say something nice about someone, it is better to say nothing at all. Why does that seem to be ignored so much of the time?

I often carried groups of people in my mini-bus taxi and it always shocked me, the way they would carry on about whichever member of the group was absent that week. And the guys were crueller than the girls.

That reminded me of another point. Not everything someone says is to be taken literally.  My friend has a hard time understanding teasing and peer bashing that guys do to each other. He thinks they are being mean. Actually they are bonding and the trash talk is a form of expressing affection for the victim.

Okey dokey, I was following along until we got here, but now I am completely lost. Can you expand on that last bit silky (or anyone)?

I've read it in several studies.

It seems boys have a period in wich a lot of mock-fighting is going on. Looks very serious. And it is serious in it's social function. Not in the fighting function.
There is speculation that it is because of this 'boys behaviour' that boys are noticed earlier as on the spectrum than girls. Not understanding the social aspect of mock-fighting, missunderstanding it for real fighting is a huge problem.

Oooops. Just now reread the title and realized it was for NTs only. My apology for butting in.  (Though, maybe I'm NT. Who knows?)

Oops, I should have mentioned not being NT too I suppose....

Darn both of you.  That question was ONLY for the NTs on the site.  All 3 of us.  LOL!  

Nah...I can think of at least 4 (grin).

I think that half the time people sound like they hate somebody when actually they just hate one trait of them. I had a friend who used to annoy me sometimes as she was so bossy, but I didn't hate her at all, even though I occasionally vented about her bossiness.

What I really don't get is people who hang around with people they genuinely hate. Not people who annoy them sometimes, but people who they clearly don't like.

There's a friend's friend at the moment who's OK when my friends re there, but as soon as they're gone it's stupid comments. Nothing upsetting- just stupid.
I have no idea what she has against me or what I'm supposed to have done to her. She didn't dislike me before I got friendly with her friends- so I have no idea.