Theme: Agency

ADVICE TO ASPIES(MASCULINE MINDS) WANTING TO EXPAND SOCIAL CIRCLES: TREAT PEOPLE LIKE SUNSHINE

(or “Advice to Aspies on how to go through life without continually failing the Turing test.” – Shannon Constantine )

There aren’t enough of ‘us’ to build a society. We are outliers. Society is built for ‘them’.

They feel more than we do. They sense more than we do. They trade confirmation because they are not as sure of what they think as we are.

And like anything in life, a trade must be done on the customer’s terms. So sell what they’re buying, not what you want to sell.

So, I just shut my brain off, smile, and feel human presence like sunshine, not feel I need to contribute other than to confirm or compliment. I practiced ‘feeling’ others not ‘thinking’ them. Its sort of like being still so you can listen to a soft sound.

We tend to listen to problems. Try not to respond to the problem but to the experience in relation to the problem, mirror his or her feelings and confirm them.

I practice four disciplines.

1. I only disagree if a person will come to harm – not because the situation can be solved better.

2. I only give advice or ‘explain’ if I ask if they want it, or if they ask for it. “I have a thought on that if you want to hear it sometime”.

3. I only explain incentives, not what someone with lower agreeableness (us) would to correct the people involved. People don’t have our masculine absence of demand for agreeableness.

4. I confirm their emotions as rational for them in the circumstance.

This produces trust. We operate on truth and falsehood rather than approval or disapproval, and rather than inclusion or exclusion. This is our ‘gift’. And it is a tool we can help them use. But they operate by inclusion and exclusion, and approval and disapproval, not by truth and falsehood.

Once you have developed trust – sensitivity to their ned for approval and inclusion – which takes quite a bit of time, they might ask you for explanations. But don’t volunteer them. Over time, they will ask questions in such a way that they will cue you that they’re asking.

Work to find fulfillment from the experience of people, not the conversation. Then the conversation will come – on their terms.

I became happy when I said: how can I make everyone I meet feel comfortable, or complimented, or helped in some way no matter how small.

We don’t realize that when we talk to them we are taking not giving. Give and you will receive so to speak.