Being naive - will I ever learn?

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ok, so I'm pretty much agenda-less, and since diagnosis, I understand why. I like it that way, and I expect other people to be the same. Now, I know, from 37 years of experience, that most people have huge agendas, but I still forget this and operate by taking what people say at face value. Time and time again my naivete means I'm left stunned and hurt when I discover that people have actually been acting in some sneaky way all along.

Will I ever learn? Are there ways of dealing with this? Do other people with ASDs experience this? I'm feeling pertty down at the moment

That's me.

I feel like I'm being kind, charitable, giving them the benefit of the doubt.
They just see an easy target.
Once I catch someone in some despicable act, I don't feel guilty.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
But what do you do when you're not sure?
No, I'll never learn.

i like to think i've finally made some small progress in that area, but hmmm.
i still struggle to impose the concept of agendas/guile on my (somewhat) guileless brain.

I'm 56 and still naive and gullible and all that. I've decided there's worse things to be.

This has been my worst problem in life. Nowadays, after almost 5 decades of being destroyed by the reality that was hiding behind the facade in each person, I don't believe anything that's up front and only look for the signs of what may be behind. I have zero trust in people, but after what I've been through all my life, I've earned the right. People don't like me anyway, trusting or distrustful, so it's not like by being distrustful I'm losing out on friendship and love.

I used to be naive, when I think back now on a lot of social interactions I am ashamed. All those times people were acting nice and friendly to me, little did I know that when I wasn't around they'd say nasty things about me. Now I believe people operate under multiple secret agendas...this is simply the way most people are and it is the prime reason why I prefer to be on my own.

Ditto to every word.

I can't get my head around such motivations, so guess I'll always be somewhat naive.

I may be NT but I never have a secret agenda when getting to know anyone, the majority of people do, however, and I tend to take people at face value, Im probably stupidly trusting, and tend to get let down alot. The 'but' here, is that when people you meet are exactly what they say they are, it overrides all the other wankers out there.

Yes, people with hidden agendas are out there to take advantage of others, and it can be terribly hurtful, but sometimes you cant avoid it.

I'm easy to let things slide, so when someone does let me down etc then I have this "whatever" attitude, and tend to not talk to them again.

Many NT's (I'm slaggin myself off here, it seems) have the ability to come across one way, but will be able to get what they want in a sneaky or underhanded way, and maybe if they know you or believe they can take advantage without you knowing, they will.

....Or maybe Im just an idiot! (which could well be my problem )

J

I'm not even sure what being naive means? I take it is a bad thing?

naive usually means too trusting, normally the word implies a lack of experience is the cause, although in our case I think there's a different reason

And I too am still naive and gullible, it causes few problems: after a quick laugh my friends will check if I believed them and if so tell me they were joking, since the most frequent offender is as naive as I am I'll get even sooner or later.

Being naive is one thing. Not learning from mistakes and being happy that we learnt something is another.

I would love to learn from my mistakes! But short of never trusting what anyone says, I don't seem to have the skillls. I don't know how to learn to filter the people with genuine motives. When I look back at the sequence of events when these things happen, I can never see the point at which I should/could have done things differently.

Just wanted to say I don't know what the answer is. It's something that I struggle with as well. I tend to just do what I think is right and think everything's going to work out okay, but then fall victim to someone else's scheming.

This one is tough. I struggle with this one every day. I can't believe how much time/energy NT's seem to spend on this stuff. (Hidden agendas, deviousness, not saying what they mean, double entendres' etc.) It's apparently Really Important in a way I may never grasp. Frustrating and very difficult to navigate around. I've learned to be suspicious. It isn't enough to save me a lot of the time...

I'm not sure what you mean by people having an agenda. I know that an agenda is a kind of plan, but can you (or someone) give some specific examples or what you mean?