 
Support Wrong Planet Awareness!
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
asperges
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: Mar 16, 2009
Posts: 68
|
 Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2009 10:34 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
| Now that we understand that it is common for Aspies to fake it. Maybe we should put our heads together and compile a list of situations, conversations, etc that may come up and figure out how to fake it. PM me if you are interested in helping with the editorial work. Or if you just have stories, ideas etc. you can post on here. |
|
| Back to top |
|
Acacia
Crown of Thorns
Joined: Dec 13, 2008
Age: 27
Posts: 1528
Location: Florida
|
| Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2009 11:13 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| millie wrote: | whatever gets you through the day and night...............
do whatever is required to make life easier.....
 |
This is why I "fake it".
The only way I have been able to succeed in school/jobs is by "faking it".
The "real me" only seems to cause problems in these environments.
I have a variety of personae that I can put on like masks should the need arise.
I do this out of necessity. I am fully aware of the interpersonal quagmire this can create.
Indeed, I've had a number of implosive relationships with other people because of this.
I suppose I'm becoming jaded... I'm through with trying to fit into society now, and I just want to survive and live as well as I can, now that I finally understand the sort of reality that I actually live in. If I have to "fake it" to earn a living, so be it. Maybe there will come a day when this whole dire equation will lessen in severity, and I can be myself all the time.
_________________
Plantae/Magnoliophyta/Magnoliopsida/Fabales/Fabaceae/Mimosoideae/Acacia |
|
| Back to top |
|
JetLag
California Condor
Joined: Aug 08, 2008
Age: 60
Posts: 3010
Location: California
|
| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 12:41 am Post subject: |
|
|
I think I'm such a blunderer when it comes to socializing, and also a bad actor, that a day of faking and acting "normal" usually leaves me mentally and physically exhausted. For my own daily peace of mind, I just basically wear a smile and remain inconspicuously as possible in the background, never volunteering for anything unfamiliar.
_________________
Stung by the splendor of a sudden thought. ~ Robert Browning
|
|
| Back to top |
|
sunshower
Ethereality
Joined: Aug 18, 2006
Age: 21
Posts: 2363
|
| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 7:21 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Survival.
_________________
Circular syncopation. |
|
| Back to top |
|
millie
bits, pieces, brass, animals
Joined: Oct 26, 2008
Age: 47
Posts: 2981
|
| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 8:00 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | | sunshower wrote: | | Survival. |
|
yep.
survival and as much isolation away from the madding crowds, as is possible. (In my case that has always been most of the time.)
I have learned some "faking it skills." But i am left exhausted by them - and the faking it always came unstuck because i would invariably resort to type and start on about a special interest, facts, or query the hypocrisy of social exchanges and social functioning. You become a bit of a pariah after a while...
and then of course, breakdowns are too numerous to count. In fact, I think my life has been one BIG breakdown....
i feel very, very tired by life these days.
_________________
animals are the safest friends to have |
|
| Back to top |
|
hartzofspace
Red Dragon
Joined: Apr 15, 2005
Posts: 4853
Location: In the Fortress Of Solitude
|
| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 11:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| millie wrote: | | i feel very, very tired by life these days. |
You said it, millie!
_________________
Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself! |
|
| Back to top |
|
Greentea
Goddess of Wisdom
Joined: Jun 15, 2007
Age: 47
Posts: 5496
Location: Middle East
|
| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 11:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Survival and protecting the things that are important to me, such as caring for my father's wellbeing puts me in touch with lots of ego-driven doctors and specialized nurses.
_________________
So-called white lies are like fake jewelry. Adorn yourself with them if you must, but expect to look cheap to a connoisseur. |
|
| Back to top |
|
Brittany2907
Self-Proclaimed Animal Lover
Joined: Jun 10, 2007
Age: 18
Posts: 4365
Location: New Zealand
|
| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 11:41 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I don't necessarily "fake it", but sometimes if I'm in a room full of people I try to fake a smile otherwise they end up asking me what's wrong. I don't see why I have to be smiling all the time but apparently people do. 
I haven't pretended to be someone I'm not though. I'm not going to go out with people just to please my family and I'm not going to stop talking about certain things or being interested in them just because other people think it's strange. I will however say "I'm fine" to avoid being questioned about how I am.
_________________
I = Vegetarian!
Animals = Friends.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
emilyrosecampbell
Butterfly
Joined: Jun 14, 2009
Age: 18
Posts: 16
Location: Decatur, IL, USA
|
| Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 11:43 pm Post subject: |
|
|
All I do is "fake it". I was tired of my parents neating me for not, and I was tired of school threating me because I was odd. I have day everyonce and a while where I can not, not act like how my brain is telling me. I do try not to put up a front when around my friend Victoria and my bf Jordan, who is also an Aspie. Jordan gets angry when he find out that I am trying to act like something else, well angry at my parents.
_________________
Emily Rose Campbell |
|
| Back to top |
|
Tory_canuck
Phoenix
Joined: Jun 09, 2009
Age: 23
Posts: 955
Location: Red Deer, Alberta, Canada
|
| Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 12:12 am Post subject: Re: If you've learned to "fake it"...why do you? |
|
|
| NowhereWoman wrote: | I see quite a bit of negatives pointed toward people who "fake it". While I can sometimes see the point behind this, I do feel that sometimes a person "fakes it" (tries to "pass") for reasons other than manipulation or some other negative.
My primary reasons for "faking it" have been:
1. In my younger years: self-protection, often physically. Being "the weirdo" resulted in my frequently being beaten by not only classmates but by my parents if they found out (as punishment for "getting in trouble in" school). Yes, I did try to explain myself and yes, I prayed every day that "Free to Be You and Me" would sink in with any of my classmates but...no go. Di'n happen.
Also during this time: to keep from being absolutely alone, if only because being seen as "a loner" made me even more of a target...if that's possible. I was tired of being hurt. I was very small for my age. I was tired of being beaten and thrown around physically. I was in pain all the time from being hit, kicked and hurt.
2. Throughout my life: to keep my feelings from being hurt. Someone jeering at or humiliating another person hurts badly.
3. As an adult: To get and keep jobs. I had a youngster dependent upon me from a very early age, and literally no parental help. (My siblings and I weren't even recalled in their wills, not even with a comment that they had loved us; nothing.) I HAD to work and make good money or my son would have starved, and that was the end of that. Also to be able to have romantic relationships. I do get romantic feelings and I do feel sexual love.
I don't feel these are extremely negative or overly manipulative reasons. Does anyone else have any reasons you "fake it"? |
Thats the beauty of the fact, that when they get old and disabled. you can stick em in a second class nursing home ,and when they ask why you never think about them, then you can explain every little detail...and how they sided with the bullies over their own kid...What goes around, comes around.
_________________
Honour over deciet, merit over luck, courage over popularity, duty over entitlement...dont let the cliques fool you for they have no honour...only superficial deciet.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
Danielismyname
Zombies ate my NT
Joined: Apr 03, 2007
Posts: 8273
|
| Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 1:02 am Post subject: |
|
|
What do people actually mean by "faking it"?
Do you mean, utilizing your rote memory for verbal replies in various situations, and if you weren't "faking it", you wouldn't use these replies?
See:
Person without AS: 'Hello!'
Person with: 'Hi!"
Without: 'How are you?'
With: 'Fine, thanks. You?'
.
.
.
... .
(This above is the only thing close to "faking it" I've found in the text, other than mimicking a fictional character, which is the same thing, really.) |
|
| Back to top |
|
ouinon
chemical reaction
Joined: Jul 11, 2007
Posts: 5343
|
| Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 2:20 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Danielismyname wrote: | | What do people actually mean by "faking it"? |
One very "important"/central thing to faking it ( for AS women anyway, because it is something women "do" more than men in general ), is "the smile(s)"!    
A huge range; the gracious "thank you" sort, or the "sufficiently pleasant"/"friendly neighbourly" kind to people in your street, or the reserved/minimum version for people you actually don't like much ( but have to live/work/study in proximity to ), and dozens of others, eg. the questioning smile, the concerned/sympathetic smile, ( which I find very very difficult and suspect doesn't look the way it's supposed to; my real reaction when I'm feeling "sympathetic/concerned" is actually to cry with the person, and sometimes I almost do, which is very embarrassing if it's in public or with a relative stranger ), the "challenging" smile, the overtly patient but weary smile, the "I've understood you" smile, etc etc etc ... and all the eyebrow movements and tilts of head to go with them.
I often used to get my smile "wrong" by turning the wattage up too high, to almost everybody, ( it took me ages to discover that this was being seen as an invitation/"come-on" ), and have tended to get wrong in the other direction since realised this. Something I find complicated is judging how much smile is appropriate for the amount of chit-chat I am prepared to follow up with. I've begun to realise that if I smile at a neighbour in a very friendly fashion, cos I'm happy or feeling glad to live where I do, or whatever, that there seems to be some expectation that I stop and say things to "go with it", and if I don't they see see what was actually a genuine smile as "fake"/glib! So sometimes "faking" involves not smiling.
Another is the series of short answers, ( an exhaustingly big array, with minute variations for different situations ) for polite conversation with coworkers/acquaintances etc. Another is the way you are supposed to look at a person when you talk to them, ( not just when you listen ), and so on. Billions of small adjustments to voice, face, verbal response, etc, which take a lot of energy, and brainpower even just approximating.
I think AS women "present differently" to men because women do anyway; there is much more pressure on women to interact socially, to be sensitive to social signals, and there are more neural links between the two hemispheres in female brains too, suggesting more of the kind of "blended skills" involved in socialising, so that many AS women do learn more of the things that are supposed to do socially, sometimes/often ( because society encourages women to take social skills/knowledge very seriously indeed ), in as much profound depth and incredible detail as a special interest, but it remains something forced/artificial/"performed, and takes an awful lot of energy.
Like I said in my first reply on page 1, I think I learned to "fake it" because language told me that women did all this stuff, had to do it to be a real or successful woman. I still remember the first ever junk romance book I read, aged 10/11, came across it at a school fete, and my parents were furious and handed it back before I had read more than the first chapter, but ... which set lightbulbs flashing in my head, and the girly magazines that the girl next door let me have when she had finished with them and which I read with concentration in order to find out about this whole new identity/behaviour.
.
Last edited by ouinon on Mon Jul 06, 2009 3:08 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
TheDoctor82
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 29, 2008
Age: 27
Posts: 951
Location: Sandusky, Ohio
|
| Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 3:02 am Post subject: |
|
|
I tried "faking it" for a while....and it was just TOO "fake" to me; I had to be me.
so I am...and apparently "me" is the personality of a 40-year-old stockbroker...and it's stuck in the body of a 27 year old. But that's who I am, and I can't change it just to fit in. If I'm not meant to fit in, I'm not meant to fit in. Basically, if you're trying to fit in, then those people aren't interested in YOU, but the phony you that you've created...so what's the point? |
|
| Back to top |
|
ouinon
chemical reaction
Joined: Jul 11, 2007
Posts: 5343
|
| Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 3:13 am Post subject: |
|
|
| TheDoctor82 wrote: | | ... what's the point? |
If you are a girl/woman, social skills are actually an inherent part of the identity that language teaches you "is" you/a woman. If language means much to you then it is like an imperative; if you are a woman you must be like this, do this; that is the "law"/the way it is.
And if you are bullied/mocked/ostracised and labelled lesbian ( which "label" Monique Wittig pointed out means "not a woman", because aren't doing what women do, which is "having sex with men" ), for your lack of social skill as a teenage girl there seems to be a point; simply putting a stop to "pain" and humiliation.
.
Last edited by ouinon on Mon Jul 06, 2009 3:18 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
TheDoctor82
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 29, 2008
Age: 27
Posts: 951
Location: Sandusky, Ohio
|
| Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 3:18 am Post subject: |
|
|
| ouinon wrote: | | TheDoctor82 wrote: | | ... what's the point? |
If you are a girl/woman, social skills are actually an inherent part of the identity that language teaches you "is" you/a woman.
And if you are bullied/mocked/ostracised and labelled lesbian ( which "label" Monique Wittig pointed out means "not a woman", because aren't doing what women do, which is "having sex with men" ), for your lack of social skill as a teenage girl there seems to be a point; simply putting a stop to "pain" and humiliation.
. |
I've been ostracized my whole life. The thing to remember is this: there's the pain and humiliation you'll receive from everybody else, but it doesn't even close to compare to the pain you'll have on the inside for selling yourself out, and being something you're not. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
|
