A woman at the church

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But your wife comes from a country where English is a common language, they speak and understand your language.

Like QFT, I also found the story of marrying someone who doesn't understand your language (and vice versa) to be extremely strange; but I don't know all details of Jimmy's story but this one indeed stickied in my mind because it shocked me back then, it was him who told it (but no, he never described her as mail order bride).

QFT, the conversation you had with me on this thread mirrored the conversation you had with you date in my opinion.

1. You said something or did something that was inappropriate. (common for most Aspies)
2. Then you manned up the mistake. (good decision)
3. But then you psychoanalyzed what you did.
4. And then you verbalized your analysis out loud to explain away the mistake. (You self-rationalized your behavior.)

#1 and #2 happens; but #3 and #4 caused you to dig your own grave. So let me put this in story form and perhaps you can see the problem or perhaps you will miss the point completely and retort back to me that "My name is not George."
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STORY

There was an man named George. At the moment in the Twilight Zone, he is being handcuffed by the local Sheriff. He has already been given his Miranda Rights.

George said, "Officer, I am sorry I shot the kid's dog. I just purchased a gun and I took the gun out for target practice and then the dog magically appeared and I thought the dog would present a perfect moving target."

In the distance, you can hear a boy sobbing. His name is Johnny. His dog Max was just shot dead. It was his first dog. He got the dog as a puppy. He is crying. Soon he will need to go into the shed and take a shovel and dig a deep hole and bury his dog and say his last goodbyes.

George is being led into the patrol car. George said, "I am sorry I cause the boy pain. You see I have Asperger's Syndrome and I cannot always sense emotions properly. But I can see now that the boy was severely hurt emotionally. I have learned from my mistake."

The engine starts in the patrol car and George is being driven away to the local sheriff's office.
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Being an Aspie or a High Functioning Autistic does not automatically give you a "Get out of jail free card."
Man up to your mistakes and don't verbalize your self rationalizations.

I can see that the way others react to me is as you described, but I don't see why that's the case. And the why part is what I been puzzled about.

Now, my evidence that it happens -- irrespective of why -- is that I tend to get "punished" for simple mishaps much more severely than I am being punished for when I know I did something wrong. Now, on my end, when something feels like a simple mishaps, I feel compelled to explain to others it was a mishap. So perhaps the process of explaining is what makes it worse.

But like I said I don't see why that's the case. I mean, when I am explaining myself, I am not saying "that's why I should be allowed to keep acting this way". Rather, I am saying "that's why I should be forgiven for what I did in the past so that I can do better in the future (which includes "not" acting that way)". As a matter of fact, what I am trying to say is "the only reason I did X is that I didn't know about Y, so now that I finally know about Y, I won't do X any more". But for some reason others don't seem to believe me or care. And I am not sure why not.



One thing that strikes me about this example is not the fact that he rationalized but rather the *kind* of rationalization that he chose. If he were to say he was using a tree as a target and accidentally hit the dog, this would make him look better. But if he said he was using the dog as a target, that made him look worse. Of course, however, due to his Asperger he was unaware about what I just said, and was thinking it was making him look better.

So are you saying that in my case I also pick the kinds of rationalizations that make me look worse rather than better, without being aware of it? If so, can you elaborate?

Isn’t that story too much psycho/sick to be given as a parallel?

To cut a very long story short QFT, I think you lost her with your opening dialogue. Who ever asks a girl this??

But then what is your theory as to why the older lady try to arrange things for us, despite the fact that she knew about this interaction? And why did that young lady (whom I initially asked the above question) go along with the arrangement about running (which includes giving me her number)?

Are you saying that the older lady didn't realize its such a turn off since she is from the different time period, while the young lady just tried to go along in order not to hurt her feelings?

You need to rely on your own instinct/judgment of the situation QFT, don't rely on a third party as the old lady might have just felt sorry and tried to encourage you. For all you know the old lady might not have been paying attention to what you were saying but rather picked up on your interest.

Yes I am saying that verbalizing the self rationalization is the problem.
When you say please forgive me then follow that with self rationalization,
"self rationalizing" cancels out the "please forgive me".
You are actually worse off then when you started.

If George had said to the office "I'm guilty. My mistake. I'm ready for my punishment. It won't happen again.", he would have been better off than self-rationalizing his behavior. The approach George used actually makes him appear like he is trying to wiggle out of his guilt.

I'd say in the future, when an attractive lady interacts with you, try asking her about what she enjoys doing, what aspirations she has, and what she is looking forward to. Try to avoid asking what she thinks of you, and get her talking about herself.

You seem very intelligent and interesting, but I think you get overly self conscious and let that become an obsession that takes over.

Try to ignore that self consciousness (and I know it's hard!) And keep the girl talking about herself.

very sensible

The old lady knew I asked the young lady about her staring at me, because she mentioned it. However, to support your point, she also said that the young lady told her she felt I didn't like her because of that question -- and then I told her that "yes I like her, since she answered my question that it wasn't me whom she was staring her so now that I got my answer I like her" and the old lady said that thats good, and continued to talking about arraging how the two of us might date.

Could it be though that when the young lady said I don't like her, that was really a polite way of saying she doesn't like me -- but both me and the old lady missed it?

And of course the next question is how come the young lady actually gave me the phone number when the old lady asked her to, and how come she went along with the running event? Could it be that when she said that she thought I didn't like her, she thought that any subsequent interaction (including phone number, running event, etc) would be implicitly understood to be "just friends" thing -- and she assumed I knew it?

QFT the young girl would not have been mentally expecting or anticipating a question like that which explains why she might have thought you could dislike her. It sounds like that's what she rationalised from the situation.



NT women (or at least the ones I have known) have this strange habit of taking men's phone numbers. I think its a way of being diplomatic without committing to anything permanent if they don't wan to. I knew a man who posted a greeting on a girl's facebook the day after she gave him her instagram and she was really outraged he never picked up on her cues that she wasn't interested.

But the point is that I heard this from the old lady as opposed to directly from her. So that means that the old lady already knew about the question that I asked the young lady, as well as her reaction to it. So then how come she was encouraging me to date her, despite the fact that she already knew it? Thats what makes me question whether the young lady had descided not to date me even back then and the older lady simply missed her clues, or whether the young lady herself wasn't sure.



I think "taking" the phone numbers is more common than "giving" the phone numbers. One of the common tricks is for a woman to take mans phone number and say she will call him and then never call him. On the other hand, if she "gives" a phone number, then this would cause her to receive some unwanted calls thats why women oftentimes choose not to do it. Although the other option is to give the man a phone number and then never pick up a phone when his number pops up.

But in any case, as far as that woman is concerned, she both took my phone number and gave me hers. Also the older lady made a three-person room (herself, the young lady and me).

She was likely encouraging you because she sensed your interest. I'll be honest, I've lost count over the number of times older people used to encourage me (male and female) to make a move on a girl. It's just what they do (I am probably doing it now )



She took your number but did she keep it or deleted it or throw it in the bin? I think you need to have a library of scripts ready for just such occasions so next time you will be better prepared.

Is it because people used to be less picky few decades ago? Or is there some other reason why this happens?

I dunno, but never listen to them.