The most obvious problem I see in this dialogue is something I see with many gammas and low deltas. They can be RELENTLESSLY disagreeable and are often looking to put a negative spin on the interaction, correct the other individual, or otherwise dispute with their interlocutor. Look at how SW is shooting down literally everything Emily says, but not in a fun way or in a manner that indicates he is uninterested in her, more as if he is a clerk at the Department of Motor Vehicles.Wow, I didn’t realize that I come off as such a pathetic creep. In my defense, I was asking not because I want to have the nicest human lampshades possible (which is extremely disturbing, to say the least, so thanks for providing ample encouragement to work on not being creepy) but because this is going to be a slow, uncomfortable process. I wanted to make sure that the end result won’t be that I’ll simply go from creepy to invisible (I think I can already be invisible enough to get by).Anyway, my Asperger’s Quotient is 31, I’d give myself an 18 on Hare’s checklist, and I’ve been told that my writing doesn’t seem quite right by most people who have come across it (I always thought it was just lack of skill though). Usually women will ask questions that they obviously know the answer to, I answer them, and then after a few (rarely more than about 3—I don’t time interactions or anything, I just frequently glance at a clock when I’m not doing anything) minutes of small talk we go about our business. For example, the longest conversation I’ve had (less than 15 minutes) was something along these lines (These aren't the exact words, but I'm pretty sure they're close enough, and as is typical, she seemed to become more and more agitated as time went on):“Excuse me, there’s supposed to be a comedian performing in room XYZ. Can you show me how to get there?”Me: “Um…(directions)…you’d better hurry though, the show started a while ago.” (I refrained from telling her that it’s impossible to enter the building without going right past not only the room but the large sign that marks it)Her: “Thanks…I’m Emily.” (I’m not giving you her real name)Me: “Sam.”Her: “I haven’t seen you here before, did you transfer?”Me: “No…we’re probably just in different programs, what’s your major?”(I don’t think that precisely what either of us are studying really matters, so I’m skipping that part of the conversation, but neither of us are pursuing useless degrees and we talked about what we wanted to do with them for a little while)Her: “Did you buy football tickets?”Me: “No, uh, the team was terrible when I was little and I don’t think they’ve improved much since I moved away.”Her: “Yeah but the student section is so much fun!”Me: “True, but since I’m on the bowling team I’ll probably be busy.”Her: “I didn’t know we had a bowling team.”Me: “Well, we don’t have a very good one. That’s probably why you didn’t know about it.”Her: “Ok. Are you living on campus?”Me: “Actually, my grandparents live in town, so I’m staying with them. They’re getting old, so it’s probably good that I’m there. It’s cheaper too.”Her: “Oh, how far away are they?”Me: “It doesn’t matter too much since there’s a bus stop in the front yard.”Her: “That’s nice. Is that why you decided to come here?”Me: “Well, that and I wanted to get out of hickville.”Her: “Where’s hickville?”Most conversations are shorter (normally one of us will break it off before she becomes as visibly uncomfortable as “Emily” did) but my questions are more or less the same (what are you majoring in, what do you want to do/where do you want to work, where are you from—this one I’m careful to phrase in a way that makes “Florida” specific enough—why did you pick this school, etc.).
Monotone voice: Would you like to spend a lifeless, depressing evening with me during which time I will repeatedly contradict you and explain to you why everything you do, say, and think is wrong?
Cheerful girl: I'd rather kill myself!
Monotone voice: She doesn't like me. No women like me. I wonder why?
So, my suggestion for SW is that he experiment with not expressing any negativity in his next 10 interactions with women. Let's give some examples of things he could have said that would likely have sparked a higher level interest rather than killing the initial interest.
Her: “I haven’t seen you here before, did you transfer?”
Me: “That's good, that means you're not a criminal. See, I spend most of my time fighting crime. For the people."
Her: “Did you buy football tickets?”
Me: "I would have liked to, but, you know, the crime-fighting thing."
Her: “I didn’t know we had a bowling team.”
Me: “I think you'd be very attracted to them. They're some of the finest athletes on campus."
SW needs to learn that women don't ask questions of strange men in order to receive information. They do it to make contact and open the communications channel. He would do much better to evade answering their questions than to provide one monotonous factual answer after another. This may be his high AQ sabotaging him: a question was asked, therefore it must be answered. So, let's see if we can reprogram his Aspie tendencies with two new rules that supersede the old ones:
- The word "no" is not permitted in casual conversation with women. You must avoid all negative and disagreeable responses to them.
- You may not directly answer any question a woman asks you. Answers must be upbeat, evasive, and preferably misleading.
