redplasticfork
Thorns 270208
I had this whole thing sorted out in my head last night but was too tired to get out of bed to write it down, and who's forgotten the gist of it, never mind the actual words? You guessed it! So here goes the garbled I'm-trying-to-remember-what-I-was-thinking version:
I have trouble relating to people (Newsflash, right?), but not always. And what I've figured out is that in order to be able to connect to someone and relate and interact socially, I need to have defined parameters within which to act. I assign myself a role for that specific person, and my behavior adapts to that role. Which means if you put me together with two people for whom I have noticeably different behavior, one person will think I'm being weird (If they think they know me well). Or if I have a set of parameters somehow damaged or removed, I flounder trying to reestablish some kind of guide by which to interact.
On the bright side, I'm pretty fast at figuring out what role I can adopt, especially if it comes nicely predefined like at work, where I am Your Customer Service Chick or Your Co-Worker (Although that one is harder because people tend to want more social interaction than my Your Co-Worker boundaries have room for). And I used to find at work that as soon as someone stepped over the line of being My Customer and started chatting to me, I would have a very quiet moment of freaking out and then resort to my default Person I Have Just Met behavior which is a lot of smiling, nervous laughter and nodding and wanting to get the fuck away from them asap.
I was talking about this to mum the weekend I spent with her (Organizing funeral and will stuff and coming down with an acute case of viral bronchitis, but having a good weekend none-the-less.) About how I have roles I step into and how it can be really tiring and at times stressful because can't easily let myself be something else even if I'm tired and grumpy and don't want to be whatever to whomever (hence why I withdraw a lot, and spend a lot of time solitary). And that it's not something I do deliberately or have even really thought too much about before the past year, and it's not something I know how to stop doing.
Q: Normal behavior? Y/N?
A: I have no fucking clue.
This train of thought brought to you by being broody over past fictional interactions and how they really differ from any other interaction I have if no interactions I have don't require an unconscious set of rules.
Thorns 270208
I had this whole thing sorted out in my head last night but was too tired to get out of bed to write it down, and who's forgotten the gist of it, never mind the actual words? You guessed it! So here goes the garbled I'm-trying-to-remember-what-I-was-thinking version:
I have trouble relating to people (Newsflash, right?), but not always. And what I've figured out is that in order to be able to connect to someone and relate and interact socially, I need to have defined parameters within which to act. I assign myself a role for that specific person, and my behavior adapts to that role. Which means if you put me together with two people for whom I have noticeably different behavior, one person will think I'm being weird (If they think they know me well). Or if I have a set of parameters somehow damaged or removed, I flounder trying to reestablish some kind of guide by which to interact.
On the bright side, I'm pretty fast at figuring out what role I can adopt, especially if it comes nicely predefined like at work, where I am Your Customer Service Chick or Your Co-Worker (Although that one is harder because people tend to want more social interaction than my Your Co-Worker boundaries have room for). And I used to find at work that as soon as someone stepped over the line of being My Customer and started chatting to me, I would have a very quiet moment of freaking out and then resort to my default Person I Have Just Met behavior which is a lot of smiling, nervous laughter and nodding and wanting to get the fuck away from them asap.
I was talking about this to mum the weekend I spent with her (Organizing funeral and will stuff and coming down with an acute case of viral bronchitis, but having a good weekend none-the-less.) About how I have roles I step into and how it can be really tiring and at times stressful because can't easily let myself be something else even if I'm tired and grumpy and don't want to be whatever to whomever (hence why I withdraw a lot, and spend a lot of time solitary). And that it's not something I do deliberately or have even really thought too much about before the past year, and it's not something I know how to stop doing.
Q: Normal behavior? Y/N?
A: I have no fucking clue.
This train of thought brought to you by being broody over past fictional interactions and how they really differ from any other interaction I have if no interactions I have don't require an unconscious set of rules.