Anticipatory Rejection and Autists
One of the habits of mine that I’m noticing as an adult is that I became so used to being socially rejected by others that I started doing it to myself and pretended it was a kind of joke. If I said the reasons that I was going to be rejected up front and everyone laughed and agreed, then somehow it was less painful than being surprised (autists also hate being surprised) by rejection later. It might also have been a strange way for me to try to figure out what the reasons were for my social rejection and try to deal with them, though I was never great at this.
These kinds of comments will come out in a variety of ways. Here are some:
1. I’m terrible about fashion and I know nothing I wear is ever current, but that’s just because I’m oblivious and stupid.
2. I don’t pay attention to other people so I’m sorry if I miss what’s going on that’s not literally spoken aloud.
3. I have a terrible sense of humor and that’s why I never get any jokes. (I’m very sensitive about the subject of not having a sense of humor and about people who say that they can stand any character flaw except not having a sense of humor).
4. I know I’m ugly, but we all just have to live with that.
5. I know I’m annoying. I’m sorry in advance if I say the wrong thing or laugh at the wrong time.
6. I need to follow the rules and I know that’s dumb but I’m really just afraid that I’m going to get in trouble or get hurt.
7. I’m very cautious physically because I’m clumsy and I’m sorry in advance.
8. I don’t know anything about popular music or television and I mostly just read old-fashioned literary books, but it’s not because I’m snotty. It’s because I’m dumb and don’t get stuff.
9. I never buy the right clothes for myself, so if you want to volunteer to come shopping with me next time, I’ll buy whatever you say, I promise.
10. Tell me if I smell or if I have snot in my nose or if my eyebrows or wrong or any of the other things other people notice and I don’t because I don’t remember all of them and I don’t want to be outside and make people laugh at me.
I think my anticipatory rejection also comes out in other weird ways, like me setting long lists of rules for myself for how I have to behave in social situations and then constantly adding to those lists so that it becomes so difficult to be in social situations because the weight of all the rules that I tend not to go out at all most of the time.
It comes out, as well, in me judging people as “too popular” in advance and not making friends with anyone who appears (by my very limited understanding) to be above me in the social hierarchy because that would be a waste of time and energy for me. You won’t want to be my friend because I don’t have anything to give you. I tend to be immediately suspicious of anyone in this category who persists in trying to be friends with me because I assume they will want some kind of repayment, perhaps like me doing their homework in high school.
Another thing that happens is me going over the top of what other people consider to be normal and appropriate: so I will wear formal clothing to events that I didn’t need to wear formal clothing at because I’d rather be overdressed than underdressed. I’d rather people think I’m pretentious and overbearing than that they think I’m rude in not doing what was supposed to be obvious to everyone about clothing choice.
I suspect my speech patterns are a little like this, too. I don’t want people to think I don’t know how to use grammar correctly, so I’m hyper vigilant about my grammar usage, even in casual conversation.
I’m reminded of Hannah Gadsby, in her Douglas show, when she talks about making the decision not to make her autistic traits the butt of jokes anymore. I think this is a brave and honorable thing to do. I’d like to figure out how to do it for myself because it’s lousy for my self-esteem to make fun of all my autism. But it’s the main way I laugh. It might be the only reliable way I laugh. And not having a sense of humor at all seems like an even worse social strategy than laughing only at myself.