I just don't get gossip.
Is there some kind of inner need amongst neurotypicals to talk about other people behind their back or something? Hearing gossip as I walk about campus bugs me. It doesn't help that I live in a building full of freshman girls (the only dorm hall with single rooms), because they seem to talk the most. My eyes always roll when I hear girls whispering about who's dating who, who did what, the oddities of professors... things like that.
My personal rule about mentioning other people:
If what you say isn't positive or true, then don't say anything at all.
Complaining isn't productive.
I can safely say that I avoid gossiping, but I have been guilty of complaining. Most of my complaints are related to my aspie needs though, like if a light is hurting my eyes or someone's blasting music. When I hear the complaints of others, they tend to be about little, insignificant things. I always use girls as examples because I live with them... they'd whine about their hair or not having time to put on makeup or the fact that a boy doesn't notice them... stuff like that. In these cases, complaining doesn't solve the problem, so I don't understand why they do it anyway. I probably can't relate to them because not very many things actually bother me, aside from my AS symptoms.
I feel this on a personal level. Another thing about the complaining that people seem to do regularly--I've noticed that when people complain (neurotypicals, that is) they are doing it just to complain, not to actually look for recommendations to help fix the problem. Also that when I do offer a solution to the problem they are complaining about, they invariably get annoyed because they just want to complain and get sympathy, not to fix the problem. I swear, living in a NT-designed world gets more and more confusing by the day.
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