How do you all cope with the rejection that you go through in the workplace? I’ve largely only ever been socially successful among groups where I share an interest, and even then, I still struggle socially quite a bit and tend to be somewhat disliked in any sort of group setting. Among the general public (so classes, and now work for many years) I’ve never really been able to make friends, and people range from being neutral to me but not liking me, to disliking me, to hating me in a way that feels like it should really only be reserved for people who actually brought you significant harm, to trying to be ‘friendly’ and then making fun of me when I’m still in earshot, and such. But I still have to work, which means that I have to just go to work and deal with hearing my coworkers talk about me negatively when I’m within earshot, noticing the difference in the demeanor when they interact with anyone else versus interact with me, notice when they actively try to do things to make my job harder (thankfully this is somewhat rare but it happens unfortunately).
If I try to bring it up to anyone who’s allistic then they don’t even believe me and will only take the most overt examples of extreme bullying as a sign that my coworkers don’t like / dislike me, but it’s hard when I have to deal with what can possibly be over a hundred micro-rejections just in a given day, and then I just have to wake up and do the same thing tomorrow, and every job’s been like this so even if I felt like I deserved better and went somewhere else, then I’d just get treated the same way anyways (and this has been true for all of my work experiences and was the case in all of my grade-collegiate schooling as well, so I think that it’s just something I’m always going to have to deal with). So how do you all deal with it? I can’t just simply ignore it forever, since it still affects me even if I pretend that it doesn’t. Rejection still hurts even if it’s from people who I don’t even really like anyways, and no matter how I act, whether I try to act friendly or whether I just try to keep my distance, it doesn’t seem to change things. I don’t think that there’s any way to not be rejected, so what can I do to ease the pain from it?
I was going to try and give advice but then I realized I haven’t been in a situation where everyone was an ass so I’m not sure how helpful I can be. Some parts of my job make me unpopular but I don’t normally think it’s about me, just people lashing out and I happen to be there.
I can hurt if it’s clear people don’t like me but I tell myself that not everyone is going to like everyone and that the are judging the perception of me that they have, which is something I have no control over so it’s not worth worrying about. That is not helpful if it interferes with your work.
I’ve had okay success hashing things out with people but the person was my peer and we needed to be able to work together and maybe more importantly not give the appearance of conflict between us because it would impact how our teams worked together. I knew why they didn’t like me and I knew it was a miscommunication/mismatch in approaches so I asked for some time, brought a tea and was like “Yo, we are hitting a road bump and I want to figure this out because I respect you and I don’t want to fight.” It probably helps that I was direct but also emphased that we were peers because the root of the conflict was they thought I was being a know it all engineer trying to make them look stupid but I was asking questions because I wanted to understand, not because I wanted to embarrass them.
Do you think any of the problems you are having are due to “cultural differences” between autistic and allistic communication? If so, it may be worth being direct. You don’t need to mention autism. For me it was like, I know you think I am undermining you but I am dealing just looking for information. Is there a way I can do that so that you don’t feel attacked? They might be reacting to something you aren’t actually doing but they think you are. It doesn’t make their behaviour okay, but maybe it’s a misunderstanding.
As another example I learned in a round about way that when I declined a lunch invitation the person thought I was insulting them. I’m vegan and gluten free and autistic, I’m not eating lunch at a restaurant lol. So now I know to suggest going for a beverage instead! I did say why I declined (food allergies) but they thought it was an “excuse” i.e. a slightly more polite way of insulting them. I don’t understand them lol.
The talking about you within ear shot is fucked. One possible thing they could be doing is this social ritual where people “gently tease” each other to make the target feel like they are included in the group and there is also a certain level of intimacy. This sounds absurd to me, but my husband values that ritual with his male friends. Because I am pretty masculine some of the guys are work tired it with me (also ambushing me with nerf guns) and I had to ask them not to 😬 I told them I appreciated them wanting to include me but that I wasn’t okay with it and they stopped because they were not seeking to hurt me. If you are able to manage it, and you think there is any chance it’s not intended as cruel, it might be good to tell them that you find it distracting or something and ask them to stop. I would suggest practicing what you are going to say ahead of time so you can be clear and direct and not get frazzled.
Good luck. You deserve better than this.
I wouldn’t say that everyone’s an ass (though a few of the people who seem to strongly dislike me are, but those are for reasons that aren’t even necessarily related to their treatment of me but I wonder if it might be part of why they dislike me) and not liking me can run from being more neutral towards me to utterly loathing me. It’s not that everyone loathes me, but there are enough people who do who I have to spend a decent amount of time around.
I’m pretty sure that it is at least partially because of differences in communication styles between autistic and allistic people if not a large part of it. I don’t know. I don’t think I can make the people who particularly dislike me not dislike me, but I just wish they would at least wait until I’m firmly out of earshot. But I don’t know of a way to say that, and I’m worried that it could backfire and then they’d do it more. It’s definitely not friendly banter, though, otherwise I’d be included on it. I think I just have to figure out how to make it affect me less, or how to deal with how it affects me, really.
That’s a reasonable concern. I’m sorry I can’t give you better advice. I hope you can figure it out.
“Hey. You fucking losers are talking about me again, huh?”
I mean, if you want to… if that doesn’t put you at any risk. It’s an option. I only suggest it because it sounds like you have nothing to lose and might as well just assert yourself. You don’t have to call them losers, but their behavior is objectively pathetic so it is appropriate to me as an option to treat them as they treat you.