DogwoodTree
Still here...
I truly appreciate your sharing in such depth because I can relate to a great deal of what you have outlined.
I really appreciate these great questions and threads you've been starting. It's enjoyable to have these challenging and deep conversations.
The question is. Do we have to wear more beautiful/sophisticated masks then what NT's do to compensate for that fact that we are aspies? Or do we hate the idea of having to wear a mask in general?
Now that is a very insightful question, imo. Yes, I think NTs use masks for various purposes, too. And yes, I think their masks are qualitatively different than what we're doing. I also think it's less conscious for them, and less of a burden. I think, for them, it looks more like "filtering" than it does "faking", if that makes any sense.
It's ironic to me that we aspies are so bothered by anything that is not true, and yet, many of us rely heavily on masks that are so disconnected from who we really are. I think that might actually be part of why we're so annoyed by untruths...we see so much falsehood/faking being necessary in order to function, and sometimes I really just want to be completely honest with someone without their being offended or scared off. (And so, on a side note...I work towards being as un-offendable as I possibly can, in order to promote this kind of self-control lifestyle. I try to appreciate when someone is honest with me, even if they're blunt--it's refreshing to see people with that kind of courage.)
I find that I'm often caught in a catch-22. Like, if I'm completely honest with this person that, in fact, I don't like them and I think they're kinda ugly and have a terrible sense of fashion and never have anything interesting to say...it wouldn't be nice to tell them those things, even though that's what I really think. But I also choose to be a nice person. So...should I be honest, or nice? Nice usually wins out, because despite my internal dilemma, I don't want to hurt the other person.
So I'm not faking for the purpose of manipulating people in self-serving objectives. I'm faking because I don't want to hurt other people with the things that I might be thinking or feeling or bothered by. (Perhaps NTs have a better sense of when to lean towards nice, and when to lean towards honesty?)
Like the other day at my kids' music recital...there were some people in the room who kept rustling their papers during kids' performances. This might not bother most people in the moment, but I knew that those sounds would likely show up on each family's video recording of their child's performance. It made me angry that people were so disrespectful. I wanted to hop up in between performances and remind everyone to please keep their papers still, and not be so careless as to drop things out of their laps (which happened about a half dozen times during this 45-min recital, which made a crashing sound each time).
So on one hand, I realize my sensitivities make me more aware of these kinds of distractions than other people are, and so I should probably just keep it to myself. But on the other hand, I'm pretty sure these people's carelessness was negatively affecting the recordings of each of our kids' performances. I even noticed a couple of times where families got really quiet for their own kid's performance, but continued making all kinds of noise during other kids' performances. I wasn't just concerned about my own kids--I was angry that people were so disrespectful in general...to all of the kids and families. But--I kept my mouth shut because I decided it was more important for me to be "nice" and leave it to someone in charge to say something if they felt it was necessary.
That's a rather benign example that some NTs might occasionally face as well, but I deal with these kinds of dilemmas all day long, in dozens and dozens of different situations. When my mother asks me what I think of her pedicured toenails, do I be honest and tell her that I think toes and bare feet are gross and I don't even want to look? Or do I be nice and tell her they're beautiful? When someone brightly says "Hi" as we're walking past each other, do I smile and say "Hi" back, or do I scowl and say "Go away", because I really don't want to talk to strangers? Of course I was nice in that situation...the person doesn't know me...there was no point in being rude, no matter how honest it would have been. But it makes my skin crawl to do it.