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Regular reminder that being an asshole is not a symptom of any form of neurodivergence. (You can replace “neurodivergent” with depressed, anxious, bipolar, etc. and the diagram works equally well)
ETA: social faux pas, awkwardness, and genuine symptoms of neurodivergence don’t make you an asshole. I shouldn’t have to say this? An “asshole” is someone who enacts a pattern of abusive, controlling, harassing, and/or harmful behavior with no remorse or concern for how other people are affected.
There's one ND guy I have to interact with a lot, who has told me point blank that he enjoys watching me be miserable and seeing me squirm. No amount of trying to be nice has quelled this; in fact, it actuqlly started when I was making an earnest attemptnto be his friend, and he decided to fuck with me to "see what would happen." I am, as far as I can tell, the only person he does this with. He's also WILDLY homophobic, but he gets off scot free because most people know he's ND.
My policy since this shit started is that being ND (even heavily, as in his case) means everyone should be LENIENT, not willing to let fucking anything fly.
To be clear, Im also ND, and most of my friends are too. Its just this one fucking guy, which hey, is the point of this meme!
Chances are he thinks this is what it means to be a male friend. That doesn't make it right of course but that's probably what's going on. This is likely due to him being abused as a child in some way and now he thinks it is normal to abuse others.
...no. He is making the active choice to be malevolent, there is no concept of friendship here. He has friends; I am not one. I have made my boundaries clear, and he has just said that he doesnt feel like respecting them.
Also, this is exactly the kind of overapologetic bs that means I can't just tell him off, because then Im the bad guy for being mean to someone with an imagined tragic backstory.
You aren't being mean. Honestly it sounds like you went out of your way to be nice.
I just think that chances are there is note going on. It really isn't on you and he may just dislike you as a person.