ASD and Getting Bullied - ASD VULNERABILITY --> BULLYING: EXAMPLE (Part 4/7)

The Aspie’s initial “empty slate” regarding the facial expressions, tone of voice + body language disadvantages him. Insufficient recognition of such social cues in others, along with other differences (eg statistically reduced verbal fluency) predisposes him to bullying and/or manipulation by others.

Story of me being framed:

I skipped a grade and joined a class whose classmates I’ve seen numerous times, but never interacted with much before. I used to hang around by myself a lot, but I thought I’d feel more comfortable if I could be included. I used to say to the girls in that class, ‘Can I play with you?’, and they’d always say ‘No, you’re not old enough.’

This time though...

‘Ok, you’re in our class so you can join us. Let’s play tag.’

‘Ok.’

‘Ok, you're it. Count one two three before you go.’

‘Ok.’

The girls ran away, but I was relatively fast even though I was still kinda clumsy at the time. I tapped one of the girls on the shoulder.

‘You touched my butt!’

‘No I didn’t , I touched your shoulder.’

‘No, you touched my butt!’

‘No I didn’t, I touched your shoulder over here.’

The other girls who were playing tag, went up to the two of us.

‘Ken just touched me on the butt! Let’s go tell on him!’

I remember seeing the girls having angry/frowny facial expressions. I knew it meant angry/frowny coz I saw it in cartoons multiple times, and managed to associate it with the context. I didn’t understand WHY they were angry, even though I knew it was factually true that I touched her on the shoulder. 

They dobbed on me, and the teacher on recess duty told me that touching a girl’s butt is sexual assault, and for me not to do it again.

The next day, I wanted to play tag with them again, and they said I could join them. They made me ‘it’ at the start again.

I didn’t understand their intentions at the time. They made the game a little different.

‘This time because you run so fast, we’ll make you count to 10.’

‘Ok.’

               
I counted to 10, and ran after one of the girls hiding behind the school hall. I tapped her head.

               
‘I tagged you.’

               
‘You touched my butt! Didn’t Ms. Kogan tell you not to touch girls’ butts?!’

               
‘But I didn’t touch your butt, I touched your head. Your head is not your butt. Your butt is located down here.’

               
‘No, you touched my butt, and I’m telling on you.’

She told the other girls, followed by my class teacher, who already formed a negative impression of me, coz I was apparently smart but immature, and that I didn’t behave like a 5^th-grader.

He said to me ‘Ken, follow me into this room.’

The room was pleasantly dark, and he didn’t switch on the lights, but I didn’t know why.

He told me that the girls have reported multiple incidents of me touching their butts when playing tag and that it is illegal to touch that region, because it is sexual harassment, and in the adult world can be punishable by a jail term, and he use to work with juvenile criminals, many of whom have been convicted of sexual assault and rape. He said that what I did was wrong, and that he would give me several detentions, and physically segregated me from the rest of the females in the class for all activities, including computer skills, to think about my wrongdoings.

‘But I didn’t touch their butts.’

‘Yes you did, the girls said so.’

‘But I didn’t, they keep saying that when I touched their shoulder and heads.’

‘The girls have come up with the same story about you, so I’m inclined to believe them. You know what you did is wrong, and you are not going to get away with it.’

‘But I didn’t touch their butts, I didn’t actually touch their butts.’

‘Don’t lie to me Ken, I don’t want to set you up for failure when you become a grown up so you need to learn things now. See me after school at 3 PM.’

‘I really didn’t touch their butts, you don’t believe me.’

‘Stop talking about it. Now go back to Maths.’

All of my persistent claims of innocence were said with my usual flat affect and relatively monotone voice. At the time, I thought that because what occurred was factually true by my accounts, that I would be believable. But this wasn’t the case.

In retrospect, I realized that I was supposed to show facial expressions of anger, and be more vocal and eloquent about my innocence. I didn’t know what he knew, or the cause of incongruence between factual events and false accusations, which is related to the TOM deficit.

               
I didn’t know what sort of body language to show. And yet the girls were trusted coz they showed the typical facial expressions, body language and vocal tones of innocence and indignation. ‘HE TOUCHED ME HERE! HOW DARE HE!’

These girls can further fine-tune their manipulative/framing qualities over time, and could easily target an Aspie’s initial trustworthiness, and get him fired from jobs, arrested, or divorced (if married) with the settlement (+/- child custody) hugely in favour of her due to his apparent “abusive behaviour”.

I didn’t see the BIG PICTURE, that they didn’t want me to play with them, coz I was focusing on the DETAILS, such as counting to 10 instead of 3.

Of course, some Aspies may commit sexual harassment without realizing it, but that wasn’t the case in my situation.