I thought the point of creating a family was to create strong individuals who would be thriving, successful, happy, and continue to produce healthy children. Thus ones genes would survive, and multiply. But at least in my family that is not a concern. They also shun me, perhaps because of guilt? or pure egotism?

But I agree with Jennifer who posted further up on your comments; “In the Torah two children from exactly the same parents can have two different characters. They are genetically from the same parents, like Yaakov and Esav, but spiritually only one carries the legacy.”

Though my family shuns me, I feel like I got the best of the gene pool. They got their hatred, insincerity and guilt – I got the brain and the luxury of empathy.

Having the knowledge of right and wrong is clearly not a gift everyone got. One should be glad to have received it, even at such a high price.

I’ve been thinking about the whole question of why cousin Ralph should believe me. From my Aspie point of view, it’s obvious: I cannot tell a lie, so she should believe me. Done! But even from a more generic point of view, it seems reasonable to believe that I’m speaking the truth when I’m not seeking to profit from it in any way.

More troubling to me is the whole existential dilemma that cousin Ralph’s position creates. She has said a couple of times that she has no basis on which to believe me, and no basis on which to disbelieve me. This leaves me in the peculiar state of realizing that I, too, have no basis on which to believe or disbelieve anything that Ralph tells me. Every word could be a lie, every word could be the truth, or every word could be something in between, Who knows?

Is this the way that NTs function on a regular basis? If it is, I don’t know how you do it, but now at least I understand why the world is in the sorry state it’s in.

Personally, I have to have a certain level of trust that people are who they say they are, and mean what they say they mean. Otherwise, a conversation becomes impossible. So, I generally go on trust and believe what people say, unless they give me good reason to think that they’re lying. I’m not sure how else to proceed.

What I’m starting to get is that, er, um, well, NTs do not say what they mean. They, um, beat around the bush, and er, lie. Thus, they assume everyone is capable of lying. Thus, they don’t realize that some of us are neurologically incapable of lying. In fact, some of us just don’t get the whole deception idea at all. It seems like such a painful waste of time.

But cousin Ralph now knows that I am autistic and cannot lie. Of course, she probably won’t believe me, because.. well…she’s NT and thinks that everyone is capable of lying.

Poor cousin Ralph.