One of the traits of Asperger syndrome is the – inability to infer the thoughts, feelings, or emotions of others.
Growing up with friends and family, I have always been accused of “straight talking”. For example, if someone asked me if he/she is fat. I have no problem telling the person that he/she is overweight if indeed he/she if larger than the average person – no big bone, big frame bullshit.
This personality carried through as I got older, got married and established a family of my own. Anytime my wife and daughter solicited my thought on their weight, height, look, and capability in comparison to others – I always gave them the honest assessments.
The majority if these solicited conversations end with them upset and blamed on me for not having feelings – these reactions have always been mysteries to me.
As the receivers of these negative reactions toward my personal perspective and honest assessments for so many years – I began to surrender to the idea that I have Asperger syndrome as defined above.
If there was any sympathy toward my lack of etiquette, long term friends and family recognized the sincerities in my non-sugar coating assessments – with clear indications that they were in total disagreement.
It is only years later I stumbled across a well documented phenomenon known as illusory superiority in the field of social psychology.
Illusory superiority is a cognitive bias toward oneself – I am above average!
When someone comes to you for an assessment, it is given that he/she unconsciously has the preconceived above average notion and just need a little support or validation from you.
Finally I understood, it is the unawareness of the unconscious self-bias in people that resulted in my improper social etiquettes over the years – I DO NOT have Asperger syndrome after all.
The fact that most of us carried the illusory superiority in our heads, a mindset that hinders progress in all aspects of our lives – why invest more efforts to elevate ourselves when we are already above average.
As a species, we are social creatures and thus biologically wired with the desire to be in proximity with others – not too far ahead or behind.
The illusory superiority gave the perception we are part of the group and better yet, we are slight ahead – therefore, little or no effort is needed to keep in pace with the population.
There is a fine line between sugar coating and giving someone who you have a close relationship with a boost of inspiration.
Sugar coating is a self-serving benefit. Essentially, you are putting yourself first – you have a desire for the other person to feel good toward you for the capitalization of future benefits.
Whereas, if your intention is to inspire others to better themselves, you are putting the welling being of the other person first – in this case, the truth must be presented with the proper language.
For example, if someone in your close circle of friends and family members come to you for an assessment and you are sensing he/she is full of it as depicted in figure 1 – sugar coating will send him/her down the wrong track of progress.
If you are sensing your love ones need a boost of inspiration, your assessment must be able to translate to a hopeful future – a future that that he/she believes fall within his/her personal capability.
The truth without sugar coating combine with your support is the ultimate strategy for helping close friends and family members to get on the road toward progress – anything less is just lip service or you are just looking for some benefit for your own.
Here is a real life example of the side effect of sugar coating in relationship.
I met Mike 27 years ago at the same time when I met my wife. Mike is not his real name!
Mike started out as an entrepreneur and became financially successful in series of ventures over the years. He is effectively financial independence in his late 40’s.
The one notable characteristic of Mike is his sugar coating skill. He has the ability to make anyone feel good about their capabilities – regardless of his internal assessment of the person.
In all the instances that we met, Mike always found some creative way of make me feel I am good at something that I have no awareness of the capability.
The peculiar thing I noticed in a consistency basis, Mike always followed up with the leverage of the skill that I was supposed to possess – better than the average in comparison to the general population.
For example, let’s say we were talking about home remodeling. I may spoke of the experiences I picked up earlier years from following my Dad. Mike would sugar coated everything I brought into discussion.
Few weeks after the conversation about home remodeling, Mike would follow up with me to see if I would like to help him with the home project that he had planned for awhile.
I took the baits few times but learned the true nature of Mike’s sugar coating skill in one particular instance.
One evening, Mike and I and his son in law were having some wine in the lounge chairs of the swimming pool – let’s call Mike’s son in law Ted.
Mike and Ted were discussing the next video they need to up load to his company website. Mike had hired Ted to be in charge of the company promotion videos. Prior to joined the company, Ted worked for a cable company as a tech for new installations.
Throughout the conversation, Mike repeatedly praised how great the last video Ted had produced. He was ecstatic with the final product and asked Ted if he could just bring it up another notch.
The week after the video conversation, Mike and I were in car heading to his office. Mike seemed visibly upset. Subsequently, I learned that Mike had never liked any promotion videos Ted had produced.
Worst of all, he added Ted to the company’s payroll just because he married to his daughter, and that he was not worth the salary Mike was paying for his service – I would not have never guess Mike’s true feeling toward his son in law, had I not rode with Mike to the company on that particular day.
After that drive, everything made sense to me!
Mike’s sugar coatings were meant to inspire everyone around him to work harder for his own benefits. All the pep-talks were Machiavellian in character perfectly disguised as sincerity and aspiration traps.
The con-game worked exceptionally in the business world, but it failed miserably in Mike’s personal life. He did not realize that the “illusory superiority” is real and sugar coating is effectively adding gasoline to the fire.
His wife and kids were unable to outgrow the childhood entitlement we all had at one time in our life. As long as they can live off the financial wins Mike brought home and decorated with sugar coatings – there was not any incentive for them invest any level effort for self-improvement.
For a long time I thought there is something inferior about our marriage in contrast with Mike’s relationship.
My wife and I have always been straight forward with our feelings and perceptions about each other in all of our interactions over the years. Many of these encounters resulted in hurt feelings – “how can you say or think of that about me?”
However, it is unequivocally established fact in our relationship – we grew closer over the years by having these sincere and honest assessments.
From these truthful assessments, we have a better understanding of our individual strengths and weaknesses. Only then, we were able to align ourselves as a couple and fortify our relationship for the best life.
Let’s play the game of life!
