How to give up (knowing when, or how, to throw in the towel)

This is not a tutorial.
It's a question.

At what point does toughness and rugged determination, cross over into delusional stubbornness and perseverence?

I don't have the answer to this, and being autistic, i don't know if ever will to a degree that makes me comfortable.   My very nature, like many others on the spectrum is interwoven with the tendency to perseverate. This word has a few different definitions so i'll clarify a bit.  One listed from wiki states: "the inability to switch ideas along with the social context, as evidenced by the repetition of words or gestures after they have ceased to be socially relevant or appropriate," ... Which is pretty good, but not an all inclusive explanation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseveration

More or less, what happens is we get stuck.  There is a point at which rational minded people would abandon a cause for one reason or another.

it could be simple disinterest, it could be that the platform has been abandoned and they are following the crowd (like from myspace to facebook ) It often times is because completing the intended action has become too difficult, and also could be that a person has made a reasoned observation that the amount of energy they would expend to complete it would be much greater then the end result (Sure i COULD repair that dvd player.. but a brand new one is 20 dollars at wal-mart.)

These options have never worked for me. It seems without fail, once i am commited to a task in the immediate sense, i am STUCK firmly to that task until it's completion, much to the detriment of my sleep schedule, any appointments i may have to keep, my hygiene, and even my ability to feed myself.  I have on many occasions, just forgotten to eat as a result of my level of involvement with whatever i engaged with, and it's not until i feel dizzy, or dehydrated , or deeply ILL that i notice.  Occasionally, i have someone remind me, and then i eat or drink before returning to to task, but if i'm alone..

Many examples exist in my own life where i have stayed awake for 3 days to fix something.  Usually this has to do with electronics. It could be building, stress testing, and repairing a computer, or last year, dismantling, rebuilding and repairing an X-box 360 that had stopped working by resoldering it and swapping a few parts.

The point is, while in some of these cases, the end result is great. I did fix the xbox and saved 300 bucks. I fixed a dvd player and saved 100 bucks. I fixed a computer and saved someone tons of  expense.  However the darker side of perseveration starts to drag into interaction with other people, and behaviors that can show potential co-morbidity with OCD.

Giving up on a task is hard enough, with someone who is built more then a little inflexible, but how do you decide when to give up on a person?  How do you DATE as an autistic and NOT just spend your relationships treating people like things to fix, never giving up because "you started it, and you have to finish it."

I know, externally, not intuitively, that people can not be dealt with in such a manner, and i know that at some point, you have to let go.  I feel as if i lack to insight to be able to accurately identify HOW and WHEN that should happen.   It tends to make me more black and white, and less forgiving when i try to create a system for myself.

3 Strikes and your out.  I know . What about extenuating circumstances? When if your partner is "going through something" and as a result is uncharacteristically mean towards you?  Should this allow for special considerations?

What if the infraction from another party was unintentional or "an accident." How many times do you allow for "Accidents" of this nature before disregarding this distinction?  I have always said something to the effect of: "I don't care if it's an accident. If you shot me and aimed at the guy behind me, i'm still shot. I'm not LESS shot because it was accidental."  

Who's wrong/right in that scenario?

If you honor all your agreements with a friend/relation and they repeatedly fail to honor theirs, how many "Chances" do you allow them before deciding to remove them entirely from your life?  Living up to one's word is very important to me. I am deeply honest, and rely on honesty to communicate with others in a world in which i experience a high degree of social blindness. I rely on my honest communication of my intent and feelings because i cannot reliably read the subtext and social ques of others as a communication mechanism.  When others fail to maintain honesty in actions AND in a words, the disconnect is deeply disconcerting for me, and i feel slighted, and disrespected when i am lied to.

You may justify it as a "Small Thing" ("I forgot to pick you up when i said i would. Come on, it's not that big a deal.") but i wouldn't agree to do something, and then "Forget." and THEN be nonchalant about it. If i make a commitment, i stick to it.

I'm still trying to learn, everyday, about how to have better interactions with others in a world that is full of invisible pits for me to stumble into that others see perfectly.

In the meantime, i'll keep asking questions, and carefully analyzing answers.  So i'm not being funny, or sarcastic, or rhetorical when i ask you,

"How do i know when to give up?"

The unbearable heaviness of being.

I had an odd lucid dream some days ago, and it was transcendently depressing. 

I've long experienced a profound frustration with other people.  That manifested in my mid teens as a palpable rage about the incompetence and idiocy of others, but grew to be a begrudgingly accepted truth as i grew older. 

It was embodied by a phrase i used to describe how i felt about the phenomena, 

"You can't fault a dog, for being a dog." 

I've read so much in my life between those age goalposts, and seen my initial feeling echoed out in the idea space by pained and tortured scientists, authors, artists and intellectuals throughout time.  Expressing a persistent melancholia about being so removed from others.  

The issue of autism acceptance can cut both ways you see, with you not wanting to accept me for my unique abilities being the most common manifestation, but also with me not able to connect to yours. Even though my desire to connect is sincerely genuine.

When you are truly gifted at something, be it language or science or art or music or even building a cement foundation, interaction with others attempting that same thing look positively oafish.  Co-mingling with them is irritating, there unfinished gangly attempts brushing up against the polished surfaces of your very skin. 

The bricklayer who is a true master see's idiots and imbeciles in his fellow bricklayers and takes no joy in it.  The initial swell of ego often pursued vociferously by others is long gone for these masters.  It's unwelcome replacement is this untenable disappointment that moves in to fill the void. 

You want to be surrounded by people of equal competence, not merely accepted but integrated with communication that flows in both directions.  However if you are superior at a given thing, that communication is always unidirectional.  You are always having to advise, correct, repair, and refurbish the efforts of the average people that comprise the majority of humanity. 

It is, in a word, unsatisfying. 

And this ANGST, this ineffable thing that i've detected in written works for so long that these masterful sorts express, is a result of an unfortunate conundrum they find themselves embroiled in.  

A good person can not HATE or DISDAIN a person of lesser ability simply on the grounds that he or she may be in one or many dimensions, inferior to him or herself.  

"You can't fault a dog for being a dog."

You can't fault a human for being, average. 

But this offers little to no comfort to the gifted, as now there is no grounds to expect or have hope for the average party to mysteriously metamorphosize into a gifted person.  Some abilities and gifts are inborn, genetically encoded, and no amount of push up's or reading of Proust will change that.

In my dream i was a father like figure, teaching someone how to ride a bike, with training wheels.  And while i am happy for the person i have taught, and this achievement is certainly worthwhile and significant  in their development, i and overwhelmed with sadness at the gulf that this reveals between us. 

"You can't fault a dog for being a dog."

And it wouldn't make me feel any better, if i could. 

I am "Gifted" this angst, this profound and deep sadness, and there seems to be nothing anybody can do about it. 

I wish to be with you. I wish to be like you. I wish to be inside, looking out at the grey drizzle.

And if wishes were horses,

beggars would ride.