Edit: A few people have interpreted the title as serious, so I wanna clarify that it was meant as a sarcastic joke about how little sense the neurotypical world makes to me, but it is still legitimately me asking for help understanding said neurotypical world.
Was having a conversation with a friend today about why I seem unapproachable to people online. Apparently it’s for 2 reasons.
One is that I say “K.” all the time, as a short way of saying okay. She pointed out that most people find this rude and offensive. This kinda baffled me, because like why? She explained that like, if somebody were to give a long emotional speech and I just responded “K.” that would be offensive. That confounds me. So it’s rude in one context, and neurotypicals have decided to be offended by it in all contexts? But the reason it’s rude is what confuses me more. Apparently it’s considered lazy because you could have just typed out the word, but like, that applies to all text speech and nobody’s mad about people shortening those words.
But it got more confusing when she explained the second reason, which is that I end all of my sentences with proper punctuation, which she said “makes people feel like I’m done with the conversation and not interested.” But just a second ago improper grammar was rude, and now proper grammar is rude instead.
It baffles me. You can’t just use proper or improper grammar. Use too much improper grammar and you’re lazy and rude. Use too little and you’re also rude. But you can’t just use any improper grammar, you have to use the very specific subset of improper grammar that’s been deemed acceptable and not lazy (even though it’s exactly as lazy as what they do consider lazy.)
To be clear, I’m not bitter, and I’m definitely gonna adjust my behavior to hopefully seem a little less rude to people. I think that’s just a nice thing to do. I just find the neurotypical mind utterly fascinating. I don’t think they even realize how many contradictions exist in the social rules they all so easily accept.
Your friend sounds impressively tedious.
It’s unfortunate I gave that impression, because she’s probably the nicest, most accepting person I know, even including other autistics. She was just trying to let me know because I’ve experienced significant psychological distress from my inability to connect to other people, so she’s trying to help me understand why, which was a recommendation by a psychiatrist I saw.
You are attempting too hard to be a part of a group of friends who do not consider you one, and are likely willing to drop you for the smallest reason that is socially agreed amongst them.
I’ve been replying to group texts like that for decades and my friends do not give a fuck. You should resume replying like how your friend is telling you puts people off and see who your real friends are.
Actually I’m fairly popular, but that just leads to me catching a lot of attention from strangers who’s first interaction with me, not knowing I’m autistic, is seeing somebody rude and dismissive.
If I could just explain to everybody immediately “hey, I’m autistic, I’m not being rude on purpose,” that’d be great. But most of my interactions with people are short messages like “What outfit are you wearing on your character” or a quick invitation to join them for something. Not a lot of opportunities to explain to them why I act the way I do.
When I do get the opportunity is usually when I end up making real friends, because they don’t see me as the dismissive girl who doesn’t want to talk to them anymore, but instead the autistic girl who just interacts a little differently.
Hell, some people keep trying over and over again to be my friend even when they think I am being rude and dismissive, they just don’t make any progress because they’ve misread my mood and assume I want them to go away.
That seems like a big reaching conclusion based on very little data.
Friendship goes both ways and requires equal effort from both parties to make it work. Being rigid and unadapatable is a great way to whittle away your friends unnecessarily.
No one is specifically in charge of social rules. There are reasons why things are the way they are, and it seems common that geeks and people who have often operated outside of this system think that they can intentionally defy the social rules without consequence if they understand the reason for it and think they can compensate.
This sort of “social hacking” doesn’t work because geeks don’t fully comprehend all the reasons why things are the way they are and it ultimately blows up in their face.
Stop trying to be like them. They’ll never truly accept you. Many of them would prefer to destroy you. Their methods of communication are inefficient.
Fuck the NTs.
Apologies for my post and respect for your appropriate response. Someone pissed in my Cheerios this morning.
Your post title grabbed my attention because I recently started watching Survivor for the first time (social event not really my pick). Anyway it’s fascinating to watch their behavior. These people are constantly talking about “reading” people. They’re always trying to inject meaning and intent where there is none. They are not as smart as they think they are, and they struggle with communication just as much as we do.
One thing I’ve noticed is NTs are constantly lying to each other then trying to “read between the lines.” Not so much malicious intent as keeping your cards close to your chest sort of thing. When someone comes up and just says what they mean, their minds explode. Many of them read into what you’re saying the worst possible interpretation. I’m still trying to figure this out.
I’ve seen a similar thing in court, where you think you’re trying to document facts and distill away all the emotion and speculation. WRONG! It seems to work like Survivor where 1 + 1 = 3.
I’m no expert on neurotypicals, but I’ve observed them for a long time as an ADHD neurodivergent. “K” seems to give them the impression of disinterest, like saying “K, can we move on?” Kind of thing, like what was said wasn’t interesting, or important; but context is important for them. If you’re taking direction eg: “hey, OP. Push that button, would you?”; in that case it’s fine to use “K” as a reply, just to confirm you heard the instruction, while you go to do the thing. In contexts where they’re telling you something that seems important to them, whether the information is actually important or it is important to the speaker, and you reply with “K” then that’s where they get offended by it.
It’s nuanced and neurotypicals don’t understand themselves well enough to adequately explain these nuances, because they go on feeling more than logic. There is a sort of logic to it, but they don’t understand what it is.
The punctuation is total bullshit. 100% ignore them. Typing just K definitely is a bit informal for all but the most casual conversations with close relationships. I will 100% drop an👌👍 online when I encounter someone who just wants to argue or be mean to piss them off. Nothing enrages a gen z troll like 👌👍.
The punctuation thing has actually been pointed out to me on a couple occasions before. One of my exs thought it was weird and said it “gave the impression I’d be mad if other people’s grammar wasn’t perfect.” So apparently it does bother some people, but it’s probably more of a straw that broke the camel’s back situation, where I already speak so formally in the first place that it makes me look stuck up.
