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.
Alright. That’s bullshit. Not entirely. But it’s riddled with it. The “k” part, I understand. This can be considered rude and to be honest, it’s my way of saying “whatever dude”.
BUT that’s how I use it. I have met people who use it as a lazy but friendly way of “alright, got it”. So it depends on who uses it and what its intention is supposed to be. You either have to be incredibly nuanced or have to know the person who is using it to properly interpret it. Which your friend kinda doesn’t. I’m not blaming her. I fail at it way too often myself.
The “ending a sentence with a period” on the other hand? My answer would have been “Are you high?!” Seriously, it doesn’t make any sense and it sounds made up.
Edit: Thinking about this makes me even angry ffs.
It baffled me too, but people have legit complained about this stuff to her and she’s had to explain to them that I just talk like that. She has no expectation of me to change at all because she already understands my intentions perfectly well, but she told me simply because she felt I should know people were complaining.
As far as the period thing, apparently it’s the last sentence I’m supposed to leave punctuation off of. I don’t get it tbh. I mostly talk to people in MMOs and over Discord and apparently when I add a period to the end of the last sentence it makes people feel like I’m trying to end the conversation. It makes sense to me that people think that, given that every time I did it they’d just stop talking, but why they think that is a mystery to me. She said she thinks it’s because they’re just not used to it.
So it seems to be some sort of linguistic peculiarity in that specific group. MMO players tend to be relatively sheltered, so it could have formed organically? This makes sense to me. It’s unlikely, but it sounds better than “let’s make shit up and fuck with him”.
I don’t know how I would handle this. Most people I play with online are even deeper in the spectrum than I am. Do me a favour, the next time they have an conversation, just throw a single punctuation in the chat and see how they react.
Maybe. I actually scrolled back through the Discord we’re in and only found exactly one other person who uses proper punctuation. Scrolling through my other Discord servers though and people use proper punctuation all the time. It does seem to be a thing that may be specific to this group.
Also coincidentally I actually did witness somebody send a message that was nothing but a single period earlier today, and the reaction was everybody briefly paused then continued on like nothing happened.
Whether it’s a localized phenomenon or a wider one, it’s still weird to me.
The “ending a sentence with a period” on the other hand? My answer would have been “Are you high?!” Seriously, it doesn’t make any sense and it sounds made up.
I used to find it rude when someone ended a text message (specifically on IM platforms) with a period, though ever since some older relatives started texting I got used to it. I can also remember at least one time I ended a text message with a period because I was angry. This is also something I’ve noticed other people do.
In a way, since a text message already has a definitive end point, ending it with a period feels redundant. To me, this makes a period at the end almost feel like a “weak” exclamation mark.
In general I’ve noticed people use as little punctuation as possible when texting, instead breaking up longer thoughts into multiple short texts to compensate.
I’d noticed the thing where people send repeated short messages, but I didn’t realize that’s why they were doing it. I think I’m gonna have to take a middle ground though and just leave the period off my last sentence while trying to stay concise. I can’t stand being interrupted in the middle of a thought so I gotta get it all out in one message.
K
k.
That makes a lot of sense. I think I do notice patterns a lot, I just don’t see the reason the pattern exists, so I can’t determine if it’s a rude pattern or a polite pattern. That’s kinda what happened with “K.” I saw people use it everywhere and went “Ah, I see, so this is how people talk now. I should do it too.”
Your friend is at least partially misinforming you. It’s fine to write k instead of ok in almost all situations. But either of them can be rude if the other person would expect more emotive words. For example here’s when k is fine:
Them: Bring my pen when you come into the other room
You: k
And here’s where k is not fine:
Them: Wanna go grab some drinks tonight at 8?
You: k
That’s rude. They would want to hear you actually be interested in their invitation. Like saying “great” or “I’m in” or whatever.
…Ooooh. I think that’s what she was trying to tell me actually and I just completely misunderstood. That second example is a type of situation I used it a lot in. I didn’t realize people needed to know how interested I was. I thought they just needed a quick confirmation.
Often people are looking for some sort of validation, even when it’s not obvious.
If they say “I can’t join you in the bar today, I have too much work to catch up on”, “K.” is not a good answer. Several aspects needs to be addressed, ideally:
- That’s too bad
- Next time
- Commentary on the state of work: Keep your head above water/your boss is such a jerk/we’ll make up for it after your deadline on Thursday/whatever, depending on the situation and your relationship.
Basically, it’s a way to show that you care about what they’re telling you. It can be a bit exhausting at times.
This is really helpful. I didn’t realize there were so many situations people were looking for validation. I just assumed when they said something like that it was just to quickly let me know and “K.” was all they needed.
To make things more confusing, responding to an invitation to drinks with “k!” might be ok, depending on who’s asking and the context.
If it’s your roommate asking, and they’re doing it because there’s a sporting event or because drinks are an established ritual, it’d be fine. If it’s your boss, or a new (potential) friend or colleague, a possible romantic interest, or a close friend and it’s not something they usually do or invite you out for, then those situations have a lot more weight, and expect a more fulsome and engaged reply.
