5 ms·
Me too but when I was younger I hated it. It was definitely centered around a fear of being rejected or ridiculed. I eventually learned that my fear was unfound
by pat2man 4y ago
Me too but when I was younger I hated it. It was definitely centered around a fear of being rejected or ridiculed. I eventually learned that my fear was unfounded. Possibly a good use of cognitive behavioral therapy.
- wpietri 4y agoFor me my fears were richly justified by experience. Casual conversation with strangers is both complex and subtle, and particularly requires specific face and body language. I think neurotypicals underestimate the complexity because it comes naturally to them. These days I'm fine at it and have no fear. But getting rid of the fear took getting good at it and doing it enough to compensate for those older experiences.
- taeric 4y agoI'm wary of claims that neurotypicals are somehow better at it. Seems more likely that nobody is as good as most everyone assumes they are. That is, self assessment is a known hard problem. Assessment of others would have many of the same traps.
- lazide 4y agoThere are well recognized patterns in specific types of ‘neuro divergents’ that are fundamental to the conditions and that make it very difficult, if not impossible, to recognize or process common social cues in useful ways. It makes them categorically have a much harder time in this area, for those categories. What you’re saying is essentially ‘meh, don’t just assume you are hallucinating sometimes just because you’re schizophrenic’. Maybe? but if they think they are, they very well might be right.
- taeric 4y agoFair. My wariness comes from knowing a large number of people that claim to have these complications, but are also just rude people. Which is to say, they may be divergent. That doesn't do much to suggest that others are "better" at this. Turns out that life is hard for most everyone.
- lazide 4y agoHow would you expect them to present except as rude, in that situation? That sounds like you’re complaining that said schizophrenic in the prior example just ‘seems a little crazy’, but life is tough for everyone?
- taeric 4y agoI mean rude in the child sense, honestly. Kids can be seen as neuro divergent, sure. But even "typical" ones are often surprisingly rude. Very few people just "know" how to be polite.
- lazide 4y agoOk, but what would you expect it to look like otherwise, if they could not actually learn those things because their brain was not wired to be able to? They still are going to grow up, but unlike normal folks, they can’t learn those skills - or if they do, it takes vastly more effort.
- taeric 4y agoMe claim is more to be taken that you should work from the assumption it is hard for everyone. Setting yourself apart as someone that is "just bad" at it is going to reinforce that idea. Can it be true? Of course. Some folks are also just bad at math.
- nicoburns 4y agoIf it was hard for everyone it wouldn't be such a problem, as presumably people would be more tolerant of others getting it "wrong". As it is, it seems that there's a large cadre of people who not only find it easy, but find the "correct" behaviours so self-evident that they tend to assume that people who don't notice these things (or whose natural preferences are different from the unwritten social norm) are being wilfully offensive.
- kelseyfrog 4y agoThis line of questioning is interesting. Does anyone have papers on the quantification of NT inference ability in conversations?
- taeric 4y agoAgreed it would be interesting to see. If you find any links, please post back.