this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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[โ€“] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Being bluntly honest. People who are neurodivergent can struggle with being "politely dishonest" and can tell you what they think in a very blunt manner without meaning to offend.

Not engaging in small talk. Again, people who are neurodivergent tend to prefer talking about things that fascinate them and can have a hard time understanding the point of talking about just whatever.

Struggling with being on time, struggling to focus on someone or something, struggling with eye contact. In general, neurodivergent traits tend to be seen as "asshole behavior" because they are abnormal and don't conform to society. People who aren't normal tend to be viewed as assholes because how dare they inconvenience me by being different.

Source: personal experience as well as listening to the experiences of others. I've been hit with all these things at least once and accused of being an asshole, aloof, and/or self-centered.

[โ€“] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I find that struggling to be on time is fine, actually not being on time is disrespectful of my time. In modern society we have so many options available to make sure we can keep on time. Set up alarms, time how long it takes you to get dressed and out the door, time how long it takes you to get somewhere, set alarms to keep you on time based on what you've actually measured, not what one "feels" is enough time.

Personally I'm more often than not 5+ minutes early; I can always wait a little more before I go in or something, it's often harder to "just get there faster".

BTW; if someone is late because of something outside their control that's fine; just make sure to inform me ASAP.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it's important to bear in mind that some of those things are what neurotypical folks, I guess you could call them, use to convey interest or disinterest. Eye contact is a way to express interest, and helps to show one is intently listening to the speaker. Conversely, frequently glancing away is kind of the body language equivalent of giving short "uh huh" type answers when one is trying to disengage from a conversation.

My point isn't that you should feel bad about struggling with these nuances; I just think it's worth mentioning that some of those negative reactions you may have experienced just has to do with expectations in body language. It's not that someone who's neurodivergent is being an asshole, it's just that they're sending out signals we're otherwise used to interpreting as disinterest, and that is (often) off-putting.

Again, it's not something to feel bad about, it's just communicating on different wavelengths so-to-speak. Sort of like a language/culture difference.

[โ€“] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I would agree with you except that I've seen people try to clarify that they're autistic, or ADHD, or bipolar, etc, and explain that it causes them to act in that manner and sometimes, no matter how hard they try, they can't surpress it or "act normal"; only to be told overwhelmingly by the people in the room/thread that they're an asshole and selfish for not trying hard enough.

I do understand that some of those things are used as visual indicators for people to determine how the other is feeling about the current conversation, and maybe it's way more important to people than I realize; but there are way too many people who will tell you that if you can't alter your behavior to be normal, then you're an asshole.

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Man, I'm sorry to hear that's your experience. I guess some folks simply refuse to be understanding.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, i can relate. Yesterday i empathized with people doing moral wrong stuff, saying that i can understand their logic. And than was acused that it would be my logic. That irrate me the whole night, but in the end it just was my brutal honesty and a lack of black and white thinking.

But yeah, it hurts when people missread that. I hope you doing good :)

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[โ€“] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Massive one. People automatically assume those who have defined areas that others are not allowed to access (ie personal/physical contact, topics of communication, literal areas they restrict in their home, etc) are prudish and being willfully obstinate for unfounded reasons, without considering why these boundaries are set in the first place.

The second you inconvenience someone, they assume you're the problem.

[โ€“] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Having boundaries while female. Any boundary.

[โ€“] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago

Asking a dog owner to use their leash rather than letting their dog walk up to you or your kids.

[โ€“] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not agreeing to false logic (say, out of pressure to be polite or non-confrontational), especially when the next step would be doing something based on that logic. People sincerely don't understand why deceiving you once like this won't work another time and think it makes you an asshole.

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Agreed, and along the same lines, pointing out bad logic or factual errors used to support a point you actually agree with.

[โ€“] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

Refusing to engage.

[โ€“] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Saying no and not backing down from it

[โ€“] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

aka Boundaries.

Too many people can't deal with that, but that's their problem.

[โ€“] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (4 children)

"I'm just asking questions." Could be a child, could be a moon-landing conspiracy person.

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Could be someone who's genuinely trying to understand someone's viewpoint, but it reveals inconsistencies in the other person's logic, so they get irritated.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think the big deciding factor is how they're approaching the questions and what the questions are. Like, if someone is "just asking questions" where the questions just so happen to be a common bad faith talking point, yeah, I'm gonna assume they're also acting in bad faith.

Eg, leading questions are a particularly common example here. The amount of lean towards their already-decided viewpoint can vary. They might word their question to be convinced away from their viewpoint as the default ("why isn't the moon landing fake?"), or maybe they'll provide a statement that obviously gives more weight to their side ("the government is so untrustworthy, so how can we trust the moon landing was real?").

But often, they even do word the questions in a perfectly valid way, because they're not trying to get an answer. They're not gonna be convinced and they're trying to get an answer. What they want to do is make someone else mistake being stumped for "this person might be right". Eg, if someone asks you "is the moon landing real?" and you don't actually know how to prove that it's real, that can make you think that perhaps it wasn't real. After all, you can't explain how it is. But that's a fallacy. You not being able to explain it has nothing to do with whether or not it's real. Asking questions is cheap and easy. It takes no time investment compared to answering or understanding an answer. That makes it effective for planting seeds of doubt. And of course, people should think critically, but many folks aren't going to or aren't don't have the time. So they'll retain this low effort seed of doubt and that's it.

Plus of course, searching for these questions, especially leading ones, can get you to fall into conspiracy theory or alt right echo chambers, which will have the leading question included in multiple times and technically is a better match from a pure SEO point of view. Search engines do try and train themselves against the common leading questions, but they often have to do that explicitly. This is actually an area where search engines like DuckDuckGo do worse at. You're more likely to have a leading question in the top results because, again, it really is the most accurate match for that question. Should search engines direct you to the correct results or should they direct you to the results that are most accurate for what you searched for? Nobody really agrees and it'll be criticized either way (personally, I think that correctness is far more important because otherwise the search engines propagates misinformation).

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[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Not being a conversational person.

I don't do small talk very well and I very quickly run put of things to say to someone I don't know so I don't like to just talk rubbish with someone, I prefer to remain quiet and get on with what I am doing.

I don't mean that the person isn't worth talking to or I don't like them, if they need something from me or have a question then I'll galdly answer or help them, but almost everyone takes it as a slight against them when i dont want to engage in idle chit chat and assume I'm an arsehole when I'm really not trying to be.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

As an autistic person I love interacting with people like you.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Offering a concise answer to questions, without softening language.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

My resting bitch face

[โ€“] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Parking in a handicapped parking spot and having no visible disability.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The fact that they have a record.

Look for a pattern, not a single instance. And yet companies and people hold bad decisions of the past against most folks.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Same goes for having no record, aka the famous gap in a resume. It's not really about being perceived as a dick, but the same applies nonetheless.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I turn the question around... people who are clearly liars, deceivers... politicians and businessmen that people line up to vote for with their money or public votes. You really wonder what people think an "asshole" is when you see the kind of politicians that get massive support in a population - to a point people have their photograph on the wall of their workplace or home, put stickers on their cars, etc. to support people that are clearly monstrous. A lot of people do not seem to like to study the crowds of Europe 1930's terrible leaders and just how many lined up to cheer on such persons.

The scientists a person believes also is a huge indicator of who they consider to be an 'asshole'. Just passively listening to people who support denial of climate change, denial of microscopic germs and virus, etc. The enthusiasm that followers to non-factual science seem to be very high, and they draw crowds in ways that fact-based science does not seem to do.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Unrequested advice. Sometimes it is warranted after all.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I tell people this all the time. But I have to. It's like... If I don't, I won't know if I'm still real.

I was on the train once headed into the city. A dude getting off the train looks me dead in the eye and says "never trust unsolicited advice" and then stepped through the door.

That was it. That was the entire interaction. Completely blew my mind. I did ultimately decide it was legitimate advice. But still, it was wild being told not to trust the advice I was receiving.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The fun thing about that is the dude gave you paradoxical advice. If you take theiradvice and don't trust unsolicited advice, then you are trusting unsolicited advice. If you don't take their advice then you are following their advice by not trusting unsolicited advice.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Well for one, I wish I could tell people no when they ask me to social events without being interpreted as an asshole

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[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (7 children)
[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Reminds of a post a few days ago, that described how people think you're condescending and sit on a high horse, just because you use some fancy words here and there.

Meanwhile I'm just trying to describe something with as much detail as possible, because it's important to convey exactly what I mean.

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[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Being overly sarcastic, especially online (speaking from experience ๐Ÿ‘†)

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Someone stating their opinion.

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

100% depends on the opinion

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Absolutely.

"It's just my opinion" isn't a valid defence when you should have kept that opinion to yourself.

"Your baby is ugly" might even be true, but it's not something you actually say to people.

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