One of the big things I personally notice in myself and other autistic people is this mentality. We seem to mostly miss the “programming” that makes others subconsciously conform to social rules.
My personal hypothesis is that without that programming we get the opportunity to actually think about the rules that we are forced to abide by, because we have to actively learn them instead of subconsciously feeling them. And that leads to the questions like “why can only one gender wear X, there’s no logical reason for that”, “why can’t I wear shorts to work when it’s warm outside, that makes no sense”, “why should I respect the elders when they treat me like that”, etc. It’s not like neurotypical people cannot question these things, but I feel like we’re just coming from a different position. I constantly feel like these kinds of social "rules* are forced upon me and not based on any logic, thus I remain skeptical of them. But I’ve also learned that while they’re nonsensical, it’s often way easier to pretend to abide by them and go with the flow. Constantly fighting every little nonsensical rule will not make you popular, so you got to pick your battles
i’ll note that here in sweden (at least where i live) we’re pretty good at tolerating people who don’t conform, and lo and behold my autism almost completely fucking disappears so long as i’m not in a formal setting.
It really shows how it’s not necessarily an inherent disability, and i’d go so far as to say that the obvious negative symptoms of autism aren’t actually autistic, they’re symptoms of suffering.
Yeah for the most part I feel like that as well. I’m Dutch and I feel like our society is pretty compatible with autistic people. Not overly social, compared to countries around us we have a relative disregard for hierarchy and the norm, and we’re internationally famous for being direct. At the office we can basically just be blunt to eachother, I can just tell my managers on their face that I think they’re wrong and present my arguments why. I’ve noticed that our German colleagues in comparison basically lick the boots of their management every morning, they almost seem afraid to speak up when something isn’t right.
That’s an autism thing too?!? Man y’all get all the relatable common sense traits, so jealous
Ya know, if you have all of the relatable common sense traits that autistic people have you might be…
One of the big things I personally notice in myself and other autistic people is this mentality. We seem to mostly miss the “programming” that makes others subconsciously conform to social rules.
My personal hypothesis is that without that programming we get the opportunity to actually think about the rules that we are forced to abide by, because we have to actively learn them instead of subconsciously feeling them. And that leads to the questions like “why can only one gender wear X, there’s no logical reason for that”, “why can’t I wear shorts to work when it’s warm outside, that makes no sense”, “why should I respect the elders when they treat me like that”, etc. It’s not like neurotypical people cannot question these things, but I feel like we’re just coming from a different position. I constantly feel like these kinds of social "rules* are forced upon me and not based on any logic, thus I remain skeptical of them. But I’ve also learned that while they’re nonsensical, it’s often way easier to pretend to abide by them and go with the flow. Constantly fighting every little nonsensical rule will not make you popular, so you got to pick your battles
i’ll note that here in sweden (at least where i live) we’re pretty good at tolerating people who don’t conform, and lo and behold my autism almost completely fucking disappears so long as i’m not in a formal setting.
It really shows how it’s not necessarily an inherent disability, and i’d go so far as to say that the obvious negative symptoms of autism aren’t actually autistic, they’re symptoms of suffering.
Yeah for the most part I feel like that as well. I’m Dutch and I feel like our society is pretty compatible with autistic people. Not overly social, compared to countries around us we have a relative disregard for hierarchy and the norm, and we’re internationally famous for being direct. At the office we can basically just be blunt to eachother, I can just tell my managers on their face that I think they’re wrong and present my arguments why. I’ve noticed that our German colleagues in comparison basically lick the boots of their management every morning, they almost seem afraid to speak up when something isn’t right.