And it has all kinds of implications and context and shit.
How the fuck am I supposed to tell what’s just people doing things at random and what’s a part of all-singing-all-dancing-shit-show the neurotypicals call “social norms”? Down with NTs.
Honestly while it’s really fucking annoying that refusal to participate could result in some silly neuronormo interpreting a completely innocuous action as an offense, and it can cut you off from social shit, I think it’s basically the only way. The same button never does the same thing twice. Screeching rn.
mfw I found out that “are you hungry” actually means “will you eat with me” and “what’re you doing this weekend” means “would you like to make plans?” 🤦
these are things I learned in the last 12 months – I just turned 42
pretty much all the time, it feels like everyone got a memo that I missed
Once again this comes down to allistic people being afraid to be honest or vulnerable. If i ask you to go for dinner and you say no i have all the bad feelings of rejection and shame. If i say “are you hungry?” And you say not really i can still continue as if i wasn’t rejected.
It used to be an innuendo to ask a person “would you like to see my etchings(drawings)?” I remember a teacher of mine finding old newspaper comics that reinforced this
I often ask my wife “are you hungry” and then we both have a discussion about both our hunger levels and actual willingness to eat, lmao
We really do need a Gayroller-2000 style emote for neurotypicals.
your comment made me realize that’s the exact conversation I have with my husband about food, tooNTs are the weirdos, we make perfect sense!
People ask this because it’s an invitation to eat with someone without the respondant having to admit that they are would like to be fed, which could be consisdered as implying that their host or whatever is being negligent to the needs of their guest. It is a little silly. But, and I am a ND person who has learned a lot of this by trial and error, there are deep instinctual behaviors that these rituals are about. I’m not here to say whether or not any of this is good or not, but especially the rules about hospitality strike me as things that got ingrained into culture in order to make common uncomfortable situations more reliable by the means of rituals that people follow or don’t, indicating whether or not they’re someone who is going to play their prescribed role - this is maybe why there are often many ritual refusals and acceptances. It’s a way to play-act giving someone something that historically might have been precious and if they don’t play along, you can weed out people who are likely to take advantage of you. It’s imperfect of course and not considerant of neuroatypical people, but it just kind of had to work well enough to keep going.
It is definitely frustrating to not know ettiquette and I often feel like throwing all of it out in favor of a more direct system. Sometimes I do! But for the rest of the time, I find that ettiquette manuals are super helpful, especially when they explain the reasoning behind otherwise inscrutable rituals.
Might I ask which pointless social norm prompted this? I’m pretty good at helping my wife who’s autistic navigate them.
My ADHD ass understands that I’m breaking the social norm but reaaallly needed to say something lol
