I do it to a certain amount cos I have to in order to do ok at work etc.
I like toast.
I just try to do enough to not be a pain in anyone’s ass. I work in IT and run into a lot of people who don’t and it fucking sucks to deal with them.
I started masking in diapers :(
Our first president died because they drained too much blood because that’s how they thought medicine worked.
We got here through sheer will in a world that is now totally unrecognizable to our founders.
We need an update.
I have been following expectations less and less, it is really good for my quality of life and I recommend it personally.
I’m trans and homeless though so I never get hired and everyone treats me like a criminal by default anyway lol even though I’m clean and healthy they think I’m dirty and weird because of my recycled clothes and that I dress for the weather and comfort which doesn’t align with their gender expectations. I just treat it like a really good flea dip, everyone who treats me with kindness is more trustworthy.
I gave up on finding work in August when things didn’t work out with an amazing case manager. She could get anyone a job, the problem is the market was ignoring me outright. I got certified and tons of volunteer experience along the way but none of it was worth it or got me what I was looking for in life.
I’ve been learning how to live outside in the city and out in nature too. Learning to identify plants and forage. My partner is amazingly kind and supportive thankfully, although they often struggle too. It’s way more rewarding because these skills can carry me through the rest of my life and give me autonomy that no one can take away through outside pressure.
I also don’t know how to act my age because I’ve never been this old before.
The people that “made the rules” knew exactly what they were doing. It’s silly to think otherwise. The intentions and goals just did not align with the masses. The system is working perfectly for their children and their children’s children.
Don’t assume stupidity is the answer for a system more easily understood by maintaining power and material benefit for a specific class. All that does is give you a sense of a intellectual victory that is meaningless in obtaining, what you really need, a material one.
This is about societal behavioral expectations, comrade, not material and economic class structures.
No ruling class cabal designed small talk, ambiguous subtext, and sensory overload to extract surplus value from the proletariat. The post is about the exhausting, arbitrary social etiquette neurotypicals made up on the fly. Not everything is Capital. Sometimes people just want to exist without having to perform conversational gymnastics.
I mean, that can be your interpretation of the post. But “rules” can mean multiple things here. And they are not independent either. Expectations of social behavior are shaped by economic class structures. It’s not some independent and unrelated thing even if your interpreting “rules” is purely a in social behavioral way.
I don’t interpret the post as referring to small talk or sensory issues. These are things I struggle with; but I don’t see them as “rules” that don’t make sense. I see them as expectations that I personally struggle with. But they aren’t unreasonable to me. I see them as social or environment constructions that are not made for people with my type of mind. But, I can understand why people enjoy small talk. I can understand why Costco is lit up like a warehouse with annoying bright lights. I don’t at all see these as “illogical rules”. I understand why they exist in a world made for normies.
The “rules” that I see as illogical are ones that every type of working class person suffers from; but, are especially obvious and difficult for someone with my (our) type of brain.
Its obviously not the only factor. But the alienation caused by our economic structures is a major struggle for those of us that form social relationships primarily through the connection we have through sharing the products of our labor. That connection is entirely abstracted and removed by the “rules” of modern modes of production. The relationship to our labor is not to the production of goods and services, but to a faceless and emotionless number through our wage. It’s why I spend my free time making things for others (leathercraft mostly). I struggle with making social connections as normies do; but connect with others through the products of my labor or shared interest of it. It’s a fundamental part of how I form relationships and is entirely non existent in most jobs today.
And this is not the only social behavior that is restricted and enforced by the capitalist mode of production. It goes further when you realize that capitalism is the current means of enforcing patriarchy within a society.
Id recommend reading on topics of family and social structures and how expectations are enforced through the economic class structures and how they are used to enforce patriarchy.
Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism is a good book to read. But this isn’t a “new” idea. Marx wrote extensively on the topic in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State.
There is a reason its called Socialism. Social expectations and class structures are interwoven.
Friedrich Engels wrote “The Origin of the Family”, by the way, not Marx.
I don’t disagree with your points on alienation, the abstraction of labor, or finding authentic connection through physical craft like leatherwork. That’s all real, and it affects us heavily.
But insistently reframing an offhand vent about the exhausting, arbitrary social scripts of life into a lecture on historical materialism is over-intellectualizing the point. Yes, the economic base influences culture, but neurotypicals didn’t need a bourgeois mandate to invent confusing social etiquette, ambiguous conversational games, and masking.
Not every expression of neurodivergent burnout is a dialectical thesis waiting to happen. Sometimes people are just exhausted by the daily theater of “how you’re supposed to do life,” and you don’t need a reading list to validate that feeling.
I haven’t told many people at work about being autistic. I think my boss and only a few other people really know. Normally, as my work rarely includes human interactions, I don’t have many problems; most of the human contact is with few people and they understood a while ago that I don’t have so-called filters when it comes to certain things, so they learnt to accept my straightforward mind when I speak about anything without even considering that I’m ND.
However, today I’m about to make my autism an everyone’s problem.
I’ve been invited to the typical “department christmas dinner” (mandatory fun! yay!). I tried to politely refuse saying that I don’t like the proposed menu of the restaurant and that I don’t feel like going because I don’t like these events. They’ve been insisting in making me go because they can’t accept a polite “no” as an answer. Well, I’m about to do a coming out and make everyone uncomfortable about why I’m not going explaining that my autism makes being among many people in a loud and flashy environment really difficult for me and the fixed menu they chose include things that would make me puke if I tried to eat them. Can’t wait to make them feel embarrassed for not having accepted my answer when I politely declined to go.
No is a complete sentence, you can just say no and not go. They’ll likely not feel embarrassed, justifying whatever they said as reasonable and assume you making “a big deal” out of it is because you’re autistic. They’d likely be very understanding if you told them, but calmly that it wasn’t for you because you were neurodivergent but as soon as you make a big grand stand out of it they’ll go on the defensive and treat you like an attention seeking weirdo and probably find it cringe. People don’t care about the reality others experience, if they feel defensive they’ll always be working against you
Yeah I get where you’re coming from. I think you still have an option to say no and define your boundaries a little more clearly without it being a huge deal, if thats something you want to consider.
I think the question to ask is: “Am I expected to enjoy this Christams party if I go? Because those kinds of events are really not my cup of tea.”
Give them a strike two before you give them a taste.
How mature to ruin everyone’s Christmas dinner because they wanted to spend time with you. That’s like the most stereotypical teenager move. You could just pretend you’re sick and not go or ask hr for accommodations beforehand.
OP said “I tried to politely refuse”
As an AuHD person, this mentality annoys the hell out of me. Few things are more frustrating than being around a rigid, inflexible person who is stuck in their ways.
Try to be more open-minded and willing to try new things, guys. It’ll change your life for the better.
Based that Threads post.
“I reject your reality and substitute my own”
-My future T-shirt
I don’t think I ever knew what the expectations were. I’ve always been the weird odd one out and I’ve always been made aware of it. I don’t work any more, so I just do what I do and don’t care what anyone else thinks.
In not sure anyone knows what the rules are. The more I talk to people and learn how they go through life the more I realize everyone is really different, I assume they generally do what they learn from their parants. Like things that should go in the fridge vs not is a whole thing
I try to fit it in too but some expected behaviors are so nonsensical I can’t follow them. For instance, staying in the theater until the very end of the credit roll. I know people do it out of respect, but it’s not like they’re gonna remember any of the crew’s names. Oh and I can’t ask people how are you doing because I expect an honest answer.
On that last bit, I think it is a new phenomena with after credits scenes being prevalent during the 2010s and Marvel’s hayday. Every other movie had one it seemed, so people just started staying to the end just in case. Before Marvel made that trend popular, it was incredibly common for almost the entire audience to immediately leave once the credits started rolling.
Suppose to do life at work, yes. Outside of there, I don’t give a damn what you think!
