Ever notice how any time someone calls you "cringe", 99 times out of 100 what they mean is "you're happy and I don't like it"

No one ever calls bullying cringe. No one ever calls rudeness cringe. No one ever calls toxic negativity cringe. Only hobbies get called cringe. Only enjoying things get called cringe. Only jokes and mannerisms and interests get called cringe.

I think it needs to become common knowledge that "inability to read social cues" can show up as overcompensating.

You don't know how much misbehaviour is allowed, so you become the perfect child who never tests rules.

You don't know if someone is irritated with you, so you'll be extra generous and self-effacing.

You don't know how much is expected of you at work so you'll kill yourself in a minimum-wage job and not notice that nobody else is working like this.

"Hardworking and quiet" should be as much of an autism red flag as "ignores rules and doesn't know when to stop talking". Or why don't we just start using words to communicate so i can stop tracking everybody's eyebrow twitches, that would be great.

Sometimes (though not nearly as often) you get subtypes of this where overcompensating even grows into a special interest. I'm looking at you, autistic actors, psychologists, etiquette experts, interculturalists, anthropologists, sociologists, hospitality gurus, fiction writers, philosophers... All you bemused scholars of humanity.

"Ah, this doesn't apply to me... after years of intense study, I can reliably read most social cues!"

When you spend all day in a performance where you are so incredibly Normal and Socially Skilled and then collapse into a nonverbal puddle as soon as you get home, that's an autism.

...

Also. "Not picking up on social cues" is a frame of the situation which looks in from the outside, where "social cues" are a mundane, obvious facet of reality.

As an internal experience, it feels more like: "Most other human beings are weird and unpredictable, especially in groups. They seem to have shared sets of secret rules and nearly imperceptible ways of communicating which lead to erratic, disturbing behavior."

In addition: if you notice that your ability to parse and respond to social cues suddenly goes to absolute shit when you are tired or distracted... you might be looking at hypervigilant social compensation. like a swan gliding through a pond full of sailboats. sure, you might actually be more maneuverable and faster than the sailboats in some circumstances, but boy howdy are those little feets paddling underneath the surface..

....oh.

So much this.

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It's not that I don't want to visit, it just wasn't on the list I made in my head

In complete seriousness, they need to make laws about ads that say they can take no more than one, maybe two, clicks/taps to close/skip. No more "wait 10 seconds until you can skip the video, wait 10 seconds until you can skip the fake playable ad, wait 5 seconds until you can close the 'download now' overlay, puts up a half-screen in-app appstore pop-up (which at least you can close immediately)." This should literally be illegal to do.

Edit: this is blowing up so I just wanted to add (haha ad) that this was my "reasonable request" I also think there should be way more and way stricter laws around all advertising in general. I think most advertising as we know it today should be abolished.

finding it necessary to remind everyone that it's seasonal. i promise you it's seasonal. everyone i know is out of their minds right now in some way or another. it's seasonal.

chronic fatigue from mental illness and neurodivergency isn't something you can just will your way out of. your nervous system is part of your body. your brain is an organ. the fatigue is real. you're not lazy. so be kinder to yourself. be gentler with your bodymind.

if you want to support autistic people you really do need to shut up about picky eaters. sorry

‘but this adult doesnt eat vegetables! thats so immature!’ ok so explain to me how this affects you at all. get over it perhaps

Okay, this might be an unpopular opinion, but if you want to combat the spread of misinformation then you have to let go of any belief that people not talking about an issue means that they don’t care. The only way to reduce the spread of misinformation and disinformation is to research claims before you spread them, and there is so much information constantly being thrown at people through social media and the 24 hour news cycle that it’s impossible to fact check every claim. The same can be said about AI generated images, if you look closely then you can notice certain tells that something is AI generated but no one really has the time to analyze every single image that crosses their path.

If we expect people to talk about and spread information on every social/political/economic issue that occurs then the result will be that people will spread misinformation/disinformation because they will not have the time or mental capacity to research every single thing that happens on Earth just to make sure that they aren’t being fed incorrect information.

Only researching claims that set off a red flag or seem incorrect doesn’t actually do much to prevent misinformation, because there are plenty of claims that will seem correct on the surface or that will align with your view of the world that you won’t think to research. You have to research every claim if you want to avoid misinformation, and you can’t research every claim made by someone online.

The only solution is to accept that some people aren’t going to talk about certain issues, not because they don’t care, but because they have chosen to focus on other issues for the time being and don’t want to talk about an issue that they don’t know much about. And we really need to stop treating that like a bad thing. If you spread yourself too thin then you’re not going to accomplish anything. It’s actually good to have people devoting themselves to learning about and fighting a specific issue, that’s how progress is made.

ahem

ADHD pro tip: Use psychological warfare on yourself.

For example, in order to do long tasks, like folding laundry, I put on the Mario Hat:

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The main feature of the Mario hat is that my headset does not fit over it, so when The Bees™ try to put me back in front of the screen, the headset issue forces me to remember why I put the Mario hat on, and back to the task I go

As a bonus, the Mario hat is also a very clear indicator to my housemates that business is getting done, and they have learned not to distract me when I'm wearing the "goofy-ass cosplay hat"

It's not stupid if it works.

id: an image of a cosplay mario hat. /end id

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