interesting series of blog posts about autistic vs. allistic communication styles and the double empathy problem:
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For example, you could start a conversation with something like “I am interested in improving our relationship so that you can help me in my career, so I would appreciate the opportunity to buy you lunch.” If you simply offer to pay without providing such a motivation, it may be seen as manipulative; yet if the “manipulation” is made clear, so that the participant knows what they are consenting to, then it’s much more comfortable for them.
Yes, but also: absolutely not. Do not say this. The game of giving and receiving favors is played sub rosa, under the table, unacknowledged and consciously denied. What you are doing here is explicitly admitting to bribery, which is only a crime when motivation can be demonstrated.
And I better fucking not see a
Tap for spoiler
fucking bear
on my walk today.
This excerpt explains a lot: The autistic pattern of expounding at length on a topic of personal interest, aka infodumping, also arises from these occult grammar rules. If an autistic person knows a lot about a subject, then they have a social obligation to share that information.
In many autistic spaces online and in meatspace, these communication norms can emerge organically and result in very productive and pleasant interactions between autistic people (and allists who have learned to participate in the autistic mode of communication).
However, when viewed through the lens of allistic communication norms, these conversations can appear to be a relentless assault of posturing, dominance, combative interruption, nitpicking of minutiae, and a stubborn refusal to provide even the most basic human care for one another.
Meatspace, now with new smells™️
Aside from a social obligation to clear misunderstanding, infodumps can be interesting conversation. I personally strive to condense my stories to be very short, with “beg-the-question” hooks. No offense taken if they couldn’t care less and we move on. It’s a win if they have some barely adjacent experience to share
I dont think i’ve ever considered the infodump from that angle… it carries none of that intent whatsoever. I just get carried by the wave, happily so. Seems insane that it would be received as a diss.
Holy crap this is such a good and well written set of articles. I can’t speak to the accuracy of everything, though it seems to have been researched and written with accurate intent, but the parts that I live are spot on. Lots of little cool details in there. Shoutout to the thing autistics often do where we redefine terms on the fly in a conversation so we’re sure our message is communicated correctly, like “X can mean a few different things, so I’ll say Y when I mean thing 1 and Z when I mean thing 2”, which reminded me of some Flying Circus sketch where they awkwardly created a overt double hand spin gesture to indicate that they were done talking and it’s the other person’s turn to talk and not just the end of their sentence.
very detailed hypotheses all through out. I can agree with some of it. Some of it seems like it was given too much thought without referring substance to back it up.
6/10
Love the article, but hard disagree on the idea that allistic “communication” to establish social hierarchy has any value at all to non-allistics.
Saving this for later since it’s a long read, but unironic “occult utterances” is already intriguing
