Why are neurotypicals in charge of making up the social rules? They're not even very good at it.
Why are neurotypicals in charge of making up the social rules? They're not even very good at it.
Edit: A few people have interpreted the title as serious, so I wanna clarify that it was meant as a sarcastic joke about how little sense the neurotypical world makes to me, but it is still legitimately me asking for help understanding said neurotypical world.
Was having a conversation with a friend today about why I seem unapproachable to people online. Apparently it's for 2 reasons.
One is that I say "K." all the time, as a short way of saying okay. She pointed out that most people find this rude and offensive. This kinda baffled me, because like why? She explained that like, if somebody were to give a long emotional speech and I just responded "K." that would be offensive. That confounds me. So it's rude in one context, and neurotypicals have decided to be offended by it in all contexts? But the reason it's rude is what confuses me more. Apparently it's considered lazy because you could have just typed out the word, but like, that applies to all text speech and nobody's mad about people shortening those words.
But it got more confusing when she explained the second reason, which is that I end all of my sentences with proper punctuation, which she said "makes people feel like I'm done with the conversation and not interested." But just a second ago improper grammar was rude, and now proper grammar is rude instead.
It baffles me. You can't just use proper or improper grammar. Use too much improper grammar and you're lazy and rude. Use too little and you're also rude. But you can't just use any improper grammar, you have to use the very specific subset of improper grammar that's been deemed acceptable and not lazy (even though it's exactly as lazy as what they do consider lazy.)
To be clear, I'm not bitter, and I'm definitely gonna adjust my behavior to hopefully seem a little less rude to people. I think that's just a nice thing to do. I just find the neurotypical mind utterly fascinating. I don't think they even realize how many contradictions exist in the social rules they all so easily accept.
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i haven't read any comments yet, so forgive me if i repeat something.
i think your friend is very, very bad at explaining the reasoning, and from what i hear, most neurotypicals are! a lot of times, the "rules" do make sense, but then they spout bullshit like this that makes it baffling.
the reason "k." is a somewhat offensive response is because, on average, people who are upset or displeased speak and communicate tersely. a lot of people, myself included, turn "okay" into "k" when annoyed. sometimes it's intentional rudeness. based on how brains associate related information, even if someone doesn't think you're upset with them, there's still likely to be a knee-jerk response that "k." is an unpleasant and unwanted response, because any other time it usually is.
a lot of this stuff is based on connotation and usage, which can obviously be difficult for autists to learn or intuit. ask someone who only knows through personal intuition and they'll likely speculate or make stuff up. i guess I'm technically speculating too, but i have a level of personal insight and social mindfulness that most don't, and "it's lazy grammar" is just a wholly useless and meaningless explanation.