Published on 12, July, 2020
I've realised that among my various aspie social blunders one of the biggest ones might be rolling right over social capital in environments where it seems ambiguous or where there's no clearly definable clique.
In real 'face to face' life there's a sense that you don't say certain things around people in social leadership because it seems to suggest that you have no clue what the pecking order is or that there is a pecking order, a lot of that pecking order has a fair amount to do with who does what (the problem that a lot of people put a lot of work into various things and it doesn't show on the surface other than how people regard them), and if you're going to speak cleverly you have to do it in rather small groups and be sure you're not accidentally peacocking over the leader without providing anything of equal or greater value in terms of drudgery with respect to group involvement.
I've also noticed that intellectual conversation and people who are into it often get frowned upon because they irritate people in this manner. That makes me wonder, if I find myself online in various places - whether Facebook or other similar venues - and garnering the silent treatment simply by being even the slightest bit chatty or outgoing, it's like there's very much a 'That's great that you posted that, or that would otherwise be a good article or good piece of music but.... who the **** are you again?'. I'm talking about big forums where people come in from all over the place and don't know each other (not the NAS forum).
Any thoughts on the mechanics of that? Are there philosophical mechanics that I'm missing in my observations above or is it really as simple as everyone being lukewarm about liking anything that certain other key people haven't ? It seems like powerfully uniform behavior, I do watch them exclude a lot of people routinely and it can be tricky to spot the rhyme or reason. If it's just small-mindedness I can get over it, if I'm actually being a rascal on some level though I'd rather know it and withhold that sort of thing for the odd times where it actually would be intended as received - otherwise it's a simple communication failure and not one I'd want to continue on with.
(Disclaimer: This post is based on one I saw someone post in another Autism forum. I've edited it slightly to reflect what is true to me from the post. I'm using this person's post as they express it better than I could myself.)
Interesting topic. I guess it depends on the forum and the platform. I know for example that some of the forums associated with my Ham Radio hobby have some members who always seem to be on the lookout for someone asking an innocent question so that they can demonstrate their superior knowledge and experience (rather than actually answering the question asked in a kindly way). Also Twitter seems to exist nowadays simply for people to throw insults at each other, or repeat entrenched and polarised views to show their prowess and allegiance with one side of the argument.
I must admit though that I've never seen the "Nice point but who are you?" insult.
Maybe come back with more specific examples?
I'm done with Christmas Cards said: some of the forums associated with my Ham Radio hobby have some members who always seem to be on the lookout for someone asking an innocent question so that they can demonstrate their superior knowledge and experience (rather than actually answering the question asked in a kindly way)
Yes, that's something I'm familiar with too, mostly on coding forums in my case. As a moderator of one of the very small ones for the last decade or so, I have always been saddened whenever I've had to put my moderator hat on to deal with someone who has the expertise to be a huge asset to the site, yet insists on belittling people or even resorts to name calling when they've blinded a newcomer with science. I find it odd that they often seemed very concerned about their reputation, on a site with no voting or liking, so the only kind of reputation possible is one derived from one's friendliness and the usefulness of one's help (it has a generally very likeable membership in that sense, I'm pleased to say). Part of me is quite thankful that the site membership has shrunk over the years so that I very rarely have to don my moderator hat these days (I'm mostly a human spam-filter!)
Thanks for the reply, it wasn't so much people were saying anything insulting to me, it's more they were ignoring things I'd posted.
I made a friend locally who was a musician and he posted on my Facebook wall a few times, so I gathered he wanted to have contact with me.
So I replied to one or two of his posts on his wall and when I would all his friends would go quiet, and sometimes even he ignored what I'd said, like I'd killed the mood.
I think it's because they wrote everything in short hand. They wrote like this:
Nice one lad!
Smashed it!
Awesome mate
I wrote a couple of sentences that went into detail which might have been perceived as "intellectual". I got the feeling that was where I'd gone wrong.
So my curiosity is was I being a ****head? A show off? Or was it just small minded-ness on their part?
That's just one example. Sure I could think of a better one if I had a better memory. Sorry!