Published on 12, July, 2020
I always had to watch other people, mimic others phraseology and speech and either figure out or straight up be taught what is social normality and why this is the case. later in life I’d use phrases and words to fit in
example being: my friends would say “alright mate” or “hey man”
saying “mate” or “man” always felt weird to me and I had to adapt to this to feel like I fit in (mask-I guess) I felt like I was trying to be someone I’m not saying this at one stage. Now it’s a thing I say depending on the kind of company I’m with.
not something I’d ever instinctively do around other autistic people by the way. Calling my (autistic) girlfriend “babe” would be extremely weird for us both.
I don’t know if anyone here would know anymore about this than me! If not then just food for thought really
I’m just wondering if this is an exclusively autistic thing!
As social norms vary enormously between societies, they have to be learned. The difference is that neurotypical people learn these things largely subconsciously, like babies learn language, whereas we learn it mostly consciously, like a university student learning Japanese.
i think japanese norms maybe more natural for me.... dont say anything, just give a bit of a nod lol seems more natural. plus japanese dont look people in the eye as its a disrespectful challenge to do so.
likewise the Eastern European/Russian culture of customer service staff not smiling and looking ‘miserable’ as some might put it makes more sense to me. The culture there is all about being ‘serious and professional’ rather than the ‘service with a smile’ attitude that is so popular in America and by proxy the UK smiling at someone and making eye contact over there is considered an intimate thing between close people and that’s how it is for me tbh.
Yes! Absolutely! I’m from the post Soviet block country, and our culture has changed a lot during last 30 years. We call it everything gets American. No Offenes, but this is how it looks from the customer point of view. Often the older people complain, that the young customer service assistants are not professional and properly trained but smiling and looking in the eyes as if trying to flirt or something like that. And then they add “yeah, that all the big companies teach them”. This is also a reason once I lost a job as a customer service assistant. The “secret customer” wrote a report, that I was cod, not smiling and not making eye contact and the person had impression that I want to get rid of them asap. I just did my best to answer all the questions in a professional manner. Otherwise there were no complaints from the real customers about me. And since that situation I honestly feel sick, when looking for a job and seeing the happy faces of the customer service assistants in the job offers page. Now I’ve got a job that thank goodness I have very little contact to any customer.