Published on 12, July, 2020
How comfortable are you in breaking the unwritten rules of society?
Most of us auties are keen to fit in and hide in plain sight so doing things that are considered wrong is hard for us.
We went out yesterday to a Pizza Hut (daughter's choice as she's just finished uni for the year).
We sat down and started going through the menus and I could not believe the prices being charged for a basic pizza.
£15 for a 9" pizza (I consider that a kid's pizza) and over £20 for an normal pizza. Including drinks, dessert & tip we would be up near £100 for some pizza!!!!
I was stuck for a few seconds - I've never walked out of a restaurant before ordering and I'd be disappointing my daughter - but - Holy Crap! I cannot blow that much cash for a sugary, over-salted, mass-produced garbage. pizza.
I was stuck in glitch-mode for a minute or so until - NO - I can't do it - I can't waste that much money - so we got up with everyone looking at us - the waitress was confused - and we just said thanks but no thanks and we left.
We went along to a very nice Italian restuarant (if I'm paying for expensive pizza, I want a decent pizza) but as we got there 10 minutes before their daytime menu ended, we got the discounted rate - £6.95 for amazing 15" pizzas. Couldn't manage it all - it was great.
Maybe we should stand up for ourselves more often.
Sooooo - What have you done recently to break your programming?
For me rules have to make sense. If the rule makes sense then it would cause me huge anxiety to even thing about breaking it. If the rule didn't make sense then I would have less issue although it would be dependent on the consequence of breaking said rule. I hate being embarrassed for example so if breaking the rule was going to make me centre of attention, I wouldn't do it.
Having said all this. I'm not sure I'm fully aware of all the unwritten rules. I think I'm happily oblivious to some of them.
I can't think of any recent examples of breaking the rules or my programming.
Yes I'll follow rules if I know why or it makes sense. Quite often though you'll ask why and the response will be "we've always done it this way" which is not a reason :p I'll do it my way, the correct / safer way. I don't like rules for rules sake. Regarding the pizza hut thing, I won't go into chain restaurants / coffee shops etc pretty much for this reason. They are only profit making machines. Local companies are much better.