Published on 12, July, 2020
Alright people, my current special interest is learning how NTs think because I was recently diagnosed and I want to understand how I'm different. Here we go with my revelation infodump of the day. Ahhh! I'm so excited to share it!
I often get told that I am very good at explaining things, both general knowledge and social. For example, I can tell someone how I feel about them in precise detail to the point that people have asked me how I do it. They are also sometimes insulted or upset with me for it. This seems odd to me since I don't consider myself some type of savant with a deep spiritual connection to the world that likes to insult people. Rather, I have so much trouble doing things that other people seem to handle quite easily, such as navigating the social environment at the work place or understanding social expectations like insisting on bringing a consumable item to a party that is going to have too much food anyway (such a waste!). Hell, when I live alone I fall apart. I need people to keep me in check. Anyway, before I explain, I want to note that I'm speaking here in generalities. There are neurotypicals and autistic people that don't fit my descriptions. Additionally, there are neurotypicals that have great big loving hearts and/or understand autistic people, which means that much of this will not apply to them. None of this is meant to place people in cages or offend anyone. It's just my latest special interest and I want to infodump. Back to the topic, so why are people treating me like I have some special power like a genius even though I have a lot of difficulty with common tasks and settings?? Here's why.
Social hierarchy: Neurotypicals (NT) constantly have a quietly understood social hierarchy. The higher they are on this hierarchy, the more power they have over the social setting. Higher-ranked people will be able to violate rules more often, have people laugh at their jokes more often, and access to more people and favors. They will also have more options for romantic partners. Lower-ranked people will have less access, often have to carry more weight of the social group, and often mistreated. As such, NTs innately understand that they need to be as high as possible on this scale. They can do this either by competing with their current social group or choosing another social group in which they know they would be higher. The scale's unit is popularity. Regularly, NTs will indirectly discuss the scale by asking it, "Who's better?", "Who's cooler?", or "Who do you like more?" This is how they check in with each other to confirm their understanding of the scale. Side note: since autistic people don't play the social hierarchy game, we frequently end up in the lower ranks. Second side note: there are NTs that believe they will always be lower ranking, so they also reject the hierarchy.
Mistakes: The main process to lower your rank is to make a mistake. Since mistakes are socially damaging, they are highly avoided. This leads NTs to not engage deeply into special interests. Why? Because to learn something well, you need to make a lot of mistakes. It is much safer to stay within your general organic skills.
Conformity: Avoiding mistakes leads to conformity because it's safer to follow everyone else than to pioneer your own path. "Should I wear this eccentric shirt that I love or will people think I'm a loser for liking it?" They learn to mask their true hearts for popularity points. As the Little Prince said, he could have been a better artist if the adults would have encouraged him to draw instead of insulting him. The same happens with NT's individual expression. They neglect it to conform, resulting in an underdeveloped true self. Conformity also creates and maintains the hierarchy because it establishes the rules. The higher on the hierarchy a person is, the more power they have over the rules.
Attention: Caring about and maintaining the hierarchy takes up a lot of attention. That's because (1) they have to think about it to maintain it, (2) they need to consider how their behaviors will affect their position, and (3) they need to think about what everyone else's behaviors mean about the hierarchy's structure and order. This can be quite exhausting. Do you wonder how an NT already knows how to dress for a specific event without asking? That's because while you've been engaged in your special interest, the NT has been thinking about the hierarchy. They spent their attention on that. So just like you know the history of the Battle of Stalingrad, they know the hierarchy.
Mental processing: NTs first see the whole thing, and then break it down into details if necessary. It serves as a filter to save attention for the social setting. An NT will think, "I have a car. I don't need to know how it works right now, so I will think about social status instead because that is currently more important." That also helps them communicate more efficiently because it saves energy from not thinking about or explaining details.
Emotions and social knowledge: NTs learn a lot about their emotions, others' emotions, and how they interact in social settings. It's necessary in their cultural environment. Otherwise, they may be placed in the lower ranks. They do this by reading body language and sharing how they feel with each other regularly. "How was your day?" is actually asking, "How are you feeling right now?" (see how they understood the whole sentence and not the specific individual words?). This gives the NT the ability to hear how someone is feeling and learn how that emotion looks in body language, especially in the eyes. They then create a database of everyone's body language so that they can tell how someone is feeling without asking. This is useful information in groups because it can help an NT decide how to respond in a manner that helps their rank. "Right now, everyone is feeling hungry. If I suggest that I will order food, everyone would like me more." See how that works? Or more nefariously, "He looks like he needs consolation, but his girlfriend is mad and ignoring him. If I console him with deep understanding and compassion, people will see that he likes me more than his own girlfriend, and that would put me above her." Additionally, this process also teaches them body language, and they then pick their favorite ones or learn to use them deceptively when "appropriate".
Social hierarchy: Autistic people (AUs) do not believe in the hierarchy (call me when we have our aurnachy revolution). If they see it, they often reject it for being pointless, oppressive, or invalid. This often leads to us being of lower rank. Have any of us in here been mistreated out of nowhere? lol. The AUs sometimes think of the hierarchy, but not to gain popularity. It's to avoid upsetting NTs or further mistreatment.
Mistakes: AUs are more prone to making mistakes because they tend to be less concerned or even unaware of the hierarchy. Since we feel fine making mistakes and often make them on purpose to see what happens, we have the ability to engage in special interests that are not within our best developed skill sets. Are you autistically "high functioning", have never played guitar, but have a drive to learn all of a sudden? Bye, I know I wont see you for a month, but when I do, you'll be playing solos. I've seen it happen.Conformity: AUs don't conform well for three reasons. One, they can reject the validity of the hierarchy. If they reject it for philosophical reasons or just plain don't see it at all, then they will just be their true self and do as they please regardless of the current trends in the hierarchy. If they reject it for moral reasons, they can become counter culture. Two, since they aren't as concerned even if they do see it somewhat, they're not familiar with the latest trends so they don't know how to conform. Three, we are invested in our special interest even in social settings, so that's where our heads will be at. "That's cool that your coworker is on vacation in Cancun. Did you know that the downtown part away from the tourist area is called El Centro and that the city's layout is in giant trapezoids they call supermanzanas which translates to superblocks? Sorry, I've just been reading a lot about Mexico lately and thought that was interesting."
Not conforming leads to culturally NT mistakes just like in that quote right there was a mistake by the AU because they didn't conform to the rules of small talk and pointed out that the other person didn't know something. Not knowing something makes them seem "stupid" in NT culture. It lowers their rank, so it's considered an offensive attack. Conforming would mean that you can only ask questions you are sure they know the answers to. This could be exacerbated if the NT engages in their cultural politeness rule of saying, "That's okay. What else did you learn?" The AU, so engaged with the topic because it's been playing a drum in their head all day and doesn't understand NT culture, may infodump instead of saying just one more fact. This will double down on the mistake, insult them more, and wear them out because they have to listen to all that while being offended. I know you're laughing because we've all been there.
Attention: Since our attention is on the special interest, we see two simultaneous outcomes. One, we miss many of the cues that show someone is applying the conformed rules of the hierarchy. This can lead to what NTs call "putting your foot in your mouth" or "being rude" and upset people. Two, because we don't dedicate our attention to those rules, we have extra energy to spend on topics that interest us. Therefore, we can learn a lot about whatever.
Mental processing: AUs see details first, then possibly the whole if necessary. The filter to save attention doesn't exist. This can lead to burn out, which causes AUs to need more rest and alone time. Moving on, an AU will think, "I have a machine outside that was engineered in Japan (I wonder what database program they use for spreadsheets, why, and how it looks?) and built in Mexico to transport me to places using rubber tires, 19 in. black rims, a specific shape that I like because it's aerodynamic and I like the appearance, a 1.5 liter internal combustion engine with fuel injectors and 4 pistons, a turbo to increase the pressure of the air intake. The engine sprays 91 octane gas into the cylinders and uses a spark to ignite, which increases the pressure and pushes the piston down, thus spinning the crank shaft that transfers the power to the 6-speed manual transmission because I like more control over the car, and then out to the tires. It sounds a certain way when I'm driving it. I wonder if I should consider getting gas in case I have an emergency and can't stop at a gas station. I really wish I could have an electric vehicle that I could just have charged up at home all the time." Sorry, I had a moment. Moving on, this detailed approach does not allow for spending attention on the social hierarchy, and the AU isn't interested in it anyway.
Emotions and social knowledge: AUs are limited with learning emotions from others because we avoid eye contact in most situations. It is too intimate and can even hurt. Since we can't practice learning emotions from eyes, we learn less about emotions in general, both others' and ours. Additionally, the lack of eye contact alienates us further because people will find us rude per their cultural values, so we have less opportunity to develop a wide range of social experiences to discuss and learn emotions. Plus, since we are not concerned with the hierarchy, we aren't as motivated to learn body language or everyone's emotions at all times. We expect someone to tell us how they are feeling if they want to share. We also expect the reverse and will share our emotions if someone asks directly. So, when we hear "How was your day?" what we hear is "What did you do today?" Since that's quite a vague question, we might tell them everything we did today. The NT will then become frustrated because the AU didn't answer their question and wasted their purposeful attention on something they did not want to hear.
Further on emotions, since we learn less about emotions, we have trouble sharing them because we have much less practice. Therefore, when an AU is asked how they are feeling, they don't know the exact word, so they have to describe it using their detailed-oriented style. This is good practice at describing things they don't know. Mix this with the detailed approach to thinking, and emotions aren't one word. What NTs call emotions is a set of body and mental sensations that all vary. AUs are very good at describing their emotions poetically or in-depth because they have to due to lack of practice and mental processing direction. This can create interesting or impressive expressions of emotions...when asked of course.
Are you ready for it?! Here we go. What's happening is a clash of cultures. We are living in two different worlds with two different minds. When I ask an NT that loves me how they feel about me, they are going to say, "I love you." It's the whole thing without details to save attention and they have practice doing it that way because they know how they feel generally. What I hear is, "I'm too tired to explain, but I don't want you to worry that I don't care about you," since they didn't go into detail. When they ask me, I'm not going to do that because love is different with every person. If I do that, I know I'm lying because I know the details are different for everyone or I'm being lazy. Additionally, I'm not really sure what love is. Really, when I say, "I love you," what I'm really saying is, "I know saying this makes you happy, so be happy." Instead, what I will do is explain the details of how my body feels. "When I'm around you, I feel safe, calm, and warm. You make me smile and I get shy looking at your eyes because it overwhelms me with a deep happiness, so I only look at them when I want to feel like melting from joy that you are in my life and healthy. However, sometimes I get scared that you are upset or unhappy, and that tears me up because I uncontrollably feel a commanding sympathy for your state, which prevents me from thinking about anything else. It's like there's a dark whirlwind in my head. I can't engage in anything else until you feel better because the sympathy has taken over, so I immediately try to solve it. That's why I care so much about how you are feeling. And, uh...Oh yeah, I like how you dress, so that's there too. So...yep, that's it. That's how I feel about you." I'm sorry, I don't know how to do anything else. I'm autistic. My brain is designed that way. Anyway, so what happens now? This is where things get interesting.
There are two general ways the NT can take this. The nice one is that they are charmed and flattered. That's great. The bad one is that I offended them because I just made them "lesser" by demonstrating my super power of not being able to group my feelings into categories called "emotions" for efficiency because I never had that training nor would my brain excel in it anyway. I don't know how to do it any other way. Hopefully, since this is someone I love, they will take it nicely. However, with someone more selfish -- hopefully not -- I really just demonstrated that they are not the bad ass they think they are. In this case, I will get a, "How did you do that?" because they want to learn to do it in front of others to be in the higher ranks.
Now, if I do this in front of a group of NTs, almost someone will surely be a little uncomfortable at the least. Why? One, because I just broke conformity by saying how I really felt and not using one simple overused statement that has lost its meaning. Two, because I just pulled out my autistic super power (i.e. limitations) and did something they have difficulty with because their way of thinking and culture has caused them to not develop the ability to explain things in great detail. Someone may be thinking, "Oh [poop]! I've never said that to anyone. People know I'm not as talented and my rank will be affected. Why did this show-off do that? He's such an [anus]." I do it out of necessity and lack of respect for conformity. They get upset because of my blatant lack of respect for their rules and doing something they currently can't with such ease. I'm an autist dealing with NTs. They're NTs dealing with an autist. It's a clash of cultures.
I can't help but to feel that this speaks to very specific social groups of people within very specific cultural contexts. What you describe sounds like an autistic trying very hard hard to understand allistics but without actually talking to allistics about why they are the way they are.
Some background here, I'm a social anthropologist so studying cultures and human behavior especially with regards to why people do the things they do is one of my specialities. So firstly, while I agree that some social groups certainly rely on hierarchies, not every social group or setting does. I don't mean to be dismissive of your experiences here, but it's important to recognize that they are your experiences and can therefore not be generalizable to everyone and every social context.
A lot of the time when allistics ask questions such as "How are you?", it's simply because they're interested to know more about you. The real communication misunderstanding occurs because whereas to allistics, these general questions are used as springboards to other topics of interest, to autistics they seem confusing at best and overly redundant at worst. Allistics are, compared to autistics, better at making things up, for the lack of a better word. Their communication is vague because their associative thinking requires less details in order to fill in the blanks.
I can't buy that being allistic automatically makes the person a power hungry gang member. Certainly, this is the case in certain social settings and certain cultures because some allistics DO care about social prestige, but the tendency towards prestige is often better described by other social theories such as the authoritarian personality style. In short, people with this personality style innately see society as hierarchical and that people should be divided into being more or less valuable based on merit, even when this notion of merit is steeped in racist, misogynistic and other forms of bigoted assumptions about others. Autistics are far from immune from developing this personality style; in fact, there's evidence to support that the far right may to a certain extent target young socially vulnerable people such as autistic youth, to join their cause.
Additionally, as much as you seem to want to emphasize that autistics are innately egalitarian, being liked is a universal feeling everyone strives to experience. You will observe how this also creates hierarchies within online autistic communities, especially based on whether you adhere to a social or a medical model (the medical model is innately more hierarchical). If you claim to be self-diagnosed, some autistic supporters of the medical narrative will blatantly scorn you. Autistics are not immune to ingroup dog whistles. This is simply how human socialization works.
With that said, some social settings and some cultures over the world are certainly more egalitarian than others. My country has overall a very egalitarian social culture. I really struggle to recognize the behaviors you ascribe to people in this post. Again, not every allistic is innately driven to act like they're in a criminal gang where being at the social bottom is often outright dangerous.
The likelihood of someone caring about prestige is highly dependent on how how likely they are to see society as hierarchical, because having power does only make sense in hierarchical social situations. A lot of the time for allistics, they are simply more prosocial e.g. they may pick up a hobby in order to meet new people because a sense of social belonging and feeling like they're a part of a group motivates them more than it does for autistics. It's much fairer to state that allistics are simply more aware of the social world around them and how it impacts them in different ways.
Again, this may have created cultural norms and behaviors that may to some degree create or depend upon social hierarchies especially within the confines of certain social settings and cultures; but just because that's the case sometimes it doesn't make it true all the time.