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The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

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Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#461

Post by Jerrrry »

exmadscientist wrote: post #430
frognumber wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now, we increasingly like to stick labels on things, and I'm not sure it's helpful. Autism is a disorder, diagnosed in DSM V. Very few people in your life are likely to be autistic. As with many such things, it's a spectrum. Unless those cross a pathological threshold, it's not autism. Few SWEs are over that threshold. We used to call people "nerdy," "quirky," or other things (and it was okay to be that). That'…

Ironically, my experience with people close to me is that obsession with labels is actually a pretty decent hallmark of autism. One family member, upon receiving a new "diagnosis" (usually self-diagnosed) actually changes their affect to become more like the textbook examples for that label. (And has done this more than once.) It can be very frustrating to deal with. This person has been diagnosed as on the autism sp…

The need to identify and label is a n objectifying cope to an otherwise unfamiliar alien world.

Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#462

Post by exmadscientist »

Jerrrry wrote: post #461
exmadscientist wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, my experience with people close to me is that obsession with labels is actually a pretty decent hallmark of autism. One family member, upon receiving a new "diagnosis" (usually self-diagnosed) actually changes their affect to become more like the textbook examples for that label. (And has done this more than once.) It can be very frustrating to deal with. This person has been diagnosed as on the autism sp…

The need to identify and label is a n objectifying cope to an otherwise unfamiliar alien world.

Wanting to label things isn't a problem.

Identifying things such that they become their labels and are defined by those labels is really, really harmful. You see this in BPD, too (borderline personality disorder, which the person I mentioned has also been formally diagnosed with): if someone is "good" today then they can do nothing wrong, or if they are "bad" today, then they can do nothing right... independent of the actions themselves. The same behavior, in the same context, can be received in completely different ways depending on the label the BPD person feels like assigning today. That's not healthy.

What I was getting at above is that this style of interpretation of labels seems to be somewhat common among neurodivergent people, and it's a fallacy that doesn't do anyone any good. Labels as guides or to help set priors are fine. Labels as definitions are not, and when people get upset, it's worth checking in and seeing if there's a map-territory / label-definition mistake being made.

Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#463

Post by ternnoburn »

dot1x wrote: post #451
ternnoburn wrote: post #194

This author is deeply deeply misunderstanding other humans. They are applying a "it worked for me, therefore it works for all" mentality. And worse yet, coming to the wrong conclusions. You do not need to be an extrovert at work to get ahead. Full stop. Does it help in some ways? Sure, but you can be equally successful as an introvert as long as you are able to communicate clearly when needs demand it. Plenty of exce…

Don't see how this discredits the article. Making 1M a year as an autistic person might just mean you're a good trader that requires 0 human interaction. Says nothing about anything really.

I'm a manager of an engineering team.

Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#464

Post by jeltz »

XorNot wrote: post #102
rors wrote: post #44

I feel like a lot of these debates boil down dealing with discomfort. We seem to be creating a society where everyone feels they have the right to not feeling stressed and uncomfortable. The danger to never feeling challenged is that you don't grow. You get stuck in a rut and everyone passes you by. Part of dealing with discomfort is learning what your limits are. No one should put themselves in a situation with you…

This is the sort of take that just sounds entitled, because the person giving it is doing so from a position of not having discomfort created for them by the actions of someone else. Like let's put this in context: replace "being an introvert" for "your friend flies you out to the forest, and then happily announces we're going to be hiking 20 km back to town. You really need to challenge yourself!"

Your replacement only strengthens the parent's point to me. Sounds like a fun little challenge that I would love if one of my friends gave me. I wish I had friends like that.

Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#465

Post by vasco »

knorker wrote: post #455
vasco wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is funny that you reply to a diatribe about not attaching yourself to labels to come across as very defensive of the label you've given yourself. My whole point is we're not anything, you're not an introvert is my point.

I think you missed my point. Your comment reads as "to those who call themselves X: No, you're not at all a bad person!". Like, they never said they were. I don't label myself. It's a description. I could tell you I'm white, and your reply could equally well be "no, you're not a bad person. You should stop labelling yourself as white". I… didn't say I was a bad person. Nor did I say my identity revolves around whiten…

This is really funny.

Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#466

Post by hnbad »

Suppafly wrote: post #415
hnbad wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with ADHD. People with ADHD often experience social friction because they may be perceived as rude or bad listeners. Plus of course there's significant overlap between people with ADHD and autistic people (as well as an overlap in symptoms). ADHD doesn't have to present as being fidgety and hyper either, inattentiveness (i.e. not being able to control your focus well) is another big aspect. If as a kid you kept…

>Plus of course there's significant overlap between people with ADHD and autistic people (as well as an overlap in symptoms). I'm honestly surprised more people with ADHD and similar don't push to be considered as part of the autistic spectrum, it's seems somewhat obvious that there it too much overlap to pretend otherwise.

AuDHD is a thing (in the sense of being a term in neurodiversity spaces, not in the sense of being recognized as a diagnosis) but generally the consensus seems to be that while there may be an overlap in symptoms presenting in people with ADHD vs autistic people, the underlying causes/experiences are often different. So someone with ADHD might be socially awkward because they find it hard to focus on the other person whereas an autistic person might be socially awkward because they find it intrinsically difficult to gauge what the other person expects from them.

Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#467

Post by Viliam1234 »

frognumber wrote: post #340
lll-o-lll wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be a bit autistic, common enough in the software world. Lookup something called “autistic masking”. Source: All the autistic people in my life. I really like autistic people! Find your people and you won’t have to pretend around them.

Right now, we increasingly like to stick labels on things, and I'm not sure it's helpful. Autism is a disorder, diagnosed in DSM V. Very few people in your life are likely to be autistic. As with many such things, it's a spectrum. Unless those cross a pathological threshold, it's not autism. Few SWEs are over that threshold. We used to call people "nerdy," "quirky," or other things (and it was okay to be that). That'…

> whether you're invigorated by interacting with people or tired by it, and especially by people you don't know well.

In my experience, that depends on the people. Even if I don't know them well, sometimes the interaction starts great, and sometimes it is exhausting.

From my perspective, some people are loud and annoying, and their communication seems mostly about establishing a dominance hierarchy. Other people are nice and calm, and they... discuss things, without necessarily making it about them being better than everyone else.

But I would probably call myself an introvert, because when there is a larger group of people, there is usually someone who makes it a battle for dominance, so from my perspective almost all larger groups suck. But I have also seen groups where no one was like this, and they were okay. They are just very rare.

Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#469

Post by ternnoburn »

d0liver wrote: post #367
ternnoburn wrote: post #194

This author is deeply deeply misunderstanding other humans. They are applying a "it worked for me, therefore it works for all" mentality. And worse yet, coming to the wrong conclusions. You do not need to be an extrovert at work to get ahead. Full stop. Does it help in some ways? Sure, but you can be equally successful as an introvert as long as you are able to communicate clearly when needs demand it. Plenty of exce…

If you don't mind my asking, what do you do?

Manage an engineering team

Re: The trap of "I am not an extrovert"

#470

Post by interludead »

sweezyjeezy wrote: post #241
interludead wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Success is about the skills, contributions and value you bring to the table, not about how much you talk

This sounds naive. Most companies have some degree of 'politics' which is essentially people working in their own interests over the company's. This is somewhat unrelated to skills and value. Also particularly in large organisations, work is not a perfect information game - there is no easy way to assign a fair / public a "value" to people to let you compare two employees. Most people will need to sell themselves or…

I didn’t mean to dismiss the importance of advocating for yourself or building relationships. My comment was more about the foundation of success
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