121–130 of 521 posts
> 1. The allistic (non-autistic) person is not hearing what I'm saying. It's possible that they're not smart enough, literally. I find ease of communication is uncorrelated with whether they're on the spectrum or otherwise. It's their raw intelligence level. Somehow the bandwidth between our brains is really high. They often know what I'm saying before I've finished my sentence, because they've already figured it out…
It's called narcissistic entitlement to expect the whole world to change their behaviour because of ones own inability to fit in. I'm not saying it is fair. Life is never fair. The only one who has the ability to influence those situations is oneself. You can't rely on other to change - it won't work anyways. You have to be the one that improves those interactions. For your own good.
You're reading more into this piece than is there. The author never advocates that the rest of the world should change. This post only claims that these miscommunication scenarios between experts on the autistic spectrum and allistic people HAPPEN. They happen to me too. Understanding the nature of the miscommunication is the first step towards averting it in the future.
And me. I'm not autistic. I don't think I have any kind of Asperger's either.
I didn't see anything in author's prose that suggested autism; it just sounded like a normie, perhaps with an autism diagnosis, who is fretting about communication with their boss.
There seems to be quite a few commenters here making critical comments, as if author is failing to communicate effectively. I wonder if they'd have been so critical, if author hadn't self-identified as autistic. I wonder if some of these commenters have a bad attitude to self-identified autistics.
I've never known an autistic person well; but I worked closely in an office with an autistic developer. I found his code over-complex and hard to follow. Pair-coding with this guy was a waste of time; he couldn't explain what he was doing. Author, however, seems to be able to explain himself fine.
The issue with this article is how the author is approaching all of these discussions. There is no attempt to see the other person's perspective, or evaluate how the author should be approaching the discussion. This is very common among us Engineers but is a massive failure. If a manager comes over and suggests something to you, you need to understand their perspective for coming to that discussion, not asking questi…
> If a manager comes over and suggests something to you, you need to understand their perspective for coming to that discussion For someone having autism, this may be impossible. If they are open about their autism, one could argue that the manager should be the one trying to see the topic from two sides. One may also need to come up with a shared understanding where the manager has a way to inform the autistic perso…
And then, there is a lot of difficulty for the non-neurotypical to see anything beyond their "literal place on the totem pole", or their title. They lean on their experience to say what is right or wrong, even though they have far less context and the IC is trying not to ruffle feathers or hurt people's feelings.
It's interesting to me that all four examples put the blame with the other party. I hope it's just worded poorly or I am reading too much into it. Edit: I'm not saying that invalidates the article's content (in fact I recognize the situations from personal experience), but it doesn't really put a positive spin on it.
thanks for reading, author here! the article is very much a response to a blame already expressed. People can be wrong about factual things, which can be verified. Otherwise it’s a difference of opinions. These are my thoughts on why differences of opinions get phrased as “autistic people just can’t admit when they are wrong”, when myself and most autistic people I know in fact readily admit when we are wrong and mov…
If you start from your own set of priors and are getting nowhere, you probably want to consider there might be a more relevant fact (for that person, opinion alert!) that you don't know about and aren't considering.
1. If someone isn't listening, stop talking. Nobody is benefiting from that, and it's a waste of your time and energy. I get significantly better engagement with people when they can interact with me for information rather than getting an information dump. On rare occasions they ask me something that does have a long and complicated answer, I lead with that fact and ask if they want the full details or as brief of a summary as I can make (-vvv or -q).
2. Let people into your thought process. The way we associative thinkers work is completely different from what linear thinkers are doing. By walking them through your thought process (which is infuriatingly slow this way) they actually can vaguely follow why you're asking what you're asking. It also allows you to give early feedback. "There are lots of concerns that should be considered before re-writing any already working software..." Over time people will begin to understand _why_ they should ask you about certain things and they can be more understanding on what's going on under the covers.
3. I have expressed my concerns and don't believe this is the best strategy, however I will document these and will observe your orders. If it's something that keeps happening, I'm more likely to move jobs than I am to move mountains in an organizational structure. I also think it's worth at least being aware of the game, as someone who's had it played against them to significant detriment before.
4. Honestly, #1 and #2 solve this problem. It's not concincing to most NTs to recite information but allowing them to interact with you to discover the information themselves allows them to realize that you do understand the information at a deep level. We tend to recite things because a scripted response is a lot easier for us to provide, but it's not actually all that useful in the context of conveying information.
I read this as being strongly opinionated and egocentric.. I want to call it "ausplaining", this tendency to go "no no, YOU don't understand ME (because I'm special, not because I'm wrong)" whenever we get ourselves into situations like the exemplified. I do this A LOT as well, and when people do stick with me for long enough, I often find that I'm either getting my point across by re-framing my explanation, or disco…
Author here, thanks for reading. I didn’t give much information about my life, but I am pretty adept at playing all these games. So much so that I thought there was no way I could be autistic because of how many friends and business relationships I had. Until it hit me that I spent my 20ies doing what you suggest, which is studying the heck out of these things. But it stops at engineering, where I try to be very open…
If (for example) that one struggling colleague is shining in front of a superior and you are the guy who rains on his parade by nitpicking some detail he said, you might be technically right, but you end up being perceived as an asshole because you acted like one.
If if that example you strictly need to be right for some reason, you could also just talk to the guy afterwards etc.
And this is what all of it essentially boils down to: It is good to be right, as long as the way you communicate it is adequate for the situation.
If people have a low effort chit chat and don't want to go too deep into things, it might not be wise to get all excited and monologoue about how everything they know is wrong. If someone shows you something they have been working on for weeks, maybe it is wiser to aknowledge the good things first, before going into the bad things.
Generally it is better to have others discover facts themselves than spitting them out in front of them. Sure, if the boat is literally sinking and they claim punching more holes will help, this might be a good moment for a statement without nuance — but such statements have their time and place and should not be used everywhere.
It's interesting to me that all four examples put the blame with the other party. I hope it's just worded poorly or I am reading too much into it. Edit: I'm not saying that invalidates the article's content (in fact I recognize the situations from personal experience), but it doesn't really put a positive spin on it.
So you want them to prepend every paragraph with "I know I'm wrong sometimes"? What does that achieve? The article is nice, concise, and gets the point across beautifully. Everybody's wrong sometimes, but some people are genuinely very rarely wrong in their area of expertise, and I'm willing to believe this guy is one of them. I'm glad he doesn't give in to the petty workplace politics, and I wish more people would.
I've made the mistake hundreds of times in my life where I put a lot of effort into a project, only to discover that I missed something obvious at the start that invalidated the whole approach. Like selecting the architecture-defining processor for an electronics design, completing the design around it, and then discovering weeks later that it's obsolete.
It's not about ego. I've tried to explain that I want to be sure I am moving forward on the basis of correct information and reasoning. It's a desire to not risk wasting time & effort.
> In the future, I will look for a professional environment that understands and accommodates divergent ways of thinking.
but the above mentioned section would offer insight into how the author reached that solution and what other potential solutions were considered.
Source: have worked with many smart and not so smart autistic people over the years. Have many friends “neuro atypical” and think I’m probably somewhere on the spectrum (aren’t we all?). Autistic people have what seems like a much higher tolerance for bullshit both in the context of wanting to argue a point to finality or to obsess over a particularly detail until they’ve reached a shared plateau of understanding. Ma…
> think I’m probably somewhere on the spectrum (aren’t we all?). That, right there, is one of the least helpful things that can ever be said in these kinds of circumstances. It's understandable, and it's common, so this doesn't lay blame on you, but on the underlying cultural assumption. "Aren't we all?" Those who have truly neuro-atypical behaviours, to where it can be assessed as placing them somewhere else on the…
I think less division and more inclusivity in spite of differences is a good place to be, while still acknowledging the struggles / addressing problems of minorities without making them “special” aka outcasts.
Ultimately, you choose how you react to something. You can choose to be offended and look at the surface level of what a person is saying, or you can dig into the essence of the essence and determine the nature, intention, and purpose of a statement.
Most people barely have their own lives in order, and I mean that in a neurological sense. Expecting others to also simultaneously keep track of nuanced triggers which are also not universally applicable, more individual situations, when they are operating in good faith is more counterproductive for everyone.