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My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

sashachapin.substack.com

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Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#311

Post by slig »

opwieurposiu wrote: post #83

One hazard of being a programmer is that sitting alone in a room alone with a computer for 10 years can turn you into a weird dude. Lately I have taken steps to re-learn how to be social. I am doing a lot of social dances, like Salsa, Swing, Bachata. I think partner dance is good training for body language. Also good training for presence, as when you really start dancing, you stop thinking; conversely when are think…

+1. Ballroom dancing changed my life. Started small and two years in I was doing classes four times a week.

I was in my early 30s and I could go out dance basically any day of the week except Monday and Tuesday.

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#312

Post by Hendrikto »

whstl wrote: post #288
etangent wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a lot of the points felt more like learning how to charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. A lot of stuff "normal" people do is charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. Except because they are not conscious about it, we give them a pass. One of the characteristics of autistic-spectrum individuals is that they must make a conscious effort to achieve goals that are achieved unconsciously by most of u…

It's very strange that people are ok with people charming others "naturally" (while it's probably because they learned by imitation, often from parents) while "practicing it" is seen as bad and manipulative. It's the same with genetics. Getting lucky with looks is fine but working for the same goal (eg surgery) is somehow bad and people often hide it.

Playing the hand you were dealt is fine. Pulling an ace out of your sleeve is cheating.

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#313

Post by whstl »

Hendrikto wrote: post #312
whstl wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very strange that people are ok with people charming others "naturally" (while it's probably because they learned by imitation, often from parents) while "practicing it" is seen as bad and manipulative. It's the same with genetics. Getting lucky with looks is fine but working for the same goal (eg surgery) is somehow bad and people often hide it.

Playing the hand you were dealt is fine. Pulling an ace out of your sleeve is cheating.

I'm talking about real life, not a card game.

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#314

Post by Hendrikto »

whstl wrote: post #313
Hendrikto wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing the hand you were dealt is fine. Pulling an ace out of your sleeve is cheating.

I'm talking about real life, not a card game.

I am sure you are familiar with the concept of a metaphor.

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#315

Post by mrmlz »

immibis wrote: post #302
somenameforme wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say just friends either. The biggest leap I made in social stuff is to simply stop caring what other people think. If somebody doesn't like me, cool - there's plenty of other people. If they do? Awesome, because they're getting the 'real' me, so it's probably going to be a good relationship. Basically I think a lot of people's issues with social stuff starts with something analogous to a boy who never asks…

> If somebody doesn't like me, cool - there's plenty of other people And what if no one likes me?

You should probably figure out why - unless you are ok with nobody liking you. If _everyone_ finds you annoying or difficult being around, you most like are annoying and difficult to deal with.

How you go about figuring what bugs people is perhaps the hard part.

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#316

Post by lynx97 »

Aurornis wrote: post #47

This post wasn't what I was expecting from the "socially normal" title. While there is a lot of self-reflection and growth in this piece, a lot of the points felt more like learning how to charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. Look at the first two subheadings: > 1: Connecting with people is about being a dazzling person > 2: Connecting with people is about playing their game The post felt like a rollercoa…

I am going to get downvoted for this, but my experience, which recently even got confirmed by a mother of an autistic child, is that genuine empathy is rather hard to find on the spectrum.

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#317

Post by whstl »

Hendrikto wrote: post #314
whstl wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about real life, not a card game.

I am sure you are familiar with the concept of a metaphor.

Of course, but just because you can throw a metaphor around doesn't make it true.

There is no "rule" in life that says that people have to be judgmental assholes to each other. Using a card game to justify the behavior is just a rationalization.

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#318

Post by Arisaka1 »

whstl wrote: post #288
etangent wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a lot of the points felt more like learning how to charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. A lot of stuff "normal" people do is charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. Except because they are not conscious about it, we give them a pass. One of the characteristics of autistic-spectrum individuals is that they must make a conscious effort to achieve goals that are achieved unconsciously by most of u…

It's very strange that people are ok with people charming others "naturally" (while it's probably because they learned by imitation, often from parents) while "practicing it" is seen as bad and manipulative. It's the same with genetics. Getting lucky with looks is fine but working for the same goal (eg surgery) is somehow bad and people often hide it.

>It's the same with genetics. Getting lucky with looks is fine but working for the same goal (eg surgery) is somehow bad and people often hide it.

We also tend to hide how hard we work to make our success look natural, but we reveal how hard we work on the extremes of success. For example, if I work hard and take a score of 17 out of 20 in a test people will say "I barely read last evening, phew", but if you're consistently scoring 19-20/20 people may even approach you to learn your studying methods and for tips, because they assume there are important takeaways that they can adopt.

It's my pet peeve with how society recognizes that someone is talented, which is blatantly flawed because all you can do is see what they're capable of doing. Someone may be talented yet unable (or unwilling?) to tap into their talent, but since we recognize talent by the output you can't really tell the existence of talent unless it's at the extremes of success, like the 8 year old who can solve mathematics that are a grade or more above the current grade.

I see talent like a genetic predisposition that can be appropriately cultivated to attain success. It's not much different than my height, because I didn't choose it, yet I can guess that there are men out there who hate the fact that I have their desirable height yet I never hit the gym, cultivate my social skills, or take advantage the fact that I look younger than I am. I am willing to bet everything that I met at least one person who thought of all of these things the first moments they looked at me.

But at least genetic predispositions like height are visible to the naked eye and no one can dispute the differences. When it comes to differences in the brain it's where we ignorantly proclaim that things are obscure therefore they can violate the very facts of observable nature.

In sort, not only I fully agree with you, but I also agree with the obvious double standards in society around it. If I take ADHD medication and that helps with my focus to improve my performance in school or work then I deserve that success as much as someone who naturally had no problems with ADHD. Why is this different for looks (like hair transplants, etc.) is beyond me.

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#319

Post by whstl »

scandox wrote: post #170
etangent wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a lot of the points felt more like learning how to charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. A lot of stuff "normal" people do is charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. Except because they are not conscious about it, we give them a pass. One of the characteristics of autistic-spectrum individuals is that they must make a conscious effort to achieve goals that are achieved unconsciously by most of u…

That is a mistake I think. Many 'normal' people who grow up (emotionally) make a conscious effort not to instrumentalize their social interactions even if they do know how to do it. Certainly with friends they aim to be authentic. I think emulating things that a serious person discards is a step backwards.

> Many 'normal' people who grow up (emotionally) make a conscious effort not to instrumentalize their social interactions

That's definitely not true if we include "work" as a "social interaction".

Re: My stages of learning to be a socially normal person

#320

Post by lazide »

whstl wrote: post #308
YurgenJurgensen wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say ‘somehow’ like the reasoning isn’t obvious. Physical attractiveness is a signal of reproductive fitness when it’s genetic, and not otherwise.

This is a bullshit rationalization for horrible behavior. The people doing the judging certainly aren't gonna reproduce with 99.99999% of the people being judged, and I'm being extremely generous here.

Sure, but why would they care? And why do you think it matters?
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