Why are neurotypicals in charge of making up the social rules? They're not even very good at it.

Edit: A few people have interpreted the title as serious, so I wanna clarify that it was meant as a sarcastic joke about how little sense the neurotypical world makes to me, but it is still legitimately me asking for help understanding said neurotypical world.

Was having a conversation with a friend today about why I seem unapproachable to people online. Apparently it's for 2 reasons.

One is that I say "K." all the time, as a short way of saying okay. She pointed out that most people find this rude and offensive. This kinda baffled me, because like why? She explained that like, if somebody were to give a long emotional speech and I just responded "K." that would be offensive. That confounds me. So it's rude in one context, and neurotypicals have decided to be offended by it in all contexts? But the reason it's rude is what confuses me more. Apparently it's considered lazy because you could have just typed out the word, but like, that applies to all text speech and nobody's mad about people shortening those words.

But it got more confusing when she explained the second reason, which is that I end all of my sentences with proper punctuation, which she said "makes people feel like I'm done with the conversation and not interested." But just a second ago improper grammar was rude, and now proper grammar is rude instead.

It baffles me. You can't just use proper or improper grammar. Use too much improper grammar and you're lazy and rude. Use too little and you're also rude. But you can't just use any improper grammar, you have to use the very specific subset of improper grammar that's been deemed acceptable and not lazy (even though it's exactly as lazy as what they do consider lazy.)

To be clear, I'm not bitter, and I'm definitely gonna adjust my behavior to hopefully seem a little less rude to people. I think that's just a nice thing to do. I just find the neurotypical mind utterly fascinating. I don't think they even realize how many contradictions exist in the social rules they all so easily accept.

Juice ,

I can relate. I often say "sure" as an affirmative. To me it sounds nice. People always think I'm being sarcastic. I mean, I am often sarcastic but not in the mean or mocking way that people take this.

"Would you like to do go to the concert with me?"
"Sure!"
crying "why don't you want to go to the concert with me???"

TheSambassador ,

"Sure" to me is fairly neutral, emotionally. If someone invites you to something, usually they're hoping that you will be excited to go, not just willing to go. If you respond with a neutral-sounding "yes" instead of something more enthusiastic, it makes me wonder if you actually want to go.

Overall, your tone of voice when saying "sure" could communicate that enthusiasm to go, but that doesn't really work over text, so I usually try to be a lot more enthusiastic over text communication.

TotalFat ,

Stop trying to be like them. They'll never truly accept you. Many of them would prefer to destroy you. Their methods of communication are inefficient.

Fuck the NTs.

Sombyr OP ,
@Sombyr@lemmy.zip avatar

No.

TotalFat ,

Apologies for my post and respect for your appropriate response. Someone pissed in my Cheerios this morning.

Your post title grabbed my attention because I recently started watching Survivor for the first time (social event not really my pick). Anyway it's fascinating to watch their behavior. These people are constantly talking about "reading" people. They're always trying to inject meaning and intent where there is none. They are not as smart as they think they are, and they struggle with communication just as much as we do.

One thing I've noticed is NTs are constantly lying to each other then trying to "read between the lines." Not so much malicious intent as keeping your cards close to your chest sort of thing. When someone comes up and just says what they mean, their minds explode. Many of them read into what you're saying the worst possible interpretation. I'm still trying to figure this out.

I've seen a similar thing in court, where you think you're trying to document facts and distill away all the emotion and speculation. WRONG! It seems to work like Survivor where 1 + 1 = 3.

deweydecibel ,

Use too much improper grammar and you're lazy and rude. Use too little and you're also rude.

Genuinely not sure what you mean by this.

It's rude to use "too little" improper grammar?

Where are you getting that from?

But to your main point:

Why are neurotypicals in charge of making up the social rules?

Why are you under the assumption that the social rules are something they all got together and agreed upon?

Social rules form over time in cultures, based on the interactions of individuals. It's part of the social zeitgeist. Neurotypical people make up the majority, they do the most social interaction, so the overall "rules" are formed by them.

Sombyr OP ,
@Sombyr@lemmy.zip avatar

As far as the first thing goes, I used to avoid using any text speech at all, only used proper punctuation, always made sure my grammar was right. People started to get really annoyed with me because of it, telling me I was being overly formal.
As far as the second thing goes, that was a sarcastic joke about how the "rules" I'm told to follow are always full of contradictions, making them hard to follow. The joke being if autistics made the rules they'd be actual rules, and efficient ones. I'm well aware of why it's not actually that way.

Kacarott ,

I'm not sure how helpful this will be, but I think it is misleading for you to think of these things as "rules". Calling them rules implies that people know what they are, and try to abide by them. But I don't think thats whats happening.

Since written communication conveys so much less emotion than verbal communication, people tend to read more into the textual form to infer things like emotion or intent. There aren't specific rules for this, people just pick up on patterns. For example angry or excited people tend to use capitals to "sound louder". People talking casually tend to leave out some grammar. Friendly conversations tend to have more long rambling sentences, as opposed to someone trying to prove a point with concise, well punctuated sentences.

So I think what NTs are doing is just subconsciously figuring out these patterns to determine a likely emotion/intent behind messages.

To me, "K" isn't rude for the reasons your friend tried to list, but it does sound "colder" to me, probably because my brain sees a pattern where the people who are not interested in talking to me will tend to use short succinct responses, while people happy to talk will use longer form.

But a huge part of communication, especially online, is just getting used to the people you talk to. It's happened many times that someone who seemed grumpy to me at first turned out to be very friendly, etc.

IsThisAnAI ,

You should ignore every single one of those people bitching about punctuation.

IsThisAnAI ,

The punctuation is total bullshit. 100% ignore them. Typing just K definitely is a bit informal for all but the most casual conversations with close relationships. I will 100% drop an👌👍 online when I encounter someone who just wants to argue or be mean to piss them off. Nothing enrages a gen z troll like 👌👍.

Sombyr OP ,
@Sombyr@lemmy.zip avatar

The punctuation thing has actually been pointed out to me on a couple occasions before. One of my exs thought it was weird and said it "gave the impression I'd be mad if other people's grammar wasn't perfect." So apparently it does bother some people, but it's probably more of a straw that broke the camel's back situation, where I already speak so formally in the first place that it makes me look stuck up.

Webster ,

Communication is a two way street. It's both about the message the sender is trying to convey, but also the way the receiver interprets it. As a (mostly) neurotypical thinker, this is even hard for many of us to get right.

An example for clarity is the response your getting in the comments to your friends comments. Various people are disagreeing and agreeing to different levels. Conversation is navigating the complicated dynamics to as the sender, sending your message in a way the receiver will get the impression you are trying to give, and as a receiver, trying to understand the intent of the message the sender is trying to show.

There aren't many hard or fast rules. In different online communities, different styles and patterns can conotate different things. There are patterns and styles I use here on Lemmy for example, I would never use in a sports online community because they would be interpreted differently there.

My advice is don't beat yourself up about it. If you're not getting the type of interactions you're expecting in a particular community, that might be the time to ask for feedback or see if your communication style is different than the local group there. But the ephemeral nature of these online conversations make it the perfect place to experiment and find a communication style that works for you and gets the response from others you are looking for.

glimse ,

I have pretty much the same comment as anyone else here (punctuation is fine, "K" is less fine) so I won't repeat it but it reminds me of this sketch. People can't read your inflection over texts...especially when it's a one letter answer.

Imagine a parent saying "clean your room" and a passive aggressive teenager saying "K." - that's how it can be interpreted in some contexts.

magic_lobster_party ,

K can give the impression that you don’t care and don’t want to be bothered with it. The effort in your response is expected to be proportional to the effort it took to write the message to you.

If someone write a long personal message to you, and all you responds is K, then it gives the impression that you might not even read the message. Why even bother next time?

Proper grammar in informal settings is a difficult one, but this is my theory:

It might give the impression of mismatch in vibes. There’s a difference in informal speak and formal speak, and participants in a conversation are expected to be in the same wavelength. An extreme example, but it’s like when everybody is dressed casually at a social gathering, but you decide to show up in a three piece suit.

slurp ,

I'm with you on the punctuation. The k bit I think is about showing you are putting effort in to understand and care, so something slightly longer like "k... I understand" or some extra acknowledgement that shows you understand and have taken the time to take it in helps. Personally, I have a big thing about miscommunication, so knowing people have understood me and listened actively is huge to me. "K." does not express much of anything other than "I saw there was a message", so I'd want to push to check that I've actually been heard.

Hope that makes sense.

sab ,
@sab@kbin.social avatar

The spelling thing bothers me a lot. I don't want to catch bad habits of writing shitty just because it's whatever seems trendy at the moment.

People used to give me shit for not using smileys, so I started adding :) everywhere in text messages. Then people told me I seem passive aggressive because I use :) instead of emojis.

Joke's on them. I could never be arsed to use emojis outside of very specific contexts, and now gen Zs are making fun of them for looking like boomers with their dumb emoji use. Apparently I still come across as passive aggressive though.

Sombyr OP ,
@Sombyr@lemmy.zip avatar

I never use emojis either, except specific ones for specific contexts (I.E. the hug emoji when somebody's having a really bad day.) People have pointed it out, but unlike other things people just view it as an interesting personality quirk of mine instead of off putting.

ABCDE ,

ꓘ

lugal ,

Found the Australian

NoneOfUrBusiness ,

If it's any consolation, my just-barely-maybe neurotypical ass uses proper punctuation and I've never had any issues. If anyone asks I just say it's a thing I do.

Sombyr OP ,
@Sombyr@lemmy.zip avatar

Yeah, it seems not everyone has an issue with it. It might be more of an issue with me because I don't often convey much emotion when I speak because I don't know how, so I probably sound dead an uninterested when I combine that with perfect punctuation. Thinking about it, I also make very sparing use of exclamation points, so maybe I just seem so dead and formal that it makes people think I'm not really into the conversation.

TrickDacy ,

k.

Outsider9042 ,

K

ObviouslyNotBanana ,
@ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world avatar

K.*

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