Uncategorized – Page 30 – Real Social Skills

Special interests and friendship

January 14, 2014June 14, 2021 Real Social Skills

A lot of us like things really intensely and want to talk about them all the time.

But not everyone wants to hear everything we know about trains, hats, elephants, Pokemon, or the Dead Sea Scrolls. Constant monologues tend to drive people away.

In childhood, a lot of us are taught that our interests are the problem. We’re taught that we shouldn’t like things as much as we do, that our interest in them is annoying, that no one will ever want to listen, and that we need to talk about normal things. That doesn’t help.

It’s ok to like things. Liking things is *good*. Spending a lot of time thinking about, doing, and talking about things you care about is a good thing, not a bad thing. And it’s possible to do that and still treat other people well.

Part of that involves respecting other people’s boundaries. Most people aren’t interested in the Most Awesome Thing you like, and lecturing them about it when they don’t want to hear it isn’t going to make them *more* interested. When you’re having a conversation with someone, it’s important to identify things you *both* want to talk about. And if there aren’t things you both want to talk about, it’s important to find someone else to talk to rather than trying to push someone into it against their will.

(A caveat: I am talking about peer relationships here. I think that parents and teachers have a significant degree of responsibility to take an interest in things their kids are into. I will probably address that in more detail at some points.)

Some people will have contempt for you for having interests, and for the particular things you care about. Those people are wrong, and interacting with them quickly becomes toxic. People who don’t want you to like things, or who have a problem with the thing you like, aren’t going to suddenly start respecting you. It gets a lot better when you find people who actually like you.

It’s also important to find people who like the thing you like. People who share your interests exist, and you can interact with them on a level that’s not possible with anyone else. Now that we have the internet, it’s much easier than it’s ever been to find people to discuss the things with.

But it’s also possible to be friends with people whose interest in your favorite topics is limited. Some people like people who like things, even when they like different things. Those people can be really great friends.

In conversations with that kind of friend, sometimes they will need to say “ok, new topic?” It’s important to be able to hear that, and to tell the difference between someone saying, “You’re pathetic for caring about that boring thing, stop being so weird”, and someone saying “I am bored with this right now, and would like to talk about something we’re both interested in.”

Given the way most of us are treated from early childhood, it can be very difficult to learn to tell the difference between someone expressing a boundary and someone expressing contempt. It’s important and possible to learn how to do this, though.

It helps to keep in mind that not everyone who would rather not hear about train wheels right now is trying to take things away from you, though. Your friends aren’t going to make a behavior chart and make you earn train things by talking about other topics and keeping silent about the things you care about. (If they do anything remotely like that, they’re not friends and you need to find other friends who actually respect you.)

It also helps to keep in mind that, no matter how polite they are about it, someone who regularly has active contempt for you and your interests is not your friend.

This is hard to navigate. But it’s worth it.

Treating people well is a skill

December 17, 2013June 14, 2021 Real Social Skills

Sometimes, people go into various fields thinking that they are inherently safe people because they know certain things from experience. For instance, people with disabilities go into the field of service provision thinking that they will know how to avoid abuse of power. Or people who have had bad experiences in school and think that they would never use their power in ways that hurt kids.

Sometimes people think that they are safe people because of their political values, or other values. For instance, people sometimes think that reading a lot of disability rights theory makes them ideal staff. Men sometimes think that reading a lot of feminist theory means that they’re immune to gendered power dynamics. White people often think that reading things about diversity and tolerance makes them immune to white supremacist attitudes and hurting people of color with their privilege. But it doesn’t actually work that way.

Your politics do not make you a safe person. Treating people well is a skill, and it goes far beyond knowing what’s at stake. It also goes far beyond knowing the right words and being able to deploy them. It also goes beyond being angry at the world or objecting when other people do blatantly awful things. There is a component of action, too. You also have to know how to act right towards others, and this is something you have to work on continually. No amount of radical conceptual knowledge will replace the need to work on the actual skills involved in treating people well.

And to state it somewhat more simply – knowing that there are power dynamics doesn’t make you immune from abusing power. Neither does identifying them when you see them. Having spent a lot of time thinking about it doesn’t make you immune, either. No one is immune. You have to constantly watch yourself, listen to feedback from people you have power over, and work continuously to improve your ability to treat people right and use your power the right way.

No one is ever, ever beyond the need to keep working on the practical skills involved in treating people well.

It’s not about what kind of person you are; it is never possible to make yourself into a kind of person who is too good to abuse power. It is possible to continually work to improve your actual actions.

Make sure you’re doing that work. It’s important.

Periodic reminder

December 16, 2013June 14, 2021 Real Social Skills

This is not an autism blog. It’s a people blog. If the concepts apply to you, it’s entirely appropriate to use them whether you’re autistic or not.

(Posting this because I’ve seen a lot of replies along the lines of “I’m not autistic but…” to posts which I didn’t even mention autism in.)

Living with our anger as marginalized or abused people

December 13, 2013June 14, 2021 Real Social Skills

When you’ve been mistreated for a long time, it can be hard to notice that something is wrong.

Even if you do know it’s wrong, even if you hate it, even if it makes your life awful, it can be very, very hard to realize that it’s ok to object. It can be hard to be upset or even actually *mind* what’s going on in any active way. (And, if you’re like me, you might feel like the problem is that you’re just too broken, and try to shame yourself into becoming someone else)

And then maybe you finally start to get angry. And maybe you meet other people who are angry about the same thing.

And maybe – you start to say so. You find ways of expressing anger. You say the angry things and you even tell people they’re hurting you and that it’s wrong. And you yell and express yourself in emphatic terms in other ways. And you don’t die. You learn that it is, in fact, actually possible to say these things out loud and actually press the issue and win from time to time. And that even when you lose, you survive.

And at first it’s exhilarating and liberating. Because it gives you really, really important things that you’ve never had before.

But sometimes, for some people, this can lead to a place where most of what you have access to is rage. And.. that’s not a great place to be in either. It’s dramatically better than not being able to get angry and express it, but it’s still pretty horrible.

And, a caveat here. Do not even think of using this post to shame people for their anger, or for the amount of time they spend being angry. People have damn good reason to be angry, and sometimes anger is all you have and it is a terrible, terrible idea to try to stop being angry in those circumstances. Anger is important.

Anger is also exhausting and draining.

And anger is not the only way to be able to say what’s wrong without backing down. It is possible to get to a place where you can do that, *even without being actively enraged*. It’s very, very hard to do that, and it’s not always even remotely possible. But it’s a useful skill to acquire and use sometimes, because it means you can sometimes fight these battles without it costing you as much all the time.

It doesn’t mean you stop getting angry. We all get angry, even enraged, sometimes. Trying to eliminate anger is incredibly destructive. Don’t do that, and don’t pressure others to do that. We need anger. We have reason to be angry. Anger is not a failure.

There are other tools, in addition to anger, that we can use to protect ourselves and fight these battles, for instance:

Avoiding or limiting emotional entanglement with toxic or dismissive people
Spending time explaining things to people who are worth talking to and actually give a damn
Spending time with peers who understand and face the same things, and doing things other than being angry about the things
Emphasizing and appreciating the value of people like you, even when everything in your world is trying to tell you not to. (Eg: celebrating your culture, eating your food even when it’s stigmatized, body positivity, supporting businesses run by marginalized people, seeing unique value in the perspectives you have)
Saying no to things that hurt you even when you’re calm
Telling people that they’re hurting others and need to stop even when you’re not enraged by what they’re doing

These tools do not replace anger, but they are also helpful. And so are others. There are a lot of reasons it’s worthwhile to learn additional approaches, for instance:

Anger is expensive. It is not as expensive as seeing yourself as someone who isn’t entitled to anger and suppressing it at all costs, but it is expensive and being angry takes a tole.
Anger can center the villains more than the good guys. We have damn good reason to be angry. But, push come to shove, good is more important than evil and sometimes it’s worthwhile to center the worth and lives of our own rather than focusing on those who seek to harm us (we can’t ignore them; this is not about positive thinking or pretending that if we don’t acknowledge evil it will go away or any of that BS. What it’s about is making sure we’re remembering to value the people we’re fighting for)
Sometimes anger isn’t as effective as something else could be. (It’s more effective than doing nothing, and it’s absolutely legitimate so don’t even try to use this to tone police people. And sometimes it *is* the most effective available tool. But it is not *always* the most effective approach, and it’s good to have other options sometimes)

This is hard. It is also worthwhile.

Don’t turn all your tools into weapons

December 11, 2013June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

i sing sometimes like my life is at stake ‘cause you’re only as loud as the noises you make…….i sing sometimes for the war that i fight ’cause every tool is a weapon – if you hold it right.
-Ani Difranco

I think most people who read this blog are fighting some battle or other. Maybe it’s a battle for justice, on behalf of many. Maybe it’s a principle. Maybe it’s mostly your own life you’re fighting for. One way or another, I think most of you are fighting.

And the thing about fighting is, it’s *hard*, and it wears you down.

And some of you are fighting more or less alone, or with limited support. And you have to take your weapons where you can find them.

Maybe it’s your words. Maybe it’s your affect. Maybe it’s your hands. Maybe it’s relationships. There are all kinds of things. And it’s important; you have to take weapons where you can find them.

And every tool is a weapon if you hold it right. And when you’re fighting, and looking for weapons, it’s possible to start seeing everything as a weapon first and foremost. That’s dangerous. It can destroy you.

If you see everything as a weapon , it can be hard to use tools in other ways. There will be times when you have to fight, there are times when hurting people is unavoidable. But when fighting is the center of your life and all your tools become weapons, it can cost you absolutely everything you care about.

Even when you really need weapons; sometimes especially when you really need weapons.

When all you have is a hammer, then all problems look like nails… But it works in reverse too. If all your problems look like nails, all of your tools will like like hammers. It works that way with weapons, too. If you see everything in terms of physical or social struggle and violence, it’s hard to see your tools as anything but weapons. And that can end up costing you everything you care about.

You have to fight the fights; but it shouldn’t be the only thing you do.

Your hands can make fists. Sometimes you have to make fists; sometimes you have to fight. But don’t let the people you’re fighting make you forget that they can also make bread. Or whatever else. Hands can do many things, and the fight is necessary, but it’s not enough. Don’t let your enemies deprive you of all the other uses of your hands.

Similarly – Your words can be weapons, you can use them to hurt people when it’s needed, and to assert power when power is what’s need. But don’t let them make all of your words into weapons. Because you need them for other things too. Words aren’t just for tearing down oppressors. They’re also for honoring people you respect. They’re also for love. They’re also for telling stories.

You’re probably singing sometimes like your life is at stake. But don’t forget that you can also sing love songs. When you’re singing like your life is at stake, make sure that you don’t forget to value your life as an end in itself. Don’t make your whole self into a weapon.

Don’t forget that patterns and beauty and love exist, and that we can build worthwhile things even in this messed up world. Life is worth fighting for; it is also worth living.