Real Social Skills

Clueless creepiness vs skillful creepiness

March 15, 2014June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

There are two kinds of problems that get conflated a lot but aren’t actually that similar:

People who do creepy things because they have trouble understanding boundaries
People who do creepy things because they understand boundaries well and have highly developed skills at violating them with impunity

People who are good at violating boundaries and getting away with being creepy sometimes seem socially awkward, and sometimes don’t. Sometimes they get away with it by getting people to think things like “Oh, that’s Bill. He’s just awkward like that. He doesn’t mean anything by it,” and sometimes it’s more like, “I can’t believe James would do that! He’s like the nicest guy ever, and he does so much for this community. Don’t you remember the awesome party last month?”, and sometimes it’s more like, “Steve is really sensitive right now. Did you really have to turn him down like that? Couldn’t you have given him a chance? Don’t you understand how much courage it takes to approach a girl? What harm could giving him your number have done?”.

People who are inadvertently creepy *care* when they’ve violated boundaries, and try to fix it. Saying, “oh, they’re just awkward” isn’t doing them any favors, because people who are inadvertently creepy don’t *want* to trample all over other people’s boundaries. They want to know, so that they can stop doing it. This doesn’t mean it’s the job of victims of their creepy actions to explain it to them – it isn’t, particularly since most creepy people are doing it on purpose, and calling skillfully creepy people on things tends to go badly. I am mentioning this because skillfully creepy people often convince others that being “just awkward” means that everyone else is obligated to refrain from objecting to their creepy actions.

Skillfully creepy people who boundaries boundaries on purpose come up with excuses about why it was ok, and try to make you feel horrible for objecting. (Eg: “I was just being friendly! Learn to take a compliment!”, or “I know that if you were in your right mind, you wouldn’t have said that you didn’t want to spend time with me. I forgive you. We can still spend time together.”, or “Wow. Harsh. I guess girls really don’t go for nice guys. Have fun dating assholes.” or just getting a lot of people to laugh at you, or any number of other things.)

As a culture, we shouldn’t tolerate creepy behavior from anyone. Part of not tolerating it means assessing when people are being cluelessly creepy, and when people are being skillfully creepy.

If you are a supervisor/teacher/community leader, or otherwise someone responsible for intervening and keeping things safe, it’s important to respond appropriately. Communities need to help cluelessly creepy people understand how to act, and to expel skillfully creepy people so that they can’t keep preventing the people they hurt from being part of the community.

Should I tell my roommates I’m autistic?

March 10, 2014June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

A reader asked:

I’m an autistic student who’s starting college next fall. I’m wondering if I should tell my roommate(s?) about it first, or if this will affect the way they think of me. I like to think that I can “fit” in normally with everyone, but I might have some quirks that will annoy them. I’m worried I won’t be able to make friends, I’m not sure what to do.

realsocialskills said:

This is a really personal choice, and there’s no one right answer here. Some thoughts:

There’s a really good book and website about dealing with college as an autistic person called Navigating College. It talks in practical terms about a lot of different issues, including the question of disclosure. I would highly recommend reading it.

That said, here’s what I think I know about disclosure in general:

Autism is highly stigmatized, and most people will see you as less of a person if they know you’re autistic.
Sometimes it’s safer not to tell people, or to say something like “I have a neurological disorder that makes it hard for me to (whatever the relevant thing is).
If Google knows that you are autistic, it can make it harder to get into school, get an internship, or get a job
Keeping autism completely secret creates a major barrier to friendship; hiding a fundamental aspect of who you are makes everything a lot harder
If people don’t know you’re autistic, then you always have to wonder how they’d treat you if they ever found out.
If people know you’re autistic, then you face a lot more mistreatment, but you also find out who you can trust. Sometimes, that’s worth it.
There isn’t a right answer here; all of the options kind of suck, and which approach is best for you is a highly personal decision

And a few things I think I know about disclosing to roommates:

In college, roommates are often not friends
They’re just people you have to minimally get along with enough to share space peacefully
In some ways it’s better if you’re *not* close to your roommate; a fairly superficial relationship can be more conductive to living together
If you aren’t close to your roommate, there’s probably no reason they *need* to know you’re autistic.
It’s also possible that they’ll treat you better if you don’t tell them, since most people think that autism means you’re unable to understand or care about other people.
So, unless you’re generally open about being autistic (which can be a good strategy), it might be better to err on the side of not telling your roommate.

When you want to start changing the world and it feels daunting

March 9, 2014June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

A reader asked:

I’ve learned a lot about rape and rape culture from Tumblr, and now I want to start educating people. However, I am quite socially awkward, so I’m not really sure when and how to bring it up appropriately. Also, how do I make sure I don’t overwhelm them when it is the first time I am talking about rape culture to them? Should I arrange a campaign at my high school or should I talk one on one? Also, I don’t want to trigger anyone, how do I do that?

realsocialskills said:

Thank you for your question. It’s a really good one.

Before I say anything else, I want to say something about perspective:

Part of fighting rape culture (or any pervasive injustice) involves coming to a degree of acceptance about how awful the world is. Before you knew about pervasive evil, you might have been able to get angry and fight every time you saw something awful. That’s not going to work anymore, because rape culture is everywhere. Now that you can see it, you will notice something horrible multiple times every day.

Rape culture is as bad and outrageous as you think it is, and it’s hard to come to terms with seeing it all around you. But it’s also possible, and important, to learn how to see it without getting furious every time. You can’t go after every instance of rape culture you see with everything you have. Doing that will cost you everything you have, without putting much of a dent in the things that are wrong with the world.

Some kinds of activist perspectives make things worse. You see some of them a lot on Tumblr, but they’re not just Tumblr things. Some people will sell outrage and falling to pieces as the standard of virtue. It’s ok, and often worthwhile, to be angry. But rage isn’t the measure of how much you care about something, or how dedicated you are to fighting evil and building a better world, or how effective your work is. We all get outraged sometimes and there’s nothing wrong with that, but push come to shove, it’s the work that matters. The important thing is to look for opportunities to act, and to find places where your work can be effective. Honor your anger, but prioritize your work.

I wrote a post about anger and a post about the fight that I think are relevant here.

That said about perspective and the importance of finding opportunities to act, here are some thoughts about tactics:

There are two basic faces of activism/advocacy.

Forcing people to change what they do
Convincing people to adopt your values

Both are legitimate, and important. Your work will involve both. The proportion will depend on your personal skills, opportunities, and preferences. Don’t devalue either. And, in all cases, it’s important to be realistic about what you have the power to do. You can do more when you are looking for opportunities to act than when you are assuming that your dedication will overcome every obstacle.

When you are seeking to persuade others:

Focus your attention on people who are willing to listen to you. Lecturing people who aren’t interested isn’t likely to get you anywhere. Hostile people are almost never persuaded by arguments; arguing with hostile people is almost always draining and demoralizing. The only time arguing with a hostile or uninterested person is likely to get you anywhere is when you are speaking to them for the sake of an audience that *is* listening to you seriously. You can’t reach everyone. Focus on the people you can reach.

When someone is sincerely trying to understand, speak to them respectfully. Don’t condescend to them. Don’t speak to them with contempt. Don’t tell them to go fucking google it. So long as they are actually being sincere, treat them respectfully even if it takes them a long time to understand. Keep in mind that three years ago, you didn’t know all of this either. Don’t expect people for whom these ideas are new to get it within five minutes. (And keep in mind also that you’re new at this and probably not very skilled at explaining in a way others can understand yet, and keep working on that skill.)

Some people will pretend to be interested while actually being hostile and unwilling to listen to anything you say. It’s ok to tell those people to go away. It’s ok to be rude about telling those people to go away. Sometimes it is very hard to get those people to go away; sometimes they will be very aggressive and whiny about it. It’s still ok to end the conversation. You don’t owe hostile people your attention. (Beware of spending lots of time arguing with someone about whether or not you have an obligation to argue with them. That’s a way they will suck you back in. You do not have to persuade someone that the conversation should end in order to end it.)

It’s also ok to decide you don’t want to keep trying to explain rape culture to someone anymore even if they *are* sincerely interested and being respectful about it. Activists are allowed to have boundaries, even with nice people. But if you don’t think someone’s being a jerk, don’t treat them with contempt when you set a boundary. (Eg: Something like “I don’t want to talk about this anymore”, not something like “Go away with your male tears” *unless the person you’re talking to is actually doing something wrong*.)

When you are trying to force people to change what they do:

It’s important to look for opportunities to act. You can’t force people to do things unless you have power over them. At this point in your life, the coercive power you have is probably somewhat limited, but here are things you might be able to do:

Insist that friends not tell rape jokes around you. Refuse to play Card Against Humanity with people who use it as an excuse to tell rape jokes, and say why.
If you watch children, respect their physical boundaries and insist that they respect each others’. (For instance, if a boy chases a girl and she says stop, don’t act like it’s cute. Make sure he stops. Do this regardless of the genders involved.)
Captain Awkward often writes about confronting rape culture in social situations; it’s probably worth having a read-through.

Also, there are situations in which exercising coercive power is *not* an ok way to fight rape culture, for instance:

If you are responsible for children, it is not ok to keep them isolated from mainstream culture and media in order to prevent them from adopting mainstream ideas. Kids are not world improvement objects, and they have the right to come to their own conclusions about things
If you are supporting adults with disabilities, it is not ok to install filters on their internet access, refuse to take them to places you see as supporting rape culture, or control which movies they watch
Just, generally speaking, expressing an extreme degree of control over someone else’s life is not ever an ok form of activism

Keep in mind that you already have power, and that as you get older you will probably have more. Start learning about the ethics of coercive power now, and take that seriously. Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re too disprivileged to have to worry about this; *everyone* has power over others that’s morally relevant; no one is exempt from having to think about their use of power.

A word about speaking truth to power

One power you have now is the power to speak up when others do not. If a teacher says something dangerously wrong and you object, it sends the message to other students that objecting to the wrong information is *possible*, even if no one else speaks up. This can be very powerful. It can also bring down the wrath of people who have a lot of power to hurt you, particularly if you are a minor and your parents aren’t on board with your activism. Don’t let anyone pressure you into or out of taking this risk; it’s a very personal choice. And in neither case are you responsible for the actions of the powerful (eg: If you decide to stay silent, it is not your fault that a teacher is spreading dangerous misinformation; if you decide to speak up, it is not your fault if they decide to punish you. Their choices are theirs and you are not responsible for them).

About a campaign at your school

I don’t know whether a campaign at your school would be a good idea or not. Some factors to keep in mind:

Do you have anyone else willing to work on it with you? If not, it’s probably better to wait until you’ve discussed this successfully with more people
Are campaigns part of the culture of your school? Does anyone respect them? If so, it might be a good idea.
One purpose a campaign might serve is to identify other people interested in this issue. A petition might also serve this purpose.
If you can get people to sign a petition with their name and email, then you have their name and email and might be able to continue talking to them and find ways of working together on rape culture

A final word about perspective:

Effective activism is a skill. It takes time and experience to get good at it. Don’t pressure yourself to be an expert right away. Just keep working on identifying and taking advantages of opportunities to act. You will get good at this with time and experience.

Stop using mental illness as an insult

March 7, 2014June 14, 2021 Real Social Skills

So, there’s this pattern. People hear about someone doing a horrible thing, or being systemically abusive to another person, or being bigoted, or being generally hateful, violent, or evil, and then express their disapproval by saying things like:

She *needs help*
He needs serious therapy
I hope he gets the help she needs

And, that’s a horrible thing to say. Because mental illness is not the same as being an abuser. Having a mental illness is not a moral failing, and treating others horribly is not a mental illness. Conflating those categories hurts people badly.

Some people do need therapy, medication, or other forms of treatment. Some people who need mental health treatment are also terrible people, but that is not because of their mental illness. It’s because of their choices and values. And many abusers and other dangerous people are not mentally ill at all.

Many, many good people struggle with serious mental illness and depend on medical treatment. Similarly, many good people struggle with mental illness and have no access to treatment for various reasons (eg: lack of insurance, lack of safe providers, fear of losing their jobs due to stigma). These people deserve better than to have their struggles thrown up as a way to insult abusers.

Mental illness is real, serious, and horribly stigmatized. It is not the same as being an abuser, and it’s really important to stop equating the two.

An inadvertently creepy thing a lot of autistic people do

March 3, 2014June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

Sometimes autistic people want to hang out with a group of people and can’t tell if it’s ok to talk to them or not.

And then, they try to watch for a while to try and pick up on signs that interaction would be welcome.

This is generally a bad idea. The problem is that people find it uncomfortable to be watched by people who aren’t explaining their presence. If they’re not ok with you joining them, they’re probably not ok with you watching them, either.

It’s better to just go up to people and ask if it’s ok to join them. Watching first for more than a couple of seconds actually makes things worse.

You can’t appropriate your own mind

March 2, 2014June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

A reader asked:

I briefly self diagnosed as autistic, but I met with my psychiatrist yesterday and she told me since I noticed social deficits and tried to compensate, and managed just like a neurotypical person, it was just social anxiety bc if I were autistic, I wouldn’t have noticed or been able to learn so well. she didn’t mention the cognitive things I brought up, so I’m guessing they were normal /insignificant. How do apologize on my tumblr for fucking this up and appropriating?

realsocialskills said:

You don’t owe anyone an apology. Anyone in our community who has suggested that sincere but mistaken self-diagnosis is appropriation owes *you* an apology.

Thinking you’re autistic and being wrong is not appropriation. We all make guesses about ourselves; some turn out to be right and some turn out to be wrong. Thinking you’re autistic and being wrong is not appropriative and it is not fucking up.

That said, from what you described, it’s not even clear to me that you are wrong about being autistic. I’m not a diagnostician and I don’t know you, so I can’t say one way or another. But it sounds to me that your psychiatrist is basing their response to you on stereotypes rather than professional knowledge of autism.

Not all psychiatrists are competent to evaluate autism, particularly in adults. Psychiatrists are primarily trained in mental health; autism is a developmental disability. Mental health training does not imply expertise in developmental disability. It’s entirely possible that your psychiatrist is disregarding your cognitive issues not because they are normal, but because your cognitive issues are outside their area of professional competence.

Most autistic people notice social deficits and try to compensate. Most autistic people generate effecting coping strategies for a lot of things, including social situations. All autistic people can do some things that neurotypical people can do. Being able to notice and compensate for problems does not mean you’re neurotypical.

It’s fairly common for people who think they’re autistic to be told by mental health professionals that if they’re self-aware enough to ask, they can’t possibly be autistic. Or that if they can do anything at all, it must mean they’re not autistic. Those are perceptions based on stereotypes, not accurate understandings of autism. People with advanced mental health training are just as prone to a stereotypical view of developmental disability as anyone else.

If your doctor is responding to your concerns in a way that might be based on stereotypes and misinformation, it’s probably a good idea to find someone else (perhaps a neuropsychologist) who has a better understanding of autism and is familiar with adult diagnosis.

You may or may not be autistic, but it sounds like you could benefit from investigating further. And ultimately, the opinion that matters most is your own. You know your own mind better than anyone else does.

And whatever conclusion you or any professional ends up reaching, you have done nothing wrong or appropriative. It’s ok, and important, to try to understand yourself and figure out what you need to make your life work.

On “feeling unsafe”

February 28, 2014June 14, 2021 Real Social Skills

Sometimes, people in power use “feeling safe” in a manipulative way. They shift the conversation away from whether or not you actually are safe, and into a conversation about your feelings. Sometimes people in power who do this have a kind affect and seem to really care about helping you to feel better. This can make it hard to know in your own mind what the problem actually is, and hard to keep hold of your understanding that something is wrong and needs to be addressed.

It helps to keep in mind that these things are different:

Feeling unsafe in reaction to something even though you actually are safe
Seeing something as evidence that you are actually unsafe
People in power will often try to confuse you about which thing you are experiencing, but it’s important to stay mindful of the difference.

It’s also possible to have a feeling that you are unsafe, and not be sure whether it’s reasonable or not:

It’s important to take that feeling seriously
And to think through what it means, and whether there might be a real danger
Sometimes when you feel unsafe it will be an irrational reaction, but don’t be quick to dismiss it as one
If you think it’s an irrational reaction, make sure you have a concrete reason for thinking that it’s irrational and that things are actually ok

People can feel unsafe around someone for all kinds of reasons other than being unsafe:

Being bigoted against another group (eg: racist fear of black people)
Being triggered by something (eg: feeling afraid because seeing men wear hats is triggering)
Forgetting to take medication and having strange reactions to things as a result
Taking a new medication with unexpected side effects that complicate your ability to perceive things accurately
Misunderstanding something someone did or said (eg: taking something literally that was not intended literally)
Hallucinations
Being exhausted
When it’s this kind of thing, sometimes the external situation still needs to be addressed, but often it can be dealt with by processing things yourself

But sometimes the problem is that you’re *actually not safe*, and sometimes this is in ways that it’s hard for other people to see, eg:

If you are being pressured to share private information with people who can’t be trusted to keep things confidential
If you are being pressured to use a ramp that is too steep to be safe, or allow people to carry you into an inaccessible building
If people around you are bigoted against you in subtle, but constantly corrosive ways
If people are intentionally triggering you in order to confuse and disorient you into doing what they want
If you’re being triggered in a way that makes it impossible for you to understand what is going on well enough to keep yourself safe, even if no one is doing it on purpose
If there is no food available that you can safely eat for an extended period
If you are experiencing executive functioning problems in ways that make it hard or impossible for you to do things that are necessary for survival, and no one is willing to help you
If you’re spending a lot of time in a environment is physically overloading in painful ways
If you have medical problems and doctors refuse to communicate in a way you can understand, or if you only have access to them in an environment that prevents you from communicating
and any number of other things

All of these things are the kind of thing that apparently well-meaning people will often try to address by trying to get you to process your feelings so that you will feel safe. That’s a dangerous reaction, and it’s important to notice when people are doing it, and to learn how to insist that they address the actual safety issue.

Sometimes the feeling is the problem.

Sometimes the problem is that you’re *actually not safe*.

If someone’s trying to manage your feelings rather than the actual threat to your safety, it’s important to remember that they’re doing a bad thing. And that it’s ok to want to actually *be* safe, even if all they want to do is make you *feel* safe.

Cooperation with feelings derails is one of the hardest anti-skills to unlearn. But it’s also really, really important.

Shopping for clothes

February 26, 2014June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

A reader asked:

Hello, thank you for running this blog. I was wondering if you have any ideas on how to make shopping for clothes less overwhelming? I almost never buy new clothes until mine are full of holes because of a few reasons, but mostly because I get stressed out in clothing stores and even while shopping online because of how many things there are. Thank you!

realsocialskills said:

Shopping for clothing is hard, particularly for women. I don’t have a complete solution, but I do have some ideas:

Pay attention to sensory overload:

Most stores that sell clothing are also very overloading on a number of levels
It might be helpful to listen to music on headphones while you shop
Pay attention to which stores are more overloading, and try to shop at the ones that are easier to deal with
When you get overloaded or overwhelmed, it can be really helpful to stop and hold onto something solid (eg: a clothing rack, a shopping cart) for a couple of minutes until you feel more grounded

It might be helpful to have someone shop with you:

Some people get distracted and overloaded alone, but not with other people
Sometimes another person can help you narrow down decisions
Sometimes another person can notice signs of overload and help you come out of it
Sometimes just having someone else there can make it easier to have perspective
This doesn’t work for everyone, and for some people having someone else can make it worse. But it works really well for some people

When you find something you like, buy more than one of it:

Then when it wears out or is in the wash or whatever, you’ll still have one
If you want one, you probably want more than one
Clothing is easier when a lot of it is the same
If you are a woman and will be socially penalized for wearing the same shirts style all the time, you can sometimes fix this by having a lot of scarves and wearing a different one every day.

Notice brands you like:

If you like a particular brand, it’s likely that you’ll keep liking stuff from that brand even as they change it
The same brands are usually in the same places in the store
And if not, you can look for them on purpose instead of being completely overwhelmed by all the options

Different kinds of stores are different, and some might be more or less overloading:

For instance, The Burlington Coat Factory has racks where all the skirts in a particular range of sizes are. And then you can flip through.
Most other stores have racks with one particular thing in several different sizes, organized by designer and loosely organized be levels of fanciness
Depending on how you think, one or the other style of store might be dramatically easier for you to deal with
For instance, if I know that I want a shirt, I usually find it easier to go to a store that has all the shirts in my size in one place.
If I need various different pieces of clothing, I often find it easier to go to a store that’s organized by brand, so I can get various things in a brand I know I like

Some stores also have people who can help you shop.