Real Social Skills

Social skill: Noticing a consent problem

October 3, 2012June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

I’m not entirely sure how to describe this, but I know it’s a thing, and I know a *little* about how to deal with it:

Some people have been systemically taught that they are absolutely never allowed to say no to anything. That their boundaries don’t matter, and that they’re not really people.

For this reason, some things you’d normally do in order to establish consent and find out someone’s preferences don’t work *at all*.

For instance, asking “do you want to eat a sandwich?” is a totally useless question when you’re asking someone who’s been taught to interpret this as a command. Which a lot of people have been, because they’re in the power of people who don’t want to perceive themselves as having power over others. So they use lots of things that *look* like questions and polite requests, but aren’t.

And people get really, really good at correcting identifying orders and giving every outward appearance of consent. Because that dynamic punishes everything else.

So you have to do it differently. You have to make more guesses (not the right word, but don’t know a better one). And you also have to ask questions differently. You have to ask in a way that *doesn’t* suggest an answer. And you have to remind people that saying no is possible. For instance “Do you want to watch TV now, or do something else?” is better than “do you want to watch TV now?”, but still probably not good enough.

But you have to notice this. And take it into account when you interact with people. I know some of my followers on here know more about how to do this than I do – comments anyone?

How to react to an accent

October 2, 2012June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

People from different parts of the world speak differently, even when they are speaking the same language. Accents can also arise from some disabilities and subcultures, even within the same region.

Everyone has an accent, but some people perceive themselves as not having an accent. Some people have strong reactions to other people’s accents, and end up making asses of themselves. Here’s some advice on how to avoid doing that:

The first rule of politeness with regards accents is that you ought not to comment on them. An accent is part of someone’s body. It’s rude and invasive to make personal comments about someone else’s body, because bodies are private. For instance, if you’re in a situation where it would be rude to tell a woman that her hair makes her look hot, don’t tell her she has a cute accent.

Do not offer your unsolicited opinions about the place you perceive the person to be from. For instance, do not commiserate with a person you just met about Southern bigotry based on their accent. Do not tell someone with a British accent all about how much better you think their health care system is than yours. Do not initiate a conversation about their political views about a war their country is fighting. Talk about what the conversation is actually about; treat them like a person and not as their region embodied.

Do not express skepticism about where someone is from based on the way they speak. It’s disrespectful. They know where they came from; you, as a person who just met them, are not a greater authority on this. And you won’t be the first one to have expressed this skepticism. You might not even be the first one that day. It gets old fast.

Also, some people with disabilities pass as non-disabled in order to protect themselves, but speak somewhat oddly and are perceived as having foreign accents. Questioning someone in that situation at length about why they talk like that and where they’re really from can be frightening. People who pass do it *for reasons*, because being identifiably disabled can expose people to horrifying discrimination.

Some people with more obvious disabilities, and unmistakable disability accents, get ignored because other people assume that they are impossible to understand, or that they don’t have anything worthwhile to say. Do not do this. Make the effort to listen, and you’ll probably find that it’s not so hard once you’ve stopped thinking of it as optional (unless you have a significant receptive language disability, but most people who think of disability accents as incomprehensible don’t.) Do not treat this as a favor you are doing someone. Treat it as a matter of basic respect. It is not ok to decide that a whole category of people get ignored because you can’t be bothered to listen.

People often make it impossible for others to communicate by listening to their accents and ignoring their words. Do not be that guy. Listen to content, take people seriously, and don’t fetishize accents.

Social skill: Don’t be the Nice Guy

October 1, 2012June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

There’s a phenomenon that’s been discussed recently as niceguyism. Niceguyism narrowly defined is when a man wants to date a women, and pretends to be her friend, and then gets angry and disgusted when she thinks that they are friends and does not reciprocate his interest in dating.

It’s been summed up as “treating women like vending machines into which you insert friendship and get out sex”.

I think it is actually much broader than that. First of all, although it has a gendered variant, people of all genders do this, and it’s not always for sex. Here’s what I think niceguyism is, broadly defined:

When someone unilaterally decides that they have a particular kind of close relationship with someone, and then treats the other person as though they have an obligation to act like it is true.

All close relationships require the ongoing consent of both parties. You can’t unilaterally *create* a close relationship, you can only unilaterally *offer* to enter into a relationship.

This plays out in romantic and sexual terms, where one person might unilaterally decide that they want to date someone, give that person presents or assistance, and then get furious when that person dates someone else.

It also plays out in friendships – one person decides that someone else should be their best friend, unilaterally acts like they are best friends, and then gets angry and disgusted when that person spends more time with or exchanges more confidences with other people.

It also plays out in a particular way with people with disabilities – people decide they want to be someone’s helper, or open their life up, or empower them, or give them hope to overcome their disabilities – and then proceed to run roughshod over that person’s boundaries and heap abuse and derision on them when they object.

It is never ok to decide you would like a close relationship with someone, and then unilaterally act as though you already do without regard to their consent. Don’t be that guy.

Social skill: Communicating with strangers on the internet

September 30, 2012June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

On Tumblr, email lists, comment forums, and other types of social media, it’s really easy to get bogged down in destructive conversations. People can end up spending lots and lots of time talking to people who aren’t really worth talking to, and having conversations that are draining and don’t do anyone much good.

Here are some rules that I try to observe that I think mitigate that somewhat and help me to find better conversations. They probably aren’t the right rules for everyone, but they work well for me and I think there are good reasons for that:

1) If you don’t want to talk to someone, don’t. You don’t owe strangers on the internet your attention.

2) Don’t have extended conversations with people who aren’t interested in understanding your point. (Unless you’re responding to them publicly for the sake of communicating something to your followers who *are* interested in understanding what you’re saying.)

3) Seek out people who are worth talking to and who have decent values and say interesting things. Conversations with those people are a much better use of your time than extended conversations with willfully clueless jerks.

4) Don’t be a sadist, and don’t seek revenge. It’s not good to seek out people who are wrong and lash out at them with the primary purpose of hurting them. (It’s ok to post things that hurt things, there are vital things that can’t be said without hurting anyone. What’s not ok is posting things *in order to* hurt people.)

5) Don’t post replies in order to satisfy a feeling of anger (or automatic emotional responses generally); only post in ways that express anger if you’ve thought about it and decided it’s a good idea. Anger isn’t bad, but the fallout of angry posts that haven’t been thought through properly can be.

6) If you don’t want to talk to someone, block them. Err on the side of blocking people if you think you don’t want to talk to them. There are plenty of people to talk to. Blocking someone doesn’t mean that you think they’re a terrible person and should be banned from the internet forever. It just means you don’t want to talk to them and so aren’t answering their calls.

7) Don’t try to pick a fight with someone to make them go away and stop talking to you. It’s often not effective, and it’s not necessary – you can unilaterally end the conversation if you don’t want to continue it. Trying to make them go away suggests that you think you need their permission to end the conversation, and you don’t. It’s also draining, and wastes time and energy that could be spent having actually good conversations.

Social skills: noticing when repetition is communication

September 29, 2012June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

So there’s this dynamic:

Autistic person: The door is open!

Other person: I *know* that. It’s hot in here.

Autistic person: The door is open!

Other person: I already explained to you that it’s hot in here!

Autistic person: The door is open!

Other person: Why do you have to repeat things all the time?!

Often when this happens, what’s really going on is that the autistic person is trying to communicate something, and they’re not being understood. The other person thinks that they are understanding and responding, and that the autistic person is just repeating the same thing over and over either for no reason or because they are being stubborn and inflexible and obnoxious and pushy.

When what’s really happening is that the autistic person is not being understood, and they are communicating using the words they have. There’s a NT social expectation that if people aren’t being understood, they should change their words and explain things differently. Sometimes autistic people aren’t capable of doing this without help.

So, if this is happening, assume it’s communication and try to figure out what’s being communicated. If you’re the one with more words, and you want the communication to happen in words, then you have to provide words that make communication possible. For example:

Other person: Do you want the door to be closed, or are you saying something else?

Autistic person: Something else

Other person: Do you want to show me something outside, or something else?

Autistic person: Something else

Other person: Are you worried about something that might happen, or something else?

Autistic person: Worried

Other person: Are you worried that something will come in, or that something will go out?

Autistic person: Baby

Other person: She’s in her crib, and the baby gate is up. Is that ok, or is there still a problem?

Autistic person: ok

Social skill: Interacting with a person walking a dog

September 25, 2012June 21, 2021 Real Social Skills

The rules of interacting with strangers are different when the stranger is walking a pet dog.

It’s generally considered acceptable to initiate a conversation in order to compliment someone on their dog or ask certain questions about the dog. (Infodumping about dogs is *not* considered acceptable, and criticizing their approach to their dog is considered rude).

It’s also generally considered acceptable to ask if it’s ok to pet the dog. Keep in mind that sometimes the answer will be no, and act in ways that make it clear that you understand this. Do not make any move to pet the dog until you have been told that it is ok. And if it is ok, make sure to approach the dog carefully. Let the dog smell your fingers first, then pet the dog if it seems to be ok with the dog.

If someone is walking with headphones, that is a signal that they would prefer not to be approached. Don’t initiate a conversation with them unless you have a solid reason to believe that they would welcome it. (A desire to flirt with them is *not* such evidence; neither is having had dog conversations with that person in the past, neither is their apparent awareness that you are present).

The rules for service dogs are different. Service dogs are not pets, and being out with a service dog is *not* an implied invitation to pet-related social interaction. Service dogs usually wear either harnesses or vests. If you suspect that a dog is a service dog, err on the side of assuming that it is one. You should not approach or interact with a person with a service dog unless it would be appropriate to interact with them if they did not have a service dog. Especially, you should not attempt to interact with the dog; it’s rude and distracting a service dog can can someone injured or killed. You should not ask to pet the dog – the answer is almost certainly no, but someone might be uncomfortable asserting that. Asking to pet a service dog is a microaggression. (All of this is assuming that you don’t have a service dog or a disability relevant to service dogs. I don’t know what the rules are about interactions between people who both have service dogs.)