Tag: questions for y’all

Having people over for dinner

Real Social Skills

One potentially enjoyable form of interaction is to have people over for dinner.

Some ways this can be good:

  • Eating together can make conversation easier
  • Since it creates an activity and a focus
  • But it doesn’t take up all the attention; you can still talk
  • Eating at home can be cheaper than going out
  • It can also be less overloading, since your place is probably less noisy than a restaurant 
  • It can also be more private, because you’re less likely to run into unwelcome people, and because there aren’t as many people around who could overhear

Some things about guests:

  • Invite people who you like
  • Invite people who like each other
  • It’s not very much fun to hang out with a group of folks who dislike one another, even if you like all of them separately
  • Don’t invite too many people. It’s much more fun to have dinner with a group of people that’s a comfortable size for you
  • It’s often considered rude to invite someone but not their partner, with two major exceptions:
  • If you’re hosting a single-gender event and their partner isn’t the relevant gender, or:
  • If you’re hosting an esoteric interest gathering and it’s something only one of them likes. (Eg: If you’re having a party for people who like to talk about spiders, it’s probably ok to not invite a partner who hate spiders)

Some points about food etiquette: 

If you are in your 20s and living in the US, it’s likely that you’re in a culture in which it’s normal for guests to bring some of the food. (This is different from a potluck, which is a communally-hosted kind of meal at which no one person has primary responsibility for making the food. I’m planning to write a different post about that later.)

If you are invited over for a meal:

  • It’s considered polite to offer to bring something
  • The most polite way to ask is to say something along the lines of “What can I bring?” because it suggests that you’re expecting to bring something rather than hoping they’ll tell you not to bring anything
  • If they say not to bring anything, don’t
  • Some people prefer that you don’t, or might have cultural or medical reasons to want control over the food that’s in their space
  • Also, in some cultures it’s considered rude, so if someone doesn’t want you to bring something, it’s important to respect that

If you are doing the inviting:

  • It’s usually considered rude to ask people to bring things if they haven’t explicitly offered to
  • If people offer, it’s ok to assume that they mean it, and to ask them to bring something
  • But be reasonable about it. Don’t ask people to bring something expensive or complicated unless you are planning the meal together and hosting jointly
  • It’s usually considered reasonable to ask someone to bring one of these things: bread, wine, salad, soda/juice, or a dessert

Some specific things about food:

  • You should make/buy a main dish that is filling and has protein of some sort
  • And also probably a side dish or two
  • And drinks of some sort – but it’s ok if it’s mostly water
  • Make sure you have enough plates/cups/knives/forks/spoons/etc for everyone
  • Find out if people you’re inviting are allergic to anything
  • If you are serving meat, find out if there are any vegetarians
  • If some people are vegetarian, it’s nice to make a vegetarian protein in addition to the main meat dish
  • But in any case, at least make sure that some things don’t contain meat (eg: don’t put bacon bits on the salad or use lard to make a pie)

This is a good kind of gathering. Are there other things people should know about how to do it?

Getting past “I’m not being abusive!!!” and getting perspective on how you’re treating people

Real Social Skills
A reader asked:
re: ‘I’m not being abusive!’ – I’m concerned I’ve done this in the past because I grew up around someone very verbally/emotionally abusive and am trying to work through those behaviors. I feel like I flag myself sometimes that way to check in with others, but get the feeling this is a really bad way of dealing with things. Any advice on what I can do in these situations when I’m very worried I *am* being abusive and want help to stop?
I think there’s a couple of things:
First of all, recognize the difference between asking for feedback and asking for reassurance:
  • Trying to find out whether something is wrong is one thing.
  • Trying to get someone to reassure you that nothing is wrong is a different thing.
  • It’s important to be open to the possibility that something is actually wrong.
  • If you’re not open to that possibility, then don’t ask.
  • Because pressuring someone to tell you that everything is ok makes things worse
  • Work on learning how to be open to the possibility that things are wrong
  • And ask in a way that makes it clear you actually want to know.
  • Eg, don’t say things like this: “You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?” “Nothing’s wrong, is it?”
  • Things like this are better: “I feel like something might be bothering you. Is something wrong?”, “Did I mess something up? I feel like I might have.”

Don’t rely too much on people you might be hurting to teach you how to act right:

  • It’s important to listen
  • But it’s also important not to make them responsible for your actions
  • You are responsible for learning how to treat people well. People you might be hurting are not responsible for teaching you how to stop.

Get outside perspective of some sort:

  • Outside perspective is important because it is a way to get feedback without putting pressure on people you might be hurting to tell you things are ok
  • It’s also an important way to protect yourself against gaslighting. People who worry that they might be abusers are particularly susceptible to gaslighting. Some gaslighters prey on this worry really aggressively.
  • It’s important to care about treating people well. It’s also important to care about protecting yourself and being treated well.
  • It’s also a way to learn things that no one involved knows
  • Outside perspective is important for other reasons I’m having trouble articulating
  • For some people, therapy is a helpful way to get outside perspective. Therapy is not for everyone, and it can be actively harmful for some people, but it works really well for people it works for
  • For some people, it helps to talk things over with friends outside the situation
  • Reading fiction and watching TV can also be helpful
  • So can reading blogs and books that are explicitly about interpersonal dynamics, although unfortunately there are not many good ones.

Any of y’all have other suggestions?

When your workplace isn’t accessible

Real Social Skills
A reader asked:
My workplace (a theatre) is really inaccessible to people with physical disabilities. I’ve pointed it out to the manager, who isn’t interested in fixing the problems. When people with physical disabilities come into the building, the best thing I know how to do is let them know ahead of time what parts of the building they won’t be able to access (bathrooms, all but the last rows of the auditorium, etc.) It doesn’t feel like enough. Could you talk about some other useful ways to help?

I think there’s probably not much you have the power to do as far as fixing it. Depending on where you’re situated, you might be able to tell the owner, or report it to a local organization that deals with accessibility issues. But, it’s very likely that you won’t be able to fix things that way.

Assuming that you won’t be able to fix it, here are some things you can do:

  • When people call and ask about accessibility issues, be honest
  • And specific. Listen to the questions people ask, and answer them honestly.
  • Sometimes you won’t know the answers. When you don’t know, say that you don’t know.
  • If it’s something you can check, offer to check.
  • If people are angry, don’t try to defuse their anger. Don’t tell them it’s not your fault. It’s not their job to make your feel better about the state of accessibility. They have a right to be angry,
  • Maybe ask if they want to talk to the manager? They *might* be more interested in the problem if customers complain.
  • Find out if there’s an accessible theater nearby. If people call and ask if your theater is accessible in a way yours isn’t, tell them “Unfortunately not, but <other place> is.”
  • Familiarize yourself with access issues other than wheelchair access, too. Does your workplace offer captions? Descriptive audio? Sensory-friendly screenings? For which films?
  • If not, which theaters do?

Anyone else want to weigh in? People with access needs, what would you want someone to do in this situation? People who’ve been in this situation, did you figure out anything good to do?

When you don’t understand tones of voice on the phone

Real Social Skills
dowhatmakesyouhappy-no-regrets asked:
Love your blog! I’m an Aspie/NLDer and 25. One of my biggest problems is understanding tone of voice. Like I can’t talk on the phone. Everything gets lost on me. As a result, I never know if people are joking, being serious, are mad at me, etc. It’s very frustrating for the other person and even more so for me. Do you have any advice? Do you know of any good websites that help people with this?
I have a couple of suggestions:
Watch more TV:
  • TV shows can be a good way to learn about tones of voice
  • Partly because they have predictable tropes, so it’s easier to have a sense of what’s probably going on than in real conversations
  • It’s also possible to watch the same episode over and over in order to learn new things from it.
  • Once you already know what happens, it can be easier to pay attention to other things like tones of voice and other conversational cues
  • Watching TV can also give you useful scripts and phrases
  • Tropes happen in real conversations too; understanding the tropes can make conversations easier to follow

Some specific thoughts about which shows might be helpful:

  • Shows made for teenagers in the 90s tend to have a lot of telephone conversations. Often, both people are visible, so you can also watch facial expressions.
  • If you have trouble telling TV characters apart, try watching cartoons made for adults. (kids cartoons often don’t have enough dialogue to be helpful).
  • Futurama, The Simpsons, and King of the Hill are particularly good for this because large parts of the shows are about conversation
  • Community is also a good show to watch. It’s easier to tell the characters apart because they actually all look different. A lot of shows have identical looking white people with the same haircut, clothing, makeup, voice and mannerisms.
  • Community is easier to follow because the characters look different in *all* of those ways. The main characters all have different skin, faces, hair, clothing, voices, and mannerisms.
  • Community also has a realistic autistic character who successfully interacts with non-autistic characters. Watching him interact might help you figure out stuff about interacting

Use alternative means of communication:

  • Not everything has to be done over the phone
  • Sometimes it’s easier to use email or text conversations, or to meet people in person
  • It’s ok if that’s what you need.
  • I hardly ever use the phone socially except to arrange other kinds of interaction, except when I’m talking to a couple of people I know really well
  • Sometimes you can avoid incomprehensible phone conversations by claiming that your phone’s reception is bad. People usually believe that. It’s not even really a lie – it’s just that the reception problem is taking place between your ears rather than between the phones
  • You can also let your phone go to voicemail and text back instead of calling back.
  • Or say things like “I’d really like to talk to you, but this isn’t a good time. Can we get together sometime next week? How about Tuesday?”
  • If you understand body language at all, you might find that Skype is more usable for you than the phone

I don’t know of any effective resources effectively aimed at helping people to understand tones of voice. I suspect that they don’t exist, given what I know of how these things tend to be presented to autistic people. Social skills classes are usually oriented towards making people seem acceptable by following rules. They should be oriented towards helping people to understand things well enough to interact on their own terms, but they generally aren’t. Also, autism tests involving tones of voice are exceptionally ridiculous.

I could be wrong though. Do any of y’all know of any useful resources that teach tones of voice explicitly?

About avoiding slurs

Real Social Skills

There are a lot of slurs that are so ingrained into English-speaking culture that people who say them don’t always realize that they are slurs.

  • People say them without meaning them as slurs, but they still hurt people
  • Because people also say them as intentional slurs
  • And it’s not usually obvious which is which
  • And even when people genuinely don’t mean it that way, hearing slurs about your group all the time hurts
  • Also, sometimes the people who are using the slur don’t know that the group it’s about actually exists
  • Being erased to the point that people only know about the stereotype is also really horrible

And…

  • Often when people in the target group point out the slurs, people react badly
  • Instead of apologizing and fixing it, they get angry and hostile
  • And often behave in really humiliating (or even dangerous) ways towards the person who pointed it out
  • Reacting that way is fairly similar to using a slur intentionally
  • You can’t actually invoke a trope related to the slur without also invoking the slur in ways that hurt people it’s used against
  • Even if you would never react that way, people in the target group don’t know that when you say the word.

I’m a bit uneasy about saying those words, so I’m not going to include any examples. (I’m not sure that’s the right decision, but that’s what I’m doing for this post). But if people these words are used against want to reblog with comments or send asks, that would be very welcome.

Remembering that food exists

Real Social Skills

It can be hard to remember that food exists, or notice it while it’s there.

I know a few things that work for some people to mitigate this problem:

For some people, cooking for other people regularly makes it easier to notice that food exists:

  • Sometimes remembering to cook for other people works as a reminder that you need to cook and eat
  • Sometimes the motor/sensory/tactile experience can make it easier to remember that you have food
  • Because for some people, motor memory works better than visual memory

For some people, asking other people for direct help is useful:

  • If you feel like you need to eat, asking a friend to tell you to eat might help
  • Or asking them what you should eat
  • Or how to find the food
  • Some people who can’t figure out food for themselves, *can* tell other people how to find food
  • So if you and a friend both have this problem, you might still be able to help one another

Stashing food in places where you’ll see it can also help:

  • Keeping a box of cheerios or granola bars or something else that lasts a while by your computer might work as a reminder that food exists

These are strategies I know about. Do any of y’all know about others?

Complicated power relationships in a work context

Real Social Skills
A reader asked:
Someone contracting with you to do something is like a boss, but it’s a different relationship; such a person is a client and a client is more like a customer. It’s your job to do what the customer wants but the customer isn’t in charge of the business. Or maybe I’m off base. Of course, if the disabled woman didn’t hire and can’t fire this person, the person’s working for the parents, then, aren’t they?
I think the power relationships between assistants/PAs/whatever and folks with disabilities are a lot more complicated than that.
Even with a direct hire, it’s more complicated than other types of employment. For instance, hiring someone to write a webpage for you is really different than hiring someone to do things you need in order to survive.
Especially, given that when people murder folks who are disabled enough to need extensive care, they often get away with it.
And there are all kinds of complications I don’t understand well.
I don’t know more to say about this, though. Do any of y’all?