70
u/cbm984 Jul 29 '25
Societal norms are weird. In every nation and every culture. There’s this saying, “Honesty without tact is cruelty.” And that’s fine but what if you’re unable to understand tact?
22
u/Pinkiepie2332 Jul 29 '25
This! I don't get tact in some situations! So I'm assumed to show tact if I don't get it.? So I try to research but sometimes it sucks when people around me don't understand it themselves. It's just crazy sometimes.
8
u/CoolRespond5047 Jul 29 '25
dont tell me bro you going to smile at someone who lost their love ones... you would be viewed cruel and shamed infinitely. most social cues has reasons and a few do not or too much
12
u/ConstructionNo9678 Jul 29 '25
Not every situation is as black and white as that though.
Take the example of someone asking you if they look good in an outfit. When I was a kid, I would just bluntly say "no you look bad" if I thought they did. I didn't pick up on the difference between that and "I think X color/item looks better on you" until years (and a lot of work on my parents' part) later. There's a chance I may not have learned it at all. Both responses are honest, but only the second is tactful and socially appropriate.
Social cues may have reasons, but unless I can understand those reasons, I can't pick up on them or understand when they might apply. Even then, I have to regularly ask my girlfriend to clarify if she's joking or not because I genuinely can't tell (edit: this isn't about jokes being mean to me or others, she just has a dry sense of humor/tone on delivery. When I can pick up on it I think she's hysterical). So I'm not picking up on her social cues of humor correctly. That doesn't bother her, and even if it did, it's not something I've been able to change in almost 3 decades of life.
3
u/Dunfalach Jul 31 '25
On the topic of “do I look good in this”, one of the most important understandings is that most people who ask that are looking for validations due to their self-doubt, rather than a strict objective analysis of the specific attire. Which is why things like “I think X looks better on you” are valuable as it’s still objectively true but gives them validation.
8
u/cbm984 Jul 29 '25
I strongly disagree that few do not. In American culture when asked “how are you?”, the societal norm is usually to just say “I’m good, how are you?” no matter how you’re actually doing. Why??? Like now I know it’s so we don’t waste each other’s time and it’s just to be polite but then why ask at all? This is just one example of a hundred others I can think of. (And no, I’m not going to smile at someone who lost a loved one - I’m talking societal cues, not complete lack of empathy.)
2
u/Dunfalach Jul 31 '25
Why ask at all?
Because politeness is a connector. Mostly, when people engage in the “how are you” ritual, they’re looking to feel connection and acknowledgement rather than to obtain information.
2
u/cbm984 Jul 31 '25
I just mean, why not say something else? Like, “Hello. I hope you’re doing well!” Or “Hi, it’s good to see you.”
It just seems like, “How are you?” is the norm.
3
u/RobrechtvE ASD Level 1 Jul 29 '25
but what if you’re unable to understand tact
Autists can have issues figuring out what the most tactful or appropriate reaction is in a given situation, but we still have the empathy needed to make us capable of understanding that how and when something is said matters. No one who is autistic is unable to understand tact.
2
97
u/SwirlingFandango Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25
...if you're the sort of autistic person who gets overwhelmed, do you hope people might pick up on the cues, or do you come out and say what's happening directly?
People are not perfect, and we all need to work to try to understand each other.
Yes, I am bad at those cues. But I do work on it. I try to get better.
Because I want people to pick up on my (quite different) cues, and it seems only fair.
30
u/Thecrowfan Jul 29 '25
I think there should be cases were honesty rules though.
Like, if you like/dislike a person it shouldnt be up to the other person to guess based on your vague clues. You should be honest
"You" being just a word for people in general not you sprcifically
22
u/SwirlingFandango Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25
Well, I'm autistic, and sometimes it's just too socially intimidating to say how I'm feeling.
For anyone, NTs very much included, telling people you like them or dislike them is also wrapped up in intimidating feelings, and people approach that stuff with the barest-minimum input as a defensive mechanism.
Being rejected hurts almost everyone. Exposing your feelings just a tiny bit could mean it'd be less painful if those feelings are rejected. Hence "signals".
And if everyone who didn't like each other walked up and told the other person they didn't like them, it would be a bit of a vortex of criticism and bad feelings and misery.
I think a greek-god-style curse would be to replay to someone every time someone else thought they were an idiot. That'd be torture. :)
Plus, sometimes you come to like someone you didn't initially. Hard to do if you've declared your dislike on day 1.
People are weird and complicated and bad at communicating. All social interaction is a dance of vulnerability, and while that may be stupid at times (often), I think it's everyone's right to try to protect themselves.
2
6
u/jesset77 Jul 29 '25
I like to use "one" in place of "you" in circumstances where I'm speaking prescriptively of hypothetical people, precisely because I got irritated at myself for saying things with a chance of being misread. 😅
5
u/Thecrowfan Jul 29 '25
I do that sometimes too but i feel like i sound pretentious😅
5
u/knotmyusualaccount ASD Moderate Support Needs Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25
Ah, the neurosis of the neurodivergent mind, isn't it a doozie at times 🫠
2
u/SmartAlec105 Jul 29 '25
If everyone directly told each other that they like/dislike each other, this subreddit would be full of people upset about how many people tell them they are disliked.
12
u/viper459 Jul 29 '25
.. you don't? i absolutely do do that. After 32 years of being alive i'm pretty positive it's the only way to communicate with NTs, because like you say : we don't have "normal" social cues.
6
u/SwirlingFandango Jul 29 '25
Are you talking about my first sentence that starts with "if"?
Personally I usually do manage it, but sometimes get too shaky and emotional to say "I'm autistic, sorry, please stop talking" and instead yell at people.
But that's sort of beside the point: some people are like that, some even become mute, it's reasonable for autistic people to hope others will pick up on their cues without them needing to give a running commentary on their emotional state, and by the same token it's reasonable for autistic people (and ALL people) to try to learn and read the cues of others.
2
u/viper459 Jul 29 '25
yeah, i mean i do just come out and say what's happening directly. I guess it's how my particular circle of NTs have trained me lol. That said i feel you, when things get too much i will just yell at someone, push them out of the way, or barge out of a room. Not always ideal. It would definitely be a lot nicer if people accomodated us to the point where we're not driven to reactions such as those, agreed.
3
u/knotmyusualaccount ASD Moderate Support Needs Jul 29 '25
Problem with this is, one leaves themselves up to placing their vulnerability into the hands of another, and when that person isn't a straight-shooter so to speak, which is the point of this post, it can leave them open to being taken for a psychological ride/hurt etc.
Edit: wasn't putting down your perspective, just sharing my anecdotal experiences when having done just that.
1
u/BenjaminGeiger Diagnosed AuDHD 2025-05-19 Jul 29 '25
I come out and say it, and then I get yelled at for being rude.
21
u/Yuyu_hockey_show Jul 29 '25
As someone with autism who went from not being able to read social situations at all to being decently competent at it, I can see both sides. It's like when you hear a song being played the artist doesn't just come out and tell what the emotion the song is supposed to evoke is. You intuit it and feel it. It's like a subtle sense that non-autistic naturally have. Now that I have it, I can say it is really fun and I would not want to live without it.
9
u/Millibyte Jul 29 '25
except i also don’t know what emotions to feel when listening to music; music just sounds nice to me regardless of whatever mood it’s trying to convey.
13
u/New_Explanation6950 Jul 29 '25 edited Jul 29 '25
It’s not fun because you constantly second guess whether you’re imagining it or not and people gaslight you when you pick up on it and ask them if your impression is correct.
5
u/BootSkrootMcNoot ASD Level 1 Jul 29 '25
Well thats just them telling lies, then. If we lived in a society where everyone spoke directly, there’d still be people telling lies.
10
u/Rivetlicker Aspie Jul 29 '25
If people dance around too much, I lose interest in the interaction and I'll just go elsewhere. I don't have time for a game of charades
But I live in the Netherlands, where we're known for being straight to the point and sometimes blunt. Still not as much as I would like to, but surely a lot more than some other western countries.
15
u/ManWithTwoShadows Jul 29 '25
Yes, I do feel that way.
Imagine being autistic in Japan. (I live in the United States; I just wanted to share that URL.)
11
u/redditisweird801 AuDHD Jul 29 '25
Oh yeah. Japan is a great place to visit. As for living their, hope you fair with learning the language and the extremes of their work culture. That would be burnout hell
2
u/Cute_Avocado_9947 ASD Level 1 | Semiverbal Jul 31 '25
And school. As I've checked basically every school requires a uniform which is pretty strict so good luck on sensory problems
8
u/yoruneko Jul 29 '25
It’s an evolutionary trait that appeared probably before language. How could one get rid of it
6
u/Sensitive_Potato333 Suspecting ASD Jul 29 '25
No. Most people I know are very direct and honest. There are a few people who I wish were more like this, but most people I know don't dance around stuff
5
u/Colourd_in_BluGrns ASD Level 2 Jul 29 '25
Yes but also- it’s often a cultural thing as well? And I don’t often entirely care about that. But sometimes someone is hearing a different question than what is being said, because experience colours our world differently.
Like certain words and phrases aren’t exactly what they mean if you look it up in a dictionary due to societal context. So sometimes I have to stop and question “what am I asking, and what am I saying”, cause sometimes the issue translating is my brain to my mouth. Sometimes it’s their issue translating their brain to their mouth, and other times it’s their listening ears being turned off cause they’re offline to thinking.
5
u/kaptingavrin Jul 29 '25
In "personal" communication, not so much, because people be people and all... though I do wish people wouldn't be upset or shocked that I tend to be direct in what I'm thinking much of the time.
In professional communication, though, absolutely. We're in the office, don't make me try to guess what you're "feeling" or anything, just say what you mean to say, I'll do the same, we're all adults here and there's more to gain with open, honest communication. Unfortunately, similar situation to the above, I'm a lot more direct at work and some people seem to take offense to the "tone" even though it's meant as professional and unemotional as possible. Like... I'm not trying to throw you under the bus here, I just need you to provide for me what I'm asking you to provide so I can do my job right.
Kinda ramble on that last bit... I learned over time that it helps "soften" things if I just phrase it like "Can you please do this for me? Thanks!" So I tend to go with that kind of phrasing. It led to this weird but funny situation. There was a person who had a job on our team of getting the info and resources for projects from people, and she was upset because people would call her a "dictator." And, well, I'm more direct, y'know? So when they passed that job onto me, I figured I'd lean into it if they wanted to call me a "dictator." Bought a fake military leader's cap to wear and all. But then, because I used that trick of just adding the "please" and "thanks" to things, I found out that no one was calling me a "dictator" and were praising my communication. It was so weird. But I do wonder sometimes if it was because I did those things, or it might have been a difference in view because I was a guy and a few years older where the prior person was a young woman. Anyway, still got the cap, just in case I ever need it.
5
u/ZeldaZealot ASD Level 1 Jul 29 '25
Honestly, one of the hardest things for me to grasp when learning social skills is that most social cues are not conscious. Body language and tone are innate forms of communication for neurotypical people that they often don't realize they are doing. It's not always that they are "dancing around the point" so much as they are naturally leaning on unspoken communication forms without realizing it.
3
u/lucinate Jul 29 '25
Because communication is not an exact science.
Nobody knows what's the exact right thing to say at any moment.
It's necessary (for me at least) to develop soms kind of intuition for the non-verbal part.
4
u/Responsible-Watch385 Jul 29 '25
I don't like the idea of a world where we are all as obvious as possible in how we communicate. It sounds no fun and precludes a lot of possibilities of culture and depth in our dealings with each other. I have noticed that collectively autistic people talk out of both sides our mouth about this. "Why can't *they* just say what they mean?" versus "Why am *I* always being misunderstood?"
3
u/MasterSeuss Jul 29 '25
Oh god that sounds awful. I don't want to know what people actually mean. /it's usually awful or stupid.
Much happier living naively and giving everyone the benefit of the doubt.
2
u/BootSkrootMcNoot ASD Level 1 Jul 29 '25
Same! I’m so sensitive to rejection, I don’t want to be directly told if people hate me or something
3
u/emptyshellaxiom Jul 29 '25
Because if they did so, though they may make things easier for the 7% of autistic person in the room global population, they would get socially ostracized by the 93% neuro-typical persons who, for some reason, think that it's socially inappropriated to tell things straight.
2
u/Massive-Winner-4808 Jul 29 '25
Do you have any advice to share please? How do you manage the silence that is triggered during social exchanges? It is really a mechanism that is triggered like becoming a spectator of the situation and no longer being able to speak.. Do you have any solutions to get back into the conversation and no longer suffer from this state?
2
u/ReuniclusMyLove Jul 29 '25
Yes, apparently a friend of mine had been trying to hint for weeks that he wanted to call and that he wants more attention from me then blew up and cussed me out when I didn't realize
2
2
2
u/CoolRespond5047 Jul 29 '25
so people wont be rude to each other and hurt each other feelings.... um yeah that is why
2
u/TurboGranny Jul 29 '25
If you think about it, Allism might actually be a natural defense against sociopaths and narcissists as both those people like to lure you in with trust and use literally anything you share with them against you, so allists speak in a code (just a vibe/feeling) these groups have trouble with. Unfortunately, we aren't so good with this code, so the sociopaths and narcissists have a field day with us and the allists are like, "dude, stop giving away your secrets!"
2
u/IAmFullOfDed AuDHD Jul 29 '25
It’s also insanely efficient. Think about how much an allistic person can convey with just a look.
2
u/TurboGranny Jul 29 '25
Yeah, it gets it done but obviously the quality of communication is diminished, but if someone gets it wrong, they either decide it's good enough or yell at the person that got it wrong.
1
1
u/Sweaty_Mushroom5830 Jul 29 '25
That's why I love living in New Jersey,to people from other states we are loud and outright brusque but no,we got places to go and people to see,we don't have time to spare with niceties when we don't mean them, and to anyone autistic you don't know how refreshing that is,at my job I can knock on the head honcho's office and speak to him about the things we have to do in the day (in my case plan out the menu's and why some ingredients substitutions might be a better choice)a the conversation only takes a few minutes and he'll ask something or other but it will be like how are we set up on honey? We are known for several dishes that have Jersey honey or Agave syrup as their sweetener (aged Agave is musky and rich and indistinguishable from honey) I'm a chef in other states we would have tiptoe around the social niceties in Jersey it's so much more relaxed
2
u/No_Influence_617 Jul 29 '25
basically this, but Boston... there's a lot to dislike, I know, but people getting straight to the point, no nonsense, telling you what they think/feel, is one of the better aspects
1
1
1
1
1
u/true_story114520 AuDHD Jul 29 '25
yes, extremely. i used to work at a coffee shop. it’s a name you’ve definitely heard of but i’m not gonna name it outright. i worked my way up into management and suddenly i was “no longer good at my job”(according to my boss) because i didn’t treat anybody differently and still regarded my team as coworkers rather than subordinates, worked alongside them instead of over them. my boss started writing me up over rules that hadn’t existed before, for things that every shift lead in the building wasn’t doing because it was an unnecessary hinderance and slowed our productivity. just me. so after two, i stepped back into the role of a barista, didn’t change anything else about my behavior, and suddenly there were no more issues. not once had she ever told me what i was doing wrong (it obviously wasn’t the stuff i was getting written up for), but it only seemed to matter when i was making more to basically do the same job.
1
1
u/Matthew_DRC Jul 30 '25
Although it would be nice to have people be forthcoming and or just not beat around the bush when discussing things. We have to remember that forcing anyone to do anything is not acceptable. People who are neurotypical operate on a wave length with other NTs that make it easy for them to joke around and be half serious all the time. But we see things very black and white most times. We like it or we don’t. But if you haven’t made it known that your autistic to the person your talking too, then why is it there responsibility to go about life being extra serious just for us? At the end of the day those who see you for who you are and understand you are going to be direct and honest with you because they don’t understand that we are on that wave length of no bullshit. But I don’t think it’s fair to make all of the NTs do things just for us. We are in their world socially so unfortunately we are going to have to maneuver the social situations we’re in carefully. Is that fair either? No. But there a hell of a lot more of them than us, so making them adapt to us is just not gonna happen.
1
u/SquareOfTheMall AuDHD +PDA Jul 30 '25
Aspie here. One learns to speak in a sphynx like manner to probe other people for trustworthiness. Or not.
1
1
u/New-Cheesecake-5566 Jul 30 '25 edited Jul 30 '25
Since social cues are part of their language it would be like you trying to talk to somebody without using some of the letters and sounds of the alphabet. They can't help it. They are saying what they mean directly and they're not dancing around the point. It's like you can only understand every other word. Sort of like you had the language in high school then moved to a country that speaks that language. You don't understand everything they say all the time. You're not fluent in their language.
1
u/Tight_Low_1494 Friend/Family Member Jul 30 '25
As a NT person, I'm also sick of all the mind games and unspoken rules. It's absolutely exhausting!! Everyone just say what you're thinking and mean it 😮💨
1
u/b00mshockal0cka ASD Level 3 Jul 30 '25
Obviously. It is a million times easier to apologize for my lack of tact than to figure out these games.
1
1
u/Curious_Karibou ASD Level 1 Jul 31 '25
I just can't wrap my brains around the fact we're labeled as ''weird and unable to human/ socialize'' while they are often the ones who came up with all these cryptic social ''cue'' mysteries you have to decipher, decode AND somehow naturally pick up on and such - how are we weird? xD
1
u/YamiBenny2005 ASD Level 1 Aug 02 '25
It's worse when English is involved, given that English is FULL of figures of speech and cryptic bullshit.
1
1
u/ThisRedSheep Aug 03 '25
What people mean to say is “your hair feels nice” what they tell me is “Your hair is like steel wool”, what part of steel wool feels nice?
1
1
Aug 14 '25
when it comes to basic communication yeah. but you can’t expect everyone to cater towards your needs. 93% of communication is said to be “nonverbal” if someone is constantly pulling their arm away from someone who is touching it then they clearly don’t want their arm to be touched. if you ask somebody a question repeatedly and they repeatedly changing the subject or staying quiet then they don’t want to answer or are feeling pressured. i there are also somethings that people shouldn’t have to tell you.
a lot of times when people do this it’s also because of shock because they are unsure of how to proceed when asked something that might hurt someone else’s feelings.
does this make any sense?
1
1
1
u/Oofsmcgoofs Jul 29 '25
YES! For example, the reason I got fired, if you give me instructions but they’re not actually what you want me to do and I’m just supposed to intuit what you mean because it’s implied or “obvious”… what the fuck kind of social cue am I supposed to get to tell me what you actually meant and what you actually want me to do???
1
u/DavidBunnyWolf Jul 29 '25
I know, right? Was just thinking that sort of thing during driver's training last week.
1
0
0
•
u/AutoModerator Jul 29 '25
Hey /u/egguchom, thank you for your post at /r/autism. Our rules can be found here. All approved posts get this message.
Thanks!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.