Image text: @agnieszkasshoes: “Part of what makes small talk so utterly debilitating for many of us who are neurodivergent is that having to smile and lie in answer to questions like, “how are you?” is exhausting to do even once, and society makes us do it countless times a day.”
@LuckyHarmsGG: “It’s not just the lie, it’s the energy it takes to suppress the impulse to answer honestly, analyze whether the other person wants the truth, realize they almost certainly don’t, and then have to make the DECISION to lie, every single time. Over and over. Decision fatigue is real”
@agnieszkasshoes: “Yes! The constant calculations are utterly exhausting - and all under the pressure of knowing that if you get it “wrong” you will be judged for it!”
My addition: For me, in addition to this, more specifically it’s the energy to pull up that info and analyze how I am. Like I don’t know the answer to that question and that’s why it’s so annoying. Now I need to analyze my day, decide what parts mean what to me and weigh the average basically, and then decide if that’s appropriate to share/if the person really wants to hear the truth of that, then pull up my files of pre-prepared phrases for the question that fits most closely with the truth since not answering truthfully is close to impossible for me.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CvPSP-2xU4h/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
The ability to follow social rituals like small talk, handshakes, bowing, making small offerings, etc. doesn’t screen anything for the people in the middle of the bell curve other than the knowledge of and conformity to social rituals.
What is the benefit of screening people through social rituals?
other than the knowledge of and conformity to social rituals.
That’s exactly the point.
What is the benefit of screening people through social rituals?
You know instantly who’s part of your culture. Whether or not they are a part of your sub-group within that culture. Whether or not they are capable of interacting with strangers in a way that isn’t frightening or disturbing (try asking a guy on meth “So, how about this weather?”).
If you respond to a social ritual with hostility, that tells the other person exactly what they want to know about you. They know to avoid you, that you are not “friendly”, meaning that you are not a person who can be trusted with other, more important/complex social rituals.
You’re seriously asking “What’s the point of testing the flaps when the plane is on the ground? It’s not flying. What do I need to know about the flaps when we’re not flying? It’s just me and the plane lying to each other?”
So if someone is not familiar with your social rituals then they are not to be trusted?
That is what you are saying, just making sure you mean that someone who doesn’t already know your local customs is not to be trusted. Because someone who doesn’t want to shake hands because it is taboo in their culture is the same thing as someone refusing to check the flaps before takeoff.
So if someone is not familiar with your social rituals then they are not to be trusted?
Yes. This is the basis of pretty much all Western human interaction, from the observations and data I have collected over the last 30+ years. It is the root of all inter-group conflicts in the country, from the lofty halls of politics to the “that group’s not really a metal band!” subreddit pettiness.
Humans are ritualistic and their interactions are so rigid as to be almost mechanistic, when you get down to the base of them. Every person isn’t so much a unique individual as they are a unique combination of common parts, and their communication ceremonies reflect that.
Because someone who doesn’t want to shake hands because it is taboo in their culture is the same thing as someone refusing to check the flaps before takeoff.
Yes. That is exactly correct. If you don’t do the ritual right (or right enough, within a margin of specification), you will not be trusted.
Does it make rational sense from the perspective of a sapient being capable of examining their own actions? Fuck no. But that’s the world we live in. We refuse to learn it and adapt to it at our peril.
