Edit: A few people have interpreted the title as serious, so I wanna clarify that it was meant as a sarcastic joke about how little sense the neurotypical world makes to me, but it is still legitimately me asking for help understanding said neurotypical world.
Was having a conversation with a friend today about why I seem unapproachable to people online. Apparently it’s for 2 reasons.
One is that I say “K.” all the time, as a short way of saying okay. She pointed out that most people find this rude and offensive. This kinda baffled me, because like why? She explained that like, if somebody were to give a long emotional speech and I just responded “K.” that would be offensive. That confounds me. So it’s rude in one context, and neurotypicals have decided to be offended by it in all contexts? But the reason it’s rude is what confuses me more. Apparently it’s considered lazy because you could have just typed out the word, but like, that applies to all text speech and nobody’s mad about people shortening those words.
But it got more confusing when she explained the second reason, which is that I end all of my sentences with proper punctuation, which she said “makes people feel like I’m done with the conversation and not interested.” But just a second ago improper grammar was rude, and now proper grammar is rude instead.
It baffles me. You can’t just use proper or improper grammar. Use too much improper grammar and you’re lazy and rude. Use too little and you’re also rude. But you can’t just use any improper grammar, you have to use the very specific subset of improper grammar that’s been deemed acceptable and not lazy (even though it’s exactly as lazy as what they do consider lazy.)
To be clear, I’m not bitter, and I’m definitely gonna adjust my behavior to hopefully seem a little less rude to people. I think that’s just a nice thing to do. I just find the neurotypical mind utterly fascinating. I don’t think they even realize how many contradictions exist in the social rules they all so easily accept.
It’s unfortunate I gave that impression, because she’s probably the nicest, most accepting person I know, even including other autistics. She was just trying to let me know because I’ve experienced significant psychological distress from my inability to connect to other people, so she’s trying to help me understand why, which was a recommendation by a psychiatrist I saw.
You are attempting too hard to be a part of a group of friends who do not consider you one, and are likely willing to drop you for the smallest reason that is socially agreed amongst them.
I’ve been replying to group texts like that for decades and my friends do not give a fuck. You should resume replying like how your friend is telling you puts people off and see who your real friends are.
That seems like a big reaching conclusion based on very little data.
Friendship goes both ways and requires equal effort from both parties to make it work. Being rigid and unadapatable is a great way to whittle away your friends unnecessarily.
If people are affected by the simple reply of “K” by OP, something more fundamental is wrong with the relationship than adaptability.
Actually I’m fairly popular, but that just leads to me catching a lot of attention from strangers who’s first interaction with me, not knowing I’m autistic, is seeing somebody rude and dismissive.
If I could just explain to everybody immediately “hey, I’m autistic, I’m not being rude on purpose,” that’d be great. But most of my interactions with people are short messages like “What outfit are you wearing on your character” or a quick invitation to join them for something. Not a lot of opportunities to explain to them why I act the way I do.
When I do get the opportunity is usually when I end up making real friends, because they don’t see me as the dismissive girl who doesn’t want to talk to them anymore, but instead the autistic girl who just interacts a little differently.
Hell, some people keep trying over and over again to be my friend even when they think I am being rude and dismissive, they just don’t make any progress because they’ve misread my mood and assume I want them to go away.