Recently I had several moments of unexpected awkwardness. Moments where I stepped back inside my head later and said, "Huh. This awkwardness is not my fault." That's unusual, because normally if things are socially awkward around me, it's my fault. I dance to the societally acceptable social interaction tune, but my dancing isn't perfect, so to speak.
It's things like the greeter taking several steps forward to intercept you as you leave a grocery store, only to bid you goodbye and have a good day. Normally they don't move to do that. They only move if you set off the scanners, or seem suspicious, or something's wrong.
Or things like alternating between too direct eye contact (staring all the time) and overly aversive eye contact (not looking at who you're talking to) whilst in a conversation. Neurotypical people naturally make eye contact for about 85% of the conversation, with the remainder looking away at nothing in particular so as not to be staring. This isn't a thing people do consciously, it's just a thing they do. As I had to learn it (and keep it in mind all the time), I notice if it's too far off the base, as it was in an interview I was at recently.
There's this sort of stuttering or derailing of the natural flow of a conversation, or your train of thought. In both situations, I had to stop and reorient myself after ascertaining what was going on. I'm perhaps more used to doing that than the average person, since I interact with neurodiverse people a bit more often.
It's easier with familiarity, I have to say. The people I hang out with at Puzzle Partners, their quirks and tendencies are familiar. They barely phase me. The guy at the supermarket, though, I had to take nearly a full second to realize everything was okay and respond appropriately. That doesn't seem very long, but human thought is very fast: I got approximately 6 full thoughts processed in that second. Translated into words:
1. "The greeter is intercepting me, something's wrong."
2. "I paid for my groceries and the alarm hasn't gone off, what else could be wrong?"
3. "The greeter has wished me a good day, that can't possibly be the only reason he stepped forward, could it?"
4. "I've taken stock of myself and he's not reacting other than that, perhaps nothing is wrong."
5. "That's not a normal response and his eye contact and expression are a little off, perhaps he's also different?"
6. "I should respond before this gets more awkward and proceed out the door; if something's wrong, he'll stop me."
After which I thanked him, summoned my best "I wasn't expecting to need to smile" smile, and proceeded out the door, and nothing bad happened.
It's that "derailing" moment and the eventual reaction I'm interested in here, though. People go through their lives adhering to societal expectations, and expecting others to do the same. It's disorienting when someone doesn't follow those unwritten rules. Which, I imagine, is how people sometimes feel around me.
It's my hope that as neurodiverse people become more a part of mainstream society, things like this will become more normal. So people won't walk away from interactions like the one at the grocery store thinking negatively about what happened, but simply shrug off these differences as unimportant in the light of the other's humanity.
It's things like the greeter taking several steps forward to intercept you as you leave a grocery store, only to bid you goodbye and have a good day. Normally they don't move to do that. They only move if you set off the scanners, or seem suspicious, or something's wrong.
Or things like alternating between too direct eye contact (staring all the time) and overly aversive eye contact (not looking at who you're talking to) whilst in a conversation. Neurotypical people naturally make eye contact for about 85% of the conversation, with the remainder looking away at nothing in particular so as not to be staring. This isn't a thing people do consciously, it's just a thing they do. As I had to learn it (and keep it in mind all the time), I notice if it's too far off the base, as it was in an interview I was at recently.
There's this sort of stuttering or derailing of the natural flow of a conversation, or your train of thought. In both situations, I had to stop and reorient myself after ascertaining what was going on. I'm perhaps more used to doing that than the average person, since I interact with neurodiverse people a bit more often.
It's easier with familiarity, I have to say. The people I hang out with at Puzzle Partners, their quirks and tendencies are familiar. They barely phase me. The guy at the supermarket, though, I had to take nearly a full second to realize everything was okay and respond appropriately. That doesn't seem very long, but human thought is very fast: I got approximately 6 full thoughts processed in that second. Translated into words:
1. "The greeter is intercepting me, something's wrong."
2. "I paid for my groceries and the alarm hasn't gone off, what else could be wrong?"
3. "The greeter has wished me a good day, that can't possibly be the only reason he stepped forward, could it?"
4. "I've taken stock of myself and he's not reacting other than that, perhaps nothing is wrong."
5. "That's not a normal response and his eye contact and expression are a little off, perhaps he's also different?"
6. "I should respond before this gets more awkward and proceed out the door; if something's wrong, he'll stop me."
After which I thanked him, summoned my best "I wasn't expecting to need to smile" smile, and proceeded out the door, and nothing bad happened.
It's that "derailing" moment and the eventual reaction I'm interested in here, though. People go through their lives adhering to societal expectations, and expecting others to do the same. It's disorienting when someone doesn't follow those unwritten rules. Which, I imagine, is how people sometimes feel around me.
It's my hope that as neurodiverse people become more a part of mainstream society, things like this will become more normal. So people won't walk away from interactions like the one at the grocery store thinking negatively about what happened, but simply shrug off these differences as unimportant in the light of the other's humanity.
I am very awkward and off putting for a lot of people. My vision isn't good enough to where I can really see people's eyes when I look at them unless I'm very close to them. So I don't make eye contact near as much as I should, just not something I learned as a kid (largely due to poor vision as a child).
ReplyDeleteAs for incidents what gets me is the (thankfully rare) times I'm basically verbally shot at. Where people will initiate conversations by saying things like "your shirt looks bad" or "you did something wrong" and I'm caught off guard not knowing how to respond.