mfw I found out that "are you hungry" actually means "will you eat with me" and "what're you doing this weekend" means "would you like to make plans?" 🤦
these are things I learned in the last 12 months – I just turned 42
pretty much all the time, it feels like everyone got a memo that I missed
Once again this comes down to allistic people being afraid to be honest or vulnerable. If i ask you to go for dinner and you say no i have all the bad feelings of rejection and shame. If i say "are you hungry?" And you say not really i can still continue as if i wasn't rejected.
It used to be an innuendo to ask a person "would you like to see my etchings(drawings)?" I remember a teacher of mine finding old newspaper comics that reinforced this
I often ask my wife "are you hungry" and then we both have a discussion about both our hunger levels and actual willingness to eat, lmao
We really do need a Gayroller-2000 style emote for neurotypicals.
your comment made me realize that's the exact conversation I have with my husband about food, too
NTs are the weirdos, we make perfect sense!
That's pretty cool actually, we arrived at the optimal solution individually. Convergent Neurodiverse Evolution!!
Ikr, imagine having to ask weirdo questions instead of just saying "Hey wanna get food with me?" or something? Common neurotypical L 
But this makes sense because i want to know other people's hunger levels to make a decision on what to do about it. The followup question is usually about what kind of food and when and coming to a consensus on what eataging will satisfy our differing hunger levels.
If I'm asking a rando colleague out to lunch my question literally just is. "Pub?" And i get a yay or nay
HOW MANY MORE COMRADES HERE ARE OLD ENOUGH TO BE MY PARENTS :kitty-cri-screm:
spoiler
You're cool, I love you for being cooler than my dad. It sucks my dad isn't as cool :sadness:
I'm also in my 40s, I'm old enough to be the void in your walls c: 
I found out that "are you hungry" actually means "will you eat with me"
Oh I just realized this one too, a few seconds ago. I wonder how many times I've said not really when I should have said yes??
Probably about as many times as I should have! 🤦😂
oh well
How many people were flirting with us or just trying to be friends with us, and we were totally oblivious??
People ask this because it's an invitation to eat with someone without the respondant having to admit that they are would like to be fed, which could be consisdered as implying that their host or whatever is being negligent to the needs of their guest. It is a little silly. But, and I am a ND person who has learned a lot of this by trial and error, there are deep instinctual behaviors that these rituals are about. I'm not here to say whether or not any of this is good or not, but especially the rules about hospitality strike me as things that got ingrained into culture in order to make common uncomfortable situations more reliable by the means of rituals that people follow or don't, indicating whether or not they're someone who is going to play their prescribed role - this is maybe why there are often many ritual refusals and acceptances. It's a way to play-act giving someone something that historically might have been precious and if they don't play along, you can weed out people who are likely to take advantage of you. It's imperfect of course and not considerant of neuroatypical people, but it just kind of had to work well enough to keep going.
It is definitely frustrating to not know ettiquette and I often feel like throwing all of it out in favor of a more direct system. Sometimes I do! But for the rest of the time, I find that ettiquette manuals are super helpful, especially when they explain the reasoning behind otherwise inscrutable rituals.
Might I ask which pointless social norm prompted this? I'm pretty good at helping my wife who's autistic navigate them.
My ADHD ass understands that I'm breaking the social norm but reaaallly needed to say something lol
No :3
Breaking the social norm is usually based. This one requies a facial expression I can't really make...
You should do what I do and assume that everything everyone does has some kind of hidden meaning and spend hours analyzing it.
👍
I used to do this, then I stopped giving as much of a shit when it got me nowhere with people.
Been there and tried it, my brain was melting. Generally I try not to worry about things. I actually would be happier living in ignorant social bliss about things, without being unpleasantly informed about shit like this...
I just learned this Persian word:
In the rules of hospitality, taarof requires a host to offer anything a guest might want, and a guest is equally obliged to refuse it. This ritual may repeat itself several times (usually three times) before the host and guest finally determine whether the host's offer and the guest's refusal are genuine, or simply a show of politeness.
The host is then expected to say one should not do taarof ("ta'arof nakon" - similar to "don't be polite!") for which the appropriate response would be to say "no" two or three times and then pretend to cave in to the host's insistence and pile on the food.
I suspect every culture has examples of this (we can find it everywhere from The Water Margin to Curb Your Enthusiasm), but it's nice to have a word for one of these neurotypical song-and-dance routines that even the neurotypicals haven't mastered.
I hate this kind of shit so much. It reminds me of trying to leave family gatherings and getting stuck saying goodbye to people for an hour. Leave the theatrics for the stage and screen, I just want to say how I feel in the moment.
Act I: Desperately trying to avoid being hugged
Act II: Explaining and apologizing for your ARFID for the millionth time as they try to feed you dubious regional cuisine
Act III: Desperately trying to navigate goodbyes
I feel like all social norms boil down to "Why do people do this?"
"Because."
And NT people just go along with the norms that are forced on them, never questioning why things are the way they are. I always get hung up on the myriad possible meanings of everything that is said and done. For me, nothing has a set meaning and everything must be thoroughly analysed with the context, tone, events leading up to it, etc. I know NT people don't think this way and just go through the motions but that's how I instinctively approach social situations and it's hard to just follow the unspoken NT rules, even when I know them.
I don't even think NT people like doing most of the normal routine but they're too compliant to rock the boat.
I think it's MORE CONFUSING because a few make sense, but most do not. It's not even consistent what ones make sense goddamnit, neurotypicals are such fuckers...
Honestly just speaking for myself as an allistic person i treat interactions with NT people as PvP. It's a fundamentally dishonest environment where at best most people don't care at all about you and just want to keep the day going without conflict but at worst people use the oversharing and the failure to follow norms as a way to fuck with people.
If i don't know the person or have a good read on them, I'm worried they might be a narcissist just looking for an angle. This is probably trauma from my momma but hey
I wish I could say your approach was cynical instead of practical and apt 
The amount of times I've heard that I'm being talked about behind my back based on information i revealed without thinking is... Well more than once at least
NEUROTYPICALS 
Why do people have to say "bless you" when someone sneezes? Surely even people who believe in souls don't still think your soul escapes when you sneeze? Why do people even have to comment on normal bodily functions at all? Why is it rude if I don't respond to people responding to me making an ordinary, involuntary bodily noise??? AHHHHHHHHHH
I used to say "don't worry, I'm not superstitious" a lot when people said bless you and just quit because no one thought my actually hilarious joke was funny. 😞
I gave up on that shit long ago, I just don't care. My mom always gives me flack for it, because I'm either loud, or weird, or "inappropriate". Fuck you. I'm going to be direct as fuck or joke about your NT "politeness". Either open yourself up or I'm going to bully you for being a cowardly fake. Do trauma dump, do tell me how actually are you and not that "fine" shit, be forth and honest with me, don't interrupt a liar with "Um, excuse me good sir. It seems your trousers are alight." but with your favorite edition of animal feces (In Poland we say "Gówno prawda" or "Pierdolisz"). I had enough of these social cues and I'll aggressively fight them and struggle against them. I'm not tolerant of them.
I'm polite in my own ways, ways NTs consider "impolite". Well then they don't fucking know impolite.
Completely destroyed my own sanity by memorising a complex set of rules and over analysing everything to the point of mental exhaustion only to still get it wrong or be left in such an ambiguous state I can never know the true answer.
The same button never does the same thing twice.
I remember years ago wondering why interaction wasn't deterministic and asking over and over "what is wrong with me" practically to the brink of suicide. Didn't actually figure out I was autistic until recently. Honestly the only thing that helped was becoming racist to NT's and masking only enough to basic interactions and work related shit. I only have 1 NT friend but he's built different and genuinely tries his best to understand me in a way that he can be accommodating to my needs.
I also had a friend who would confuse me with subtext i never understood knowing it confused me then would call me an idiot for not understanding and i just let them do this to me for years.
Find yourself some similarly ND friends who you can be yourself with. There's probably clubs around
Imagine having friends 
I just have really nice people online I'm scared to talk to cuz autism, lmao
It's ADHD, Autism, OCD, schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, bi-polar, aspd, etc etc etc etc
“neurologically atypical patterns of thought or behavior”
So, it’s very broad, if you feel like it describes you then it does as far as we're concerned
1.) ableist language=post or comment will probably get removed (enforced case by case, some comments will be removed and restored due to complex situations). repeated use of ableist language=banned from comm and possibly site depending on severity. properly tagged posts with CW can use them for the purposes of discussing them
2.) always assume good faith when dealing with a fellow nd comrade especially due to lack of social awareness being a common symptom of neurodivergence
2.5) right to disengage is rigidly enforced. violations will get you purged from the comm. see rule 3 for explanation on appeals
3.) no talking over nd comrades about things you haven't personally experienced as a neurotypical chapo, you will be purged. If you're ND it is absolutely fine to give your own perspective if it conflicts with another's, but do so with empathy and the intention to learn about each other, not prove who's experience is valid. Appeal process is like appealing in user union but you dm the nd comrade you talked over with your appeal (so make it a good one) and then dm the mods with screenshot proof that you resolved it. fake screenies will get you banned from the site, we will confirm with the comrade you dm'd.
3.5) everyone has their own lived experiences, and to invalidate them is to post cringe. comments will be removed on a case by case basis depending on determined level of awareness and faith
4.) Interest Policing will not be tolerated in any form. Support your comrades in their joy!
Further rules to be added/ rules to be changed based on community input
RULES NOTE: For this community more than most we understand that the clarity and understandability of these rules is very important for allowing folks to feel comfortable, to that end please don't be afraid to be outspoken about amendments and addendums to these rules, as well as any we may have missed
great, thanks!
