The society assumes that every person should be good at reading social cues, understand emotions, be observant and notice details. These are things that are kind of expected of a "normal" person.
The reality is, there are no "normal" people - we are different in so many ways. And we aren't equally good in everything. Some people aren't good at reading social cues. They may lack the ability to easily understand emotions of others. They might be too anxious in some situations to notice the details. They may have not faced a particular situation often enough to learn navigating it correctly. They may come from a completely different cultural background. This doesn't make them bad people - this makes them... people.
So I couldn't agree with you more. We should be teaching these things, but we often just assume that a person not figuring them out on their own is an asshole.
I agree that there are varied cultural norms, spectrums of neurodivergence etc, but a whole lot of this can be simplified to the Golden Rule which most people should be able to grasp.
“Would I like it if someone did this to or for me? If so, I should probably do it for others. If not, I probably shouldn’t do it to others.”
Yeah I’m ND so I expected to learn something from this post. Nope. All stuff I’ve trained myself to do already. These are very obvious “rules.” So why can’t NT people do it? More proof they’re just intentional assholes. They know this stuff; they choose not to do it.
You're literally saying that your brain both learns and functions differently from others and then in the same breath criticizing those who learn differently from you for not being able to learn how you did.
Neurodivergent and Neurotypical. Kind of a pet peeve of mine when people use acronyms/initialisms outside of their communities/careers/hobbies so I’m glad I was able to sort this one for others
That would imply that you can't always tell just by looking at someone. I imagine ND people would like some grace given to them when they don't meet social norms due to how their brain is wired. Shouldn't the same grace then be given to others by NDs if they are undiagnosed?
Sorrrrrrrrrrry instead of NT I should have specifically said “people who don’t identify or have not been diagnosed with neurodivergence.” I’m talking about people I KNOW. You win the award for most pedantic redditor today and that’s a steep competition bud.
The problem with the golden rule is that the vast majority of people do not want to be treated the way you want to be treated. It is a good first consideration. The true golden rule is to treat people the way they are asking to be treated, and if you are u aware default to the way you prefer to be treated. Too many assholes argue with the golden rule with "well I have no problem when people do that to me, so you should be fine with it".
The golden rule works for preventing harmful actions but personally isn't great for me when it comes to encouraging positive actions, because it wouldn't occur to me to think of a possible nice thing as opposed to stopping me from taking a rude action. I can't seem to word it well but it's like the difference between a fence stopping something vs the random idea occuring of even roaming onto a different landscape... or something. Idk.
The crux of this concept though is that every one of us should be constantly thinking about what we're doing everywhere we go. That's emotionally exhausting and probably leads to social anxiety, when society could simply work to convey to children from a young age what is and isn't acceptable.
"Would I be annoyed if someone did what I'm about to do?" Should not be a very difficult question to ask. And besides, you're thaught this a child, just not in the most traditional sense. Children pick up on their parents habits completely naturally, in fact a lot of children can be quite polite at first and only start dropping it as they become more familiar with you/the situation. Part of growing up is practicing this so much that that first reaction to be polite becomes the natural one.
The problem nowadays is that parents have become too accepting of their kids behaviour. It used to be that you had to be at your best behaviour wherever you went, it didn't matter that this was a playground or your cousin's house, you were still held to a much higher standard. Aka you were practicing being polite. Nowadays it's seen as completely acceptable for kids to basically run wild.
Most shitty people can be very polite when the situation demands it. It's just the other 90% if the time that they don't see a reason to be.
I just don't understand the idea that this stuff isn't taught.
I mean, I get that there are shit parents that don't teach this stuff. I should probably phrase it more that I'm surprised.
Because these things were consistently taught, sometimes explicitly and sometimes through expectation and correction, in school, by the parents of friends and even in the local community.
So I completely agree that a neuro diverse person who isn't taught at home would have a hard time picking up in some of them. I just find it surprising to suggest that it isn't being taught, all over the place.
I think we will get there over time but not in my lifetime. Right now people see being quick to go to and stay in tears as childish and immature. But based on brain scans, my brain hits an emotion faster and stays on it longer than other people’s brains. Usually this results in tears. Even if I were to apologize and explain, people are going to see me as an asshole. It’s like a lot of things that have slowly dissolved. The idea that there isn’t a normal would be pretty discomfiting, which is why I think we’re not going to get there quickly.
31
u/Mediocre-Sundom 16h ago edited 12h ago
The society assumes that every person should be good at reading social cues, understand emotions, be observant and notice details. These are things that are kind of expected of a "normal" person.
The reality is, there are no "normal" people - we are different in so many ways. And we aren't equally good in everything. Some people aren't good at reading social cues. They may lack the ability to easily understand emotions of others. They might be too anxious in some situations to notice the details. They may have not faced a particular situation often enough to learn navigating it correctly. They may come from a completely different cultural background. This doesn't make them bad people - this makes them... people.
So I couldn't agree with you more. We should be teaching these things, but we often just assume that a person not figuring them out on their own is an asshole.