I got some work accommodations that allow me to do more of my work remotely. So from a practical sense, thats been good.

Otherwise, having confirmation has helped me work on my life from this lens. I think thats allowed some things to improve, but it really hasn’t solved anything.

Temba, his arms wide.

I can manage it occasionally, in certain contexts. I used to be way better at it but a while back I had ye olde autistic burn out episode and then that put a stop to a lot of things.

I don’t spend much energy on masking these days; it’s so harmful in so many ways. Getting along with the normies isn’t really worth it.

“Nah, I’m just really, really introverted… Like more than anybody I’ve ever met, kind of turbo-charged introverted, but that’s all it is. That and I’m just completely defective as a person, so that’s why nobody will be my friend.”

-Me, 2016

It’s because we experience the world and interact with people in some fundamentally different ways. The frame of reference doesn’t exist for them to understand and that makes it even more challenging.

I will never understand what it is to ‘read the room’, as an experience, but I get the idea of what it means. This common skill, is considered very important to social interaction and rude if not observed… but to me it’s like a telepathic ability everyone else has and I don’t. I think that double-deficiency in perception and the expected behavior isn’t easily understood or even clearly observable by others. To them, I am behaving ignorantly.

Think about all the trouble regular people have in understanding two different perspectives on practically anything. It is a skill, and one that I think some autistic people are compelled to develop to have any chance of getting along… its just not so for everyone else.

“Hey. You fucking losers are talking about me again, huh?”

I mean, if you want to… if that doesn’t put you at any risk. It’s an option. I only suggest it because it sounds like you have nothing to lose and might as well just assert yourself. You don’t have to call them losers, but their behavior is objectively pathetic so it is appropriate to me as an option to treat them as they treat you.

Yeah, so I would say you are actively moving forward through figuring out what you need to manage this for yourself. Self-esteem is fundamental to being effective in driving this, so if that’s a weak area for you then you can prioritize your efforts there.

Self-esteem has two key parts: boundaries and values. Maybe there is more to it than that, but I overhauled my own deeply entrenched negative self-esteem and found it was fundamentally these two things. You have to say ‘no’ to things and establish what you won’t put up with for yourself… which is not necessarily easy to figure out but its the first one. And then you need to decide who you are and live according to those values. You have to act in line with your own specific values… if you are kind, show kindness for its own sake because that’s who you are… or be honest because thats who you are, even in the face of rejection, to choose yourself.

By doing so, you can build self-esteem despite social rejection. You might even find that you can occasionally enjoy that rejection as an affirming sign that you are doing right by your own self.

None of this is easy to learn or maintain. It is possible though, I started in as bad a place as anyone. I think you’re gonna figure this out, have hope.

Hey, story of my life and why I’ve left so many workplaces.

So, what does help? Self-esteem, which is really hard to tackle if you’re in a low or negative self-esteem space. If you have a decent self-esteem you can start making more active decisions on how to value the opinions others have about you, which you should apply very selectively. It’s actually harder to maintain an “I don’t care what anyone thinks” attitude, and causes more harm, than it is to make the individual determination for each person at your work. Steve and Jeff and Greg each deserve their own individual value assessment.

The other thing is framing the issue. People largely do not like you because you have a social connection disability that affects how you present yourself to the group. In a lot of ways, I kind of liken the neurotypical judgements to a physical disability analogue to help me see it better. For example, someone has to slowly follow a cane-user up the stairs and is irritated that they can’t go as fast as they would like but they’re also unwilling to let the disabled person take the elevator instead because of a misperception on what would be fair for everyone. That’s ridiculous… and so you can regard the situation appropriately and understand you have no responsibility to correct their perceptions. Let them be.

Long story short? It really is about skilling up in how to not care about what doesn’t matter. You are already on the right track that this is needed, but just need to figure out how to get to the next level. Maybe its easier to decide what you DO care about and leave everything else as whatever… There’s different roads to success here.

You’ll be okay. https://www.amazon.ca/Courage-Be-Disliked-Phenomenon-Happiness/dp/1668069539 - Maybe try this too if you need to expand your thinking on this. There are other books that support these ideas as well, but this one is quite accessible to most readers, even if it is kind of silly at times.

Facts, technical details, trivia. Excellent.

My episodic memory is terrible unless there is a lot of significance tied to the event; i probably don’t remember what you said, or what we watched, or who was at the thing.

Gotta feed the machine.

I mean, these companies are speed-running atrocity after atrocity toward the end of humanity. There is no way this AI bubble ends without mass graves… not if we let them continue to decide how things go.

No matter who you are, it’s your responsibility to figure out how to not let your emotions dictate your actions as much as you possibly can. Sadly, it is discouraged in society at-large because learning this skill makes you less susceptable to being manipulated.

I don’t think it’s an easy thing for anyone to get a grip on, but you absolutely can learn how to do it as an autistic person.

I drive. I really enjoy it most of the time, but I don’t do a whole lot of city driving which does get annoying if there is a lot of it.

I just want to highlight that social masking and autistic masking are very different kinds of efforts.

Sure, autistic masking happens because of social pressures but its not the same thing as simply changing your presenting persona to match the circumstances.

Anyways, masking for love and acceptance would be a very difficult thing for a lot of autistic people. Sure, you might actually convince someone to accept the fake you, but eventually losing touch with yourself would destroy self esteem and make you miserable from the inside… which will then destroy your relationship anyway.

Don’t mask, let as many people dislike you as necessary to find the few who will love you for who you are.

Cringe.

I mean this post… but also probably my personality as well.

Not really anymore. Not for a while at least.

At some point you have to decide that you don’t need to meet some nebulous standards of value for this and that.

If you actually try, then that’s good enough. Hell, even not trying is fine too. We don’t have to always be striving for everything and it’s good to not really care about things that don’t matter so much.

DAE often need to drink water?

-These engagement-farming posts

as a society we don’t teach emotional regulation skills at all

Yeah, because that would make it more difficult to manipulate people into believing nonsense.

Yeah, I do understand.

The right move is to not give this person much of your thought. Like you can dismiss this person’s opinion as irrelevant and misguided and not spend any more time on it.

LOL. OK, I get it, but do we need to do the “Hey look at this fuckin’ asshole” ragebait posts here? I’m alright if we don’t.

On masking, you can burn out from it… then you realize its gotta stop.

Well, I mean, you gotta live according to your values in order to be happy with yourself.

I’ve really disengaged with the idea that I need to compete with or assert my own views of what is righteous over what society presents for me as the template to follow. Rejecting that template for myself and accepting that others prefer it, accept it or are just unconcious altogether doesn’t really cause any kind of issue for me.

Everyone has a right to their own reasonable way of life; judging their ways is a cope for my own ego that I try to resist.

All this to say, I think I understand your position. You’ve thought quite deeply on it, and it sounds like an okay way to be… but not for me.