Hot take: the autistic urge to infodump is about BONDING and not about assuming the other part doesn’t know / I’m not listening / I don’t care / I am trying to one up
It’s as simple as “oh you got a stuff, I also got a stuff 🥹, let’s be friends 🥰” moment and it really sucks that people can’t treasure that
Brooke Vibber
in reply to The Fediverse Cat • • •this is why the nicest thing we can do for our fellows is often let them infodump at us while being encouraging, whether we know the subject well or not ❤
every positive bonding interaction helps heal the trauma of years of being beat down for trying to be friendly 💔
Tinker ☀️
in reply to The Fediverse Cat • • •- Finding people that vibe like this and making them my friends and me being their friends is now core to my life.
I've learned to identify folks that dont act like this and to communicate with them in their own language... but I limit those interactions to purely professional.
Simon Dassow
in reply to Tinker ☀️ • • •Tinker ☀️
in reply to Simon Dassow • • •- Oh, it's a methodical run book at this point:
Neurodivergent Gain Friends Method
- Join activity groups that align with my interests (examples, local Hacker Meetup, Local Food Rescue, Local Food Bank, Local Library Book Club, etc)
- Talk to people there as myself, completely unmasked. (This culls the sample size quite a bit - Folks self select to not hang out with me. Makes my job a LOT easier.)
- Of those that remain, note the ones that infodump and move them into acquaintance tag.
- Continue to spend time with acquaintances and if we vibe inter-personally, hang out with them more often (either at interest group, or outside of interest group... say another interest group)
- After enough time, move from acquaintance tag to friend tag. Exchange numbers on Signal, send each other memes and videos throughout the day.
- After having three or four friends, bring all of them together (say at an interest group meeting) and see if they vibe with each other. Now we're a friend group.
If at any time you exhaust your pool, find new inputs and increase your
... show more- Oh, it's a methodical run book at this point:
Neurodivergent Gain Friends Method
- Join activity groups that align with my interests (examples, local Hacker Meetup, Local Food Rescue, Local Food Bank, Local Library Book Club, etc)
- Talk to people there as myself, completely unmasked. (This culls the sample size quite a bit - Folks self select to not hang out with me. Makes my job a LOT easier.)
- Of those that remain, note the ones that infodump and move them into acquaintance tag.
- Continue to spend time with acquaintances and if we vibe inter-personally, hang out with them more often (either at interest group, or outside of interest group... say another interest group)
- After enough time, move from acquaintance tag to friend tag. Exchange numbers on Signal, send each other memes and videos throughout the day.
- After having three or four friends, bring all of them together (say at an interest group meeting) and see if they vibe with each other. Now we're a friend group.
If at any time you exhaust your pool, find new inputs and increase your pool again. Run through run book. Rinse / repeat.
I now have a close friend group of five people in my immediate town.
We are ride or die.
I went through an input sampling of about 250 people. I have a lot of acquaintances still. They're chill. I like them and they like me.
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Andrew Zonenberg
in reply to Tinker ☀️ • • •Tinker ☀️
in reply to Andrew Zonenberg • • •Tinker ☀️
in reply to Tinker ☀️ • • •@simondassow - Concerning the second part of "I've learned to identify folks that dont act like this and to communicate with them in their own language... but I limit those interactions to purely professional."
That's simple.
If I see people in hierarchical situations (work mostly, but there are some others), and they do not take well to my infodumping, they respond with things such as:
- Please don't center yourself.
- I don't need that explained, I already know it.
- I don't need you to explain it, I just need you to do it.
And the like.
I'll then look past their words and sort out what they really mean. It's important to know that many people don't use words to communicate ideas. They use words to communicate feelings and desires.
So when someone says "Why can't you get it done?" and the context is they're your manager and they are feeling pressure from their managers at missing arbitrary deadlines - they don't mean "Why can't you get it don
... show more@simondassow - Concerning the second part of "I've learned to identify folks that dont act like this and to communicate with them in their own language... but I limit those interactions to purely professional."
That's simple.
If I see people in hierarchical situations (work mostly, but there are some others), and they do not take well to my infodumping, they respond with things such as:
- Please don't center yourself.
- I don't need that explained, I already know it.
- I don't need you to explain it, I just need you to do it.
And the like.
I'll then look past their words and sort out what they really mean. It's important to know that many people don't use words to communicate ideas. They use words to communicate feelings and desires.
So when someone says "Why can't you get it done?" and the context is they're your manager and they are feeling pressure from their managers at missing arbitrary deadlines - they don't mean "Why can't you get it done?", they mean "I am feeling impotent right now and I need to feel in charge. I need you tell me that you will work extra hard... even though you were working at 100% capacity already... just soothe me... and tell me I'm the boss and I'm in control and you'll do what I say and that my own bosses aren't going to fire me. And if you actually answer my question of the specific things that are preventing you from getting it done, that will overwhelm me because I don't understand any of it, which by the way intimidates me because you're an expert but I'm paid more to control you and I don't have a handle on what you actually do. Just tell me it'll be alright."
So I don't answer their question of "Why can't you". I answer their underlying cryptic request of "Soothe me and make me feel powerful." with "Yes, sir/ma'am. I'll make that job a priority and get it done." And say ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE.
Then I'll just continue on which my planned schedule and they move on to whatever else they're doing and life is copacetic.
But I limit my interactions with hierarchical environments. I specifically find individual roles, often in-house consulting, that are project based. The project managers are assigned to me but are not my boss.
So in my work, I minimize hierarchy. I don't go to religious institutions that have hierarchy. I don't join groups that have hierarchy. I'm very an-hierarchy in my ways.
This means that I have limited interactions with folks that do power plays and I don't have to deal with "speech that doesn't mean what it says, it means whatever the meme of the speech says."
Of note! I have made it a fun past-time to decypher and understand shibboleths and the like! (I also enjoy LDAP requests with Active Directory.... I don't know why those two are related....)
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Tinker ☀️
in reply to Tinker ☀️ • • •crypticcelery
in reply to Tinker ☀️ • • •Thank you very much for sharing!
@simondassow @catzilla
Tinker ☀️
in reply to crypticcelery • • •LucileDT
in reply to Tinker ☀️ • • •@tinker @crypticcelery @simondassow regarding the "be your true self" let me share my favourite video ever on the Internet (I swear I cry each time I watch it) youtu.be/P0ahwgBsmZg
The whole a_lilian's channel is incredible, if you want to check it out too
(un)masking
YouTubeTinker ☀️
in reply to LucileDT • • •LucileDT
in reply to Tinker ☀️ • • •Tinker ☀️
in reply to LucileDT • • •Simon Dassow
in reply to Tinker ☀️ • • •Tammy Schoch
in reply to Tinker ☀️ • • •Jay
in reply to Tinker ☀️ • • •Yeah. Someone needs to give lessons in communication where you don't say what you mean. This was useful reading thank you ❤
@simondassow @catzilla
Tinker ☀️
in reply to Jay • • •@rycuda @simondassow - Yeah, I approach it very much like the "Tamarian language" in Star Trek to use a nerdy example. Often times some folks say phrases that should be taken as a whole - and the phrase means a concept only in context.
A lot of folks like me, break down each word and assume the words convey their denotation (or even connotation) directly. But others will use it as a meme phrase.
A great example is the phrase: "How are you doing?"
I take it as a query to ask... how I am doing. So I'll answer directly. "Oh today is miserable but I'm holding on for dear life and haven't died yet! How are you?"
Whereas, others will use it as a "meme" phrase where "How are you doing" is just a general greeting to acknowledge another person without wanting to hear back how they're actually doing.
In that case, the proper response is a variant of "Fine, how are you?"
... show more@rycuda @simondassow - Yeah, I approach it very much like the "Tamarian language" in Star Trek to use a nerdy example. Often times some folks say phrases that should be taken as a whole - and the phrase means a concept only in context.
A lot of folks like me, break down each word and assume the words convey their denotation (or even connotation) directly. But others will use it as a meme phrase.
A great example is the phrase: "How are you doing?"
I take it as a query to ask... how I am doing. So I'll answer directly. "Oh today is miserable but I'm holding on for dear life and haven't died yet! How are you?"
Whereas, others will use it as a "meme" phrase where "How are you doing" is just a general greeting to acknowledge another person without wanting to hear back how they're actually doing.
In that case, the proper response is a variant of "Fine, how are you?" or, depending on relationship and environmental contexts, something like "Oh, you now... living the dream." and the like.
It REALLY helps to view is as a foreign language or even a dialect. Words mean different things to different people. I grew up speaking border Spanish along the Texas / Mexico border. But my border-spanish does not translate to someone from Peru and neither translate well to someone from Spain, right?
Same here. Among my neurodivergent folks, words are direct and have nuanced specific and intentional meaning. Individual words are chosen carefully to convey a specific idea. Among my neurotypical folks, however, words convey feelings, hierarchy, social norms, and the like. They are phrases meant to be taken as a whole and not broken down into smaller parts. The phrase, within context, conveys an idea that is associated with the phrase - not the individual words.
So the words convey meaning... certainly, but how they're consumed, processed, and interpreted is completely different depending on the speaker, culture, environment, and context.
Truly fascinating.
One thing to mention, though, is it is ALL learnable. Even the "words don't convey direct meaning, they convey meme meaning" still follows patterns and can still be learned by anyone.
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BlueTeamSherpa
in reply to Tinker ☀️ • • •JevidL
in reply to Tinker ☀️ • • •@tinker @rycuda @simondassow Michigan here. I think we’re just as liable to use it as a social exchange. It is, for better or worse, highly contextual. Most of the time I would just lie and say something like “doing ok” or “stayin’ alive!” even if things were very not ok.
Among a very small close group of people I might confide that things are in fact not ok.
If things are great though, yeah well put that out there 😀
JevidL
in reply to Tinker ☀️ • • •Laurent Bercot
in reply to Tinker ☀️ • • •@tinker @simondassow I am (mostly) neurotypical and I can confirm that your breakdown of the meaning of "Why can't you get it done?" is 1. very accurate, 2. entirely missed by 95% of neurotypical people as well. We are, and this is especially true in tech, majorly lacking the necessary emotional intelligence and maturity to look past the fact that these words stresses us out and into their real meaning; and we generally do not know how to handle this any better than neurodivergent folks.
Human beings are just really bad at communication overall, no matter what our brain configuration looks like. So, on behalf of people like me who hate misunderstandings, a sincere thank you for being explicit, saying what you mean, and explaining your thought processes. It really helps, and I wish more neurotypical people would do this as well.
Tinker ☀️
in reply to Laurent Bercot • • •@ska - Cheers for that!
I've started using "qualifying words" before saying things.
Such as, "I am going to repeat back what you said in my own words to ensure I understand what you're asking. Please correct me if I misunderstand something"
Or "I imagine you know and understand a lot of what I'm about to say, but this will help me establish a baseline of shared understanding. Let me know what you are familiar with and we'll start from there and move forward."
Or "That's an amazing|terrible situation. I'll share a similar situation to demonstrate understanding and empathy. <insert VERY SHORT story here then kick back to original speaker with> So I can only imagine what you're going through right now."
and similar.
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ND Dev
in reply to Tinker ☀️ • • •@tinker
I'm #ActuallyAutistic, and that's the most autistic thing I've seen all month. I love it! I've bookmarked it for future use. 😄
@simondassow @catzilla
Tinker ☀️
in reply to ND Dev • • •Yendolosch
in reply to Tinker ☀️ • • •@tinker
Hmm.
Do you always infodump?
I like to think of myself as neurotypical, and I sometimes overwhelm people with infodumps when I'm in my "wow, this subject is fascinating and I must learn everything about this" phase. That's wonderful when you're talking to someone who newly burns for that very subject, and it can lead to long and animated conversations.
I guess when the other person wants to talk about something else, possibly urgently, this might lead to ... tensions.
Tinker ☀️
in reply to Yendolosch • • •Yendolosch
in reply to Tinker ☀️ • • •@tinker
> are you sure you're neurotypical?
Who is?
😆
I'm not on the autism spectrum, no. If people are overwhelmed by my enthusiasm I usually recognize the signs.
But is infodumping as a means of finding and bonding with autism-spectrum individuals a valid approach in time-constrained settings like most work situations? I just had this scene in my head of one firefighter going "You know they used to try pure-rubber hoses? --" and the rest of the crew going "Yesweknowshutupandgetgoing" ...
Tinker ☀️
Unknown parent • • •@AtotheJ @simondassow - Unmasking here in the sense of neurodivergence unmasking: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autist…
Ironically many of the ND folks I run into actively physical-mask as well! en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_m…
overview about face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic
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