Am from ACX, but didn't hear about you there. Read your last three pieces + this one, found them all insightful. Oh I think the big Yud retweeted someone praising your Hyperstimuli article, that's how I got here. In general i'm suspicious of people who can turn my understandings of things more than a few degrees (if I were planning on updating I would have updated already), but you seem to be doing so validly each time. You're 4 for 4 of the pieces I've read. This is a long intro to me saying the following:
It hadn't struck me to what an extent I feel like I'm eavesdropping -any- time I'm online.
I spend a fair bit of time here, but it has never stopped feeling like I've gone to the zoo. Substack is the first place I've ever started actually participating in the comment sections, after ages of lurking. Anything for women -or- men has always been a quirky, kinda-spergy thing that I observe from the outside. All the important and rich parts of my life take place offline, and I don't take this seriously. Yet without the word 'eavesdropping' (which I haven't heard much since I turned 18 and left home, and stopped overhearing my parents say things) I hadn't quite felt the full sense of separation. Fascinating. Bravo.
sorry can't be me, I can't relate, i'm so good at consuming information and building world-people models, I know all of people all of the mechanisms, I can see your soul from one post you've made on social media
When I first encountered it, I thought "If you're reading it, it's for you" meant that manipulative publishers were building an idealized, fake world to secretly reinforce what you want to be true. But now I read it more as a tautology, If it weren't "for you", you'd have stopped reading by now. You've already filtered out the Cross-Gender Eavesdroppees you don't care to listen to. The ones that remain are revealing something about what you want to be true, even if that want is futility.
I just recommented on the "ladylike" article, which I probably got from Rob Henderson, who linked this one today. To reiterate, I am almost 71, Aspie with an aspie wife, fairly different presentations. Five sons, three adopted; psychiatric social worker for many years. I have a pub night with mostly aspie older guys every week if any of you males are in Southern NH.
I am so sad that just giving compliments gets you hit on. The obvious conclusions are that A) Men are starved for compliments and B) Men will take any excuse to hit on a woman. I imagine there is some of both, sorry for all of you. I listen in partly for my son, 28, still dating, and to (finally) understand all the autistic females I dated in the early 70's, when we didn't know from spectrum but I was clearly drawn to, as moth to flame, with similar results until rescued.
You must of course try to thread the needle of who you are listening to and talking to, out of simple politeness, but you should not despair that you don't succeed at that, because no one does. We are all approximating in a multilayered and dynamic experience, Be Not Ashamed. Be of Good Cheer. I maintain that reading more CS Lewis (almost as aspie as Tolkien) is the solution to everything. He has many categories, so if you know his fiction, switch to essays, or literary, or philosophical for a book or two. Secular choices: Tom Stoppard and Eugene Ionesco.
I found your content with the autistic girl piece. As an autist myself, I've always been curious about understanding others, esp women because I feel like there's a larger gap between how they present themselves versus how they actually think (and I want to have sex with them). When I was younger, my cross-gender eavesdropping likely turned me into a simpcel. In the last year and a half, through learning from years of past experiences, well written television programs like The OC and the Sopranos, copious amounts of substance abuse, and your posts, I have a better understanding of myself and others.
I found you through the autistic girl post, which at the time reinforced a lot of what I'd been thinking. I found the "you want power" line to be fun bc it made me think ab how other men would perceive it.
Earlier today, I was thinking about the part in it where you talk ab how one social strategy girls can use is to "dress sexy" because I know an autistic girl who uses that strategy irl to an extent. It does work well in some ways, but does lead to some consequences that are similar to the ones you described. But what it made me think about was how I myself have latched onto social strategies in the past that produced positive stimuli, but I fixated on them too much and used them in the wrong situation, and it took me a long time to recognize that because they did give me that positive stimulation I hadn't received before.
In high school, I realized that people would like me if I was funny, and so for years I would center my socialization around making other people laugh. Which did make people like me, but there were parts of socialization I didn't understand which caused problems in my relationships.
When you're autistic you can figure the social shit out, and in some ways the end result is a higher level of understanding because its something you've reasoned through, not something based on intuition.
I hope you keep making excellent theory of mind posts and stories, and thank you for sharing your thoughts!! rock on :)
Ended up a self hating mess after spending too much time growing up in male dominated spaces (4chan, male friends only etc). Also had the exact same situation with compliments
Am from ACX, but didn't hear about you there. Read your last three pieces + this one, found them all insightful. Oh I think the big Yud retweeted someone praising your Hyperstimuli article, that's how I got here. In general i'm suspicious of people who can turn my understandings of things more than a few degrees (if I were planning on updating I would have updated already), but you seem to be doing so validly each time. You're 4 for 4 of the pieces I've read. This is a long intro to me saying the following:
It hadn't struck me to what an extent I feel like I'm eavesdropping -any- time I'm online.
I spend a fair bit of time here, but it has never stopped feeling like I've gone to the zoo. Substack is the first place I've ever started actually participating in the comment sections, after ages of lurking. Anything for women -or- men has always been a quirky, kinda-spergy thing that I observe from the outside. All the important and rich parts of my life take place offline, and I don't take this seriously. Yet without the word 'eavesdropping' (which I haven't heard much since I turned 18 and left home, and stopped overhearing my parents say things) I hadn't quite felt the full sense of separation. Fascinating. Bravo.
sorry can't be me, I can't relate, i'm so good at consuming information and building world-people models, I know all of people all of the mechanisms, I can see your soul from one post you've made on social media
When I first encountered it, I thought "If you're reading it, it's for you" meant that manipulative publishers were building an idealized, fake world to secretly reinforce what you want to be true. But now I read it more as a tautology, If it weren't "for you", you'd have stopped reading by now. You've already filtered out the Cross-Gender Eavesdroppees you don't care to listen to. The ones that remain are revealing something about what you want to be true, even if that want is futility.
I just recommented on the "ladylike" article, which I probably got from Rob Henderson, who linked this one today. To reiterate, I am almost 71, Aspie with an aspie wife, fairly different presentations. Five sons, three adopted; psychiatric social worker for many years. I have a pub night with mostly aspie older guys every week if any of you males are in Southern NH.
I am so sad that just giving compliments gets you hit on. The obvious conclusions are that A) Men are starved for compliments and B) Men will take any excuse to hit on a woman. I imagine there is some of both, sorry for all of you. I listen in partly for my son, 28, still dating, and to (finally) understand all the autistic females I dated in the early 70's, when we didn't know from spectrum but I was clearly drawn to, as moth to flame, with similar results until rescued.
You must of course try to thread the needle of who you are listening to and talking to, out of simple politeness, but you should not despair that you don't succeed at that, because no one does. We are all approximating in a multilayered and dynamic experience, Be Not Ashamed. Be of Good Cheer. I maintain that reading more CS Lewis (almost as aspie as Tolkien) is the solution to everything. He has many categories, so if you know his fiction, switch to essays, or literary, or philosophical for a book or two. Secular choices: Tom Stoppard and Eugene Ionesco.
I found your content with the autistic girl piece. As an autist myself, I've always been curious about understanding others, esp women because I feel like there's a larger gap between how they present themselves versus how they actually think (and I want to have sex with them). When I was younger, my cross-gender eavesdropping likely turned me into a simpcel. In the last year and a half, through learning from years of past experiences, well written television programs like The OC and the Sopranos, copious amounts of substance abuse, and your posts, I have a better understanding of myself and others.
I found you through the autistic girl post, which at the time reinforced a lot of what I'd been thinking. I found the "you want power" line to be fun bc it made me think ab how other men would perceive it.
Earlier today, I was thinking about the part in it where you talk ab how one social strategy girls can use is to "dress sexy" because I know an autistic girl who uses that strategy irl to an extent. It does work well in some ways, but does lead to some consequences that are similar to the ones you described. But what it made me think about was how I myself have latched onto social strategies in the past that produced positive stimuli, but I fixated on them too much and used them in the wrong situation, and it took me a long time to recognize that because they did give me that positive stimulation I hadn't received before.
In high school, I realized that people would like me if I was funny, and so for years I would center my socialization around making other people laugh. Which did make people like me, but there were parts of socialization I didn't understand which caused problems in my relationships.
When you're autistic you can figure the social shit out, and in some ways the end result is a higher level of understanding because its something you've reasoned through, not something based on intuition.
I hope you keep making excellent theory of mind posts and stories, and thank you for sharing your thoughts!! rock on :)
Ended up a self hating mess after spending too much time growing up in male dominated spaces (4chan, male friends only etc). Also had the exact same situation with compliments