What the title says. Well intentioned, often other “neurodivergent” people look at your life, your autism, and say: “you should mask harder.”

For example, I accidentally said something that offended a friend. Won’t go into detail, but it was me unintentionally coming off as arrogant, not something bad like a slur or hate speech.

I asked for advice (elsewhere) and the advice was universally, “you see, NT avoid this topic at all costs. Going forwards, know it is best to avoid this topic.”

But isn’t this just saying “mask harder and be more palatable for everyone else”?

Every piece of “autism advice” I see even in “neurodivergent friendly” communities is basically “how to be less autistic.”

  • ChexMax@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    I’m sure this is an inappropriate question, but out of curiosity, are you a man or a woman?

    I’m just always curious with this because women are typically diagnosed later or not at all because women figure out masking earlier and better.

    I wonder if it’s purely self preservation on the part of women or if women are more explicit in social rules with one another?

    • eksb@programming.dev
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      52 minutes ago

      I am a man.

      I think I might be agender though. I find gender roles as confusing and arbitrary as all the other social rules.

    • RebekahWSD@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      As an autistic woman, it’s been self preservation for me. Other non autistic women have not been explicit about the rules. Quite the opposite lol.