1:19pm August 31, 2014

Oh and the other thing about ‘bad social skills’.

Offline, I see a lot of people say ‘bad social skills’ when they really mean someone is mean or nasty or cruel.

It’s like it’s becoming a euphemism for something it’s not.

Which is disturbing, because I have actual problems with social skills. Like the real actual thing. At least, I lack a lot of the social skills that nonautistic people seem to be born knowing, or pick up in the first five years of their lives. And I will probably never have some of those social skills no matter how old I get. I am always learning, mind you. But it’s discouraging sometimes to learn something when you’re 34 years old and realize that everyone else knew it when they were 4 years old. It’s like you feel like you’ll never catch up, ever.

And sometimes the things you’re learning are important things to know. Like they’re not just cosmetic social skills that make you look good. They’re things about how to be considerate to other people, and things like that. And you learn something in your thirties and realize that most people already knew it when they were in kindergarten. And it’s just really discouraging, because you wonder “What else don’t I know?”

And then people go and describe people as “lacking social skills” when they really mean the person is an asshole.

And you wonder if people think you’re an asshole too because you really lack certain social skills.

I know that social skills and language skills are two of my biggest social problems. I don’t talk about social skills problems a lot because in terms of autism, they’re not my biggest problem and never will be. But I have just as many social skills problems as the next autistic person. And I find myself wondering if I can go through life and not be considered an asshole.

I know that some people do think I’m an asshole, and that this has put my life in danger at times – when your doctors think you’re an asshole, they don’t treat you very well, and when you have life-threatening medical conditions, this is a huge problem. I really need to come up with some autism cards for medical situations explaining various social and communication problems. Because it's always either a social problem or a language problem that makes them dislike me.

Like one of my social things is I don’t do social hierarchies. And it’s not a choice. I can’t do it. I can’t perceive people as above or below me in a hierarchy. And I can’t show the proper deference or dominance that is expected to be shown to someone above or below me in a social hierarchy. Now personally I don’t see this as necessarily a problem in and of itself. But it causes me problems, especially among medical professionals.

The local hospital has some doctors and nurses who have formed a culture where they are better than everyone else in the hospital – better than patients, better than janitors, better than respiratory therapists, just better. The doctors who are like this are worse than the nurses who are like this, but the nurses who are like this can also be pretty bad sometimes.

And anyway, I don’t show the “respect” that they think they are due. It’s not that I don’t respect them on the level that they are human beings and deserve respect. But I don’t show the other kind of respect. I don’t show the kind of respect where you are sending off signals showing deference to the other person, like telegraphing every few seconds “I know you’re better than me.” I don’t think I could do it even if I was trying to do it. (And in a few fits of desperation I’ve tried to do it before, it comes off wrong. Very wrong.)

So then they think I don’t respect them, and then they don’t think I deserve their respect. But the kind of respect they don’t give me, is the basic human kind of respect that everyone deserves. I do give them basic human respect, but they don’t give me any kind of respect.

So like:

I don’t give them deference-respect. [And they want me to.]
I do give them basic human respect. [And they don’t notice or care.]
They don’t give me deference-respect. [And I don’t want them to.]
They don’t give me basic human respect. [And I need them to, in order to survive.]

Meanwhile, they are above me in a power hierarchy and have control over things that have life and death consequences for me.

So that’s an example of how lacking certain social skills gives me serious trouble. And the thing is, I don’t really think that having to give them deference-respect should be a required social skill. In fact, I think the arrogance that makes them demand that kind of respect and confuse it with basic human respect, is something that should be stamped out of them at the earliest opportunity. When they act like that towards patients, it should be evaluated as part of their professional evaluations as a really bad thing that results in penalties somehow.

But the truth is that right now as things are, lacking that social skill is a serious problem for me. And it’s not fair, and it’s not right, but it’s reality. And people should have to understand that I do lack that kind of social skills, and therefore that I should not be penalized for lacking that kind of social skills. I’m fucking autistic, good grief, cut me a tiny bit of slack here?

And it’s not just that social skill that causes me problems. It’s a whole lot of social skills that I lack, that make people decide that they don’t have to respect me on a basic human level. That somehow, by being socially inept, I have forfeited my right to basic human dignity and being treated as well as people who are not socially inept.

Also frustrating: I know some bullies who are autistic who claim that their bullying behavior is simply “a lack of social skills” or “a problem with communication skills”. They have managed to tie my brain into knots before by:

Bullying me.
Claiming that their bullying was a lack of social and communication skills.
Accusing me of discriminating against them or being “abusive” to them on the basis of their “communication skills problems”.
Encouraging other people to bully me on the basis of my own communication skills problems. As in, real communication skills problems.

And I think they do it on purpose, which is maddening. I mean, they do the thing on purpose where they do these bad things, blame them on poor social skills, then encourage people to bully me based on my actual poor social skills, while at the same time telling me and everyone around me that I don’t actually have any social skills problems at all and that I am an “eloquent communicator” and therefore have no misunderstandings based on language problems.

(Even though misunderstandings based on language problems are the fucking story of my life. These misunderstandings don’t go away just because you’re a superficially eloquent writer. In fact, the superficial eloquence can make people even less aware of the language problems, causing the misunderstandings to simply grow and grow the better you get at communication in some ways.)

Anyway, it is frustrating to see assholes described as having 'bad social skills’, while at the same time, being assumed wrongly to be an asshole because you have actual bad social skills.

And here I’m mostly not talking about people saying of themselves “I have bad social skills” when they’re really just being an asshole, although I have seen that happen sometimes (see bullies above). I’m talking about totally nonautistic people who’ve started using 'bad social skills’ as a euphemism for 'asshole’ when talking about other people.

And the fact they use it as a euphemism for asshole, makes me wonder what they think of those of us who really do lack social skills. Do they think we’re just assholes?

Anyway sorry for rambling all over the place.

tl;dr: Some people are starting to use 'bad social skills’ (when describing people other than themselves) as a euphemism for being an asshole. I really don’t like this trend. Meanwhile, I have actual bad social skills and it makes people treat me like I really am an asshole, and like I don’t deserve basic human respect. This is frustrating. And scary, when I need that basic human respect for survival reasons.