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It’s a symptom of entitlement, narcissism and lack of empathy. It’s a sign that they think they and their own enjoyment outweigh any discomfort they might cause others, that the rest of the world is an audience to their show or NPCs in their game and other people's feelings or needs do not matter. I work in academia and see this behavior so, so much, disproportionally from men.
And before someone starts with “That just goes for neurotypical people! They might be autistic and truly not notice! Stop being so ableist”. I am on the spectrum myself. We may not be born with the “social cues”-manual present in our heads but every halfway functional autistic person is able to learn and draw conclusions from situations. We have been doing this all our lives just to function and most adults have built a pretty good baseline to judge everyday social situations.
It may not be instinct, but “Doing A makes mom sad/angry/uncomfortable. Mom being sad/angry/uncomfortable is not something I want, so I will not do A” is a calculation even a dog or cat can make. If they wanted to (e.g. avoid behavior that bothers someone they care about), they would. Even if they are on the spectrum. Really. It’s exhausting and often uncomfortable and we sometimes mess up, especially in new or high-pressure situations, but it is entirely possible.
I grew up with the phrase (I don’t know how well it translates) “Autism is an explanation why some things are harder for you than for others. But it is never an excuse for doing things you know bother or hurt other people if you can avoid them.” Sometimes I misjudge a situation. Happens to everyone. But there is a difference between apologizing, learning from it and trying to avoid making the same mistake again in the future and basically saying “I’m autistic and can’t read a room, so deal with it.”
Who doesn’t know these situations:
- You have paid half an hour ago and are the last guests in the restaurant, the servers awkwardly hover because they want to clean up and go home but can’t kick you out, but your date/boss/friend is completely oblivious and keeps monologuing like they have all the time in the world?
- The store is extremely busy and customers are lining up and the person in front of you is taking their sweet time and unnecessarily drawing out their transaction and making something that could have taken 30 seconds take forever just because they feel like it
- Someone is clearly uncomfortable or bored with the current topic of conversation and even trying to politely change topics or end the conversation but the person speaking just keeps going
- Someone is clearly in a hurry and doesn’t have time for a conversation but the other person doesn’t care
- The speaker at an event has been going on for almost twice their allocated time now and people are getting restless, shuffling their feet and the organizers are starting to panic a little and give signs to stop but get ignored
…those are red flags. If you notice behaviour like this from a date, drop him. It's going to get worse in private.
Agreed. Every example you list makes me resentful. I was constantly bashed by patriarchy and pickmes to stop being weird and be considerate of others. Thanks to them, I’m now an anxious mess who constantly feels watched and tries desperately to fit in while there are NTs who deliberately ignore the room even when they can easily see what’s happening. It’s a sign of narcissism and selfishness.
Thank you for speaking up about this! Honestly such a good post. I've noticed a trend when I call out gross dudes on the internet doing creepy behavior I get called an ableist. For example, in a discord group for a music festival I attended, some creep made a post saying he didn't have any friends and asking if any women wanted to party with him in his hotel room. This discord server has hundreds of people in it, and he got clowned and meme'd for for being a scrote and trying to use the community as lazy OLD. Of course he played the victim, "this is why I hate people you're so mean! 😭🤡" and got angry with people calling out his shitty post. What's sad is the pickmeshia's who immediately jumped in defending him, calling us ableist. "Don't bully him he's autistic!" 🙄 I've spent half a decade receiving and working in special needs education. I know autistic men across the spectrum, and they don't use their autism as an excuse to be a creep to women or disrespect an online community by trying to pick up women.
Oh wow, I have people in my life who are like this. They talk AT me instead of to me.
I'll recognize it when they start and politely look up and go "oh" or "hm-hm", and then I go back to being on my phone or I look in a different direction. This should be a sign that I'm not interested in more.. but they just continue monologuing. Not asking me questions either, just telling me stuff about themselves.
I notice it's always about them or something they're into (and how it relates to them). It's like they're using it as a way to "flaunt" themselves and to be seen by others in a desirable way?
Is this also rooted in entitlement? I need to work with someone like this and I want to protect myself.
I know both a woman and a man who do this and it's scary. I know the woman better, and when I actually cut her off for once or tell her I'm not interested she gets such an offended look in her eyes, like I just betrayed her. As if she's... entitled to my time? Like I'm now someone opposing her because I don't find her interesting/valuable and that's offensive? She's also gaslighted me in the past and is a huge pickme, I'm on as low contact as possible. But the man is a colleague I have to work with so it's not as easy