squeeful:

prairiedawn:

squeeful:

myautisticpov:

Kay, this is a thing I’ve mentioned off-hand a couple of times and realise that I have cottoned onto it where other autistic people might not have.

You know when you get super enthusiastic about your SpIns?

If you do it with a person who you otherwise wouldn’t be talking to by NT standards - like, you don’t know them that well or whatever - it will often be taken as flirting.

It doesn’t make sense to an NT brain for a someone to be really enthusiastic about a topic to start with - so this can happen even with people you’re close to if they don’t know about your SpIns - but when it’s someone you wouldn’t otherwise be enthusiastic with by NT rules, the problem is exacerbated.

So, you just think you’re having a pleasant and energetic discussion about your favourite thing.

The other person is probably like “why the fuck would anyone be this enthusiastic about a thing, unless they are being enthusiastic about talking to me specifically?”

And that, fellow autistics, is how you get into a situation where you have a bunch of people asking you out while you’re wondering what the hell you did to encourage this.

(Side note: this is meant as an explanation, not a suggestion to stop acting like this. Obviously, if you’re bad at rejecting people, you can end up in some sticky situations through this set-up, but I would actually suggest getting better at rejecting people, not changing how you talk about SpIns. And on the flip side, if you’ve been trying to flirt with an NT for ages, and they are just not picking up the signals, you can try talking to them about things in the same way you would talk about SpIns. Showing interest: hacked!)

It is not that other people don’t know why someone would be that enthusiastic about a topic, it’s that being that enthusiastic and open is a level of intimacy.  If you don’t know someone that well, it signals a desire for more intimacy: ie, flirting.  You just bypassed casual acquaintance levels to dating levels of “tell me about yourself”.

*Giant Light Bulb*

This explains, in part, why someone told me in college “But you must be bi, you flirt with everybody!”  “Everybody?”  “Yes, EVERYBODY!”  “But I don’t want to sleep with anybody and I’m not interested in dating.”

Yep.  Neurotypical people can absolutely be super enthusiastic about their hobbies or favorite research subjects or whatever, but they temper their displayed enthusiasm in a conversation based on the intimacy levels already established.  They’re not going to walk up to someone and start talking super excitedly about whatever because it’s rude.  It violates boundaries of emotional investment because social interaction is based on reciprocation so it is, in a way, demanding a level of investment back that they may not be comfortable or willing to give.  Flirting (and dating) and a level of friendship establishing is okay with this behavior because it’s a dance of emotional juggling.  You’re giving and receiving emotional spoons and intimacy points, but if you’re continuing to give them to someone who doesn’t want to play, you’re going to make them uncomfortable.  Going straight to level 10 of enthusiasm instead of building up to it based on that reciprocation is very startling and a lot of people won’t know what to do with it.  It’s sort of the conversation version of bursting in naked and asking to bang.

Individual people have individual (and cultural) tolerances for intimacy and they vary by setting, situation, and a host of other modifiers so there really is no blanket statement or chart.  Sorry.  Telling whether someone is interested in playing enthusiasm exchange can be hard even for people who instinctively know how to play.

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   I wish I knew this. I’m always blindsided when people confess to me, because I never thought I was showing interest.

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9. fanaticalfamder reblogged this from scriptsharing and added:

   i havent been diagnosed w/ autism (my former counselor thought i mightve had it tho) but this explains a lot for me...

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    lemme just put this here

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