Image: Cartoon drawing of two people sitting on and looking out of opposites of a bus. The one on the left is sad looking at a hillside. They are labeled, "Someone who think I have beef with them." The person on the right is happy and looking at a beautiful view. They are labeled, "My autistic ass who has no idea what I said was offensive."

Image: Screenshot of a microblog post quoting another post. The quoted post states, "autistic people will see a 'honk if you like pizza' bumper sticker and think it means 'if i like pizza, i should honk'". The blogger that quoted that wrote, "Wait..."

Caption:

My brain: Do it.

Me: Why

My brain: Just do it.

Me: Okay

Two images:

Top image is of a pen. Bottom image is the same pen dismantled with its parts neatly placed to show where the go in the pen.

Image: bingo card labeled "bad at being a person bingo"

For the sake of describing this card through a narrative, the columns from left to right will be letters A thru F, and the rows top to bottom will be numbers 1 thru 5.

Edit: I just realized that I absentmindedly relabeled the columns from BINGO to ABCDE. I like mine more anyway.

Meme: Expanding Brain, 4 panels, each panel representing more enlightenment than the previous.

1st panel: repressing recent interpersonal difficulties

2nd: blaming difficulties on neurodiversity and getting mad at ableist society

3rd: discussing difficulties with a therapist

4th: processing difficulties and gaining insight by posting memes on Lemmy

Meme: Board Room Suggestion, 4 panels

1st panel: Supervisor demands from his team, "How do we get them to think of us romantically?"

2nd: Three people in the team respond.

• First man: Disingenuously laugh at their joke.

• Woman: Hit on someone else to make them jealous.

• Second man that is relaxed: Explicitly tell them you want that.

3rd: Supervisor looks angrily at relaxed second man.

4th: Outside view of office building with relaxed man thrown out of a window

I'm sure there are very good reasons for why people flirt and communicate romantic interests implicitly. However, to me and my concrete literal thinking style, the whole thing is confusing. Sometimes I pick up on it, but I'm sure I miss most of it since when I was younger and used to go to places, friends would have to tell me if a girl was interested in me. When I would get home, I would recap the night with my friends to see what they thought. In general, it leaves me feeling lots of self-doubt in these situations, so I end up playing it extra safe to avoid making others uncomfortable. However, it would be nice if people were more explicit with me in general.

Maybe I can make a checklist of flirting signs that I can keep on a phone app. When I start getting confused, I go through the list to make a thought-out assessment.

Bonus: Casually Explained video providing tips for noticing romantic interest

Meme: 2 panel Elmo Cocaine.

1st panel: There are two separate piles and Elmo in the middle between the two.

• One pile is of bananas and apples. This is labeled "Establishing healthy boundaries at the beginning of a relationship."

• The other piles is of white powder (i.e. cocaine) and labeled, "People pleasing until I'm burntout, then ghosting them for months."

• Elmo is labeled as "Me" and trying to decide which pile to pick, though he's looking at the cocaine pile.

2nd panel: Elmo has shoved his face in the cocaine pile.

Caption:

NT1 to NT2: "If you ware blunt with him, it will workout."

NT2 to me: Directly says something with clear expectations.

Me: Responds accordingly without hassle.

Them: Surprised Pikachu

Anyone else notice this repeatedly occurring in their life? For like a year, I asked friends and a therapist for insight with a trend I noticed when building relationships with new people. First, people would be cautious and think I was kind of a jerk. Then, they would think I wasn't that bad. After that, they would be certain I was a complete jerk. I've even been yelled at or completely ostracized seemingly out of nowhere. If we made it far enough, something would suddenly click for them, and they would realize that I was a pretty nice person. It took me a while to figure out why this would happen so often.

Meme: The Rock Driving, 3 panels:

1st panel: The Rock driving and casually asks, "How do you know so much about history?"

2nd: panel: Girl in back seat responds, "I read about it."

3rd panel: The Rock, surprised, turns around to look at her

Background: Honestly, I started making this meme to ask if anyone else goes through this weird situation with others and emotionally process the confusion about it. Until just now, I thought that people would ask that because they either (a) wanted to learn how to learn about history as if I knew some secret technique, or (b) were fairly uneducated on the topic and thought my knowledge of it was interesting. Now, I think I realized that most people weren't asking for either a or b reasons. They were asking to make small talk, which I would completely shut down by answering the question directly.

Right? Is that why people would ask something like that?

Meme: American Chopper Argument with 5 panels.

• 1st panel: One guy is upset and says, "I can't eat this."

• 2nd: The other guy is frustrated and responds, "But you said you wanted milk and cereal."

• 3rd: First guy loudly replies, "You put the cereal in with the milk."

• 4th: Second guy slams a chair and yells, "What does it matter? It's all going to the same place!"

• 5th: First guy aggressively affirms, "They need to be separate so that the cereal stays crunchy."

Meme: 3 panel Bike Fall comic

• 1st panel: Guy riding bicycle with stick in hand. "Friends aren't saying hi or bye to me when I look at them. They must be mad at me."

• 2nd panel: I'll avoid making everyone more mad by not forcing them to say hi or bye.

• 3rd panel: Why does everyone think I'm mad at them?

True story. This happened with a few friends/acquaintances. I stopped participating in a hobby and attended related social events. I didn't know if people would remember me or be mad at me that I disappeared for 1.5 years. When I returned, I would look at people and give them the opportunity to choose to say hi or bye to me because I didn't want to force myself on them if they wanted space or forgot who I was. About 5 months later, one of the guys I got along with told me that people thought I was mad at them because I wasn't saying hi or bye to them. 🤦‍♂️

Edit: Whoops, forgot the attachment.

Image: Bush's face showing surprised concern when being told about the active terror attacks on 9/11.

Caption: You weren't supposed to point that out. Everyone is mad at you again.

Image: Skeptic child looking at adult woman

Caption: So you're telling me that you just kind of understand social matters without being taught all of the rules?

Image: Meme of template It Is with Great Pleasure that I Inform You Colonel Toad

Caption: I terminated a relationship with a manipulative woman after tracking her behaviors and noticing patterns using a log.

Background: I have a history of getting into relationships with manipulative women. The last one was terrible as it left me in fear for my life. My autistic traits make it difficult for me to understand people's intentions, which results in me unknowingly building relationships with people that prey on vulnerable people. I spent the past year and a half healing, learning about autistic traits, myself, and relationships. One strategy I learned was to notice when I am confused. Once that happens, I am to begin keeping a log of interesting behaviors and statements.

I started keeping a log of my interactions with a woman I started dating recently after I started noticing that I was confused with expectations. About a week ago, I aimed to end the relationship after noticing a pattern of deception using plausible deniability. However, when we met up to talk about it, she admitted to her behaviors and provided a reason for that behavior in the final instance that I was willing to excuse that one time because I acknowledge that sometimes I misinterpret social interactions and other people make mistakes too. Today, she demonstrated that pattern again. I was forthcoming and attempted to resolve the issue, but she was not meeting the minimal standards I had previously established to hold myself accountable. As such, I decided to terminate the relationship on my terms with a calm and respectful conversation that focused on my needs and desires.

While I'm somewhat sad that the relationship ended, I'm really happy with myself! I was able to hold myself to boundaries that I had established for myself. I feel a stronger sense of confidence that I can protect myself. I'm proud of myself today. Yippee!

PS - I think there's a bigger meaning to me using the word myself as much in the last paragraph. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm thinking it may have something with establishing a healthier me.

Illustration by Igor Oleynikov, for the story “The Boy and the Pooka”.

The story is from a collection in the book "The King with Horse’s Ears and Other Irish Folktales", retold by Batt Burns.

cross-posted from: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/17832746

Caption: Oh no, I just directly pointed out the elephant in the room

Image: Homer Simpson backing into a hedge to hide

Caption:

• [Image] Below: A stranger at a partly looks at me like that
• Me: Ooh, maybe they're like me ♾️!

Image: 2 panels. 1st panel is a puppet facing to your right but side-eying you with a blank facial expression. 2nd panel is the same puppet looking straight forward with the same facial expression.

Image: Crack-addicted fictional character Tyrone Biggums scratching his neck.

Caption:

Someone gives you a hug and says they appreciate how blunt and honest you are

Y'all got anymore of that validation?

Image: 2 panel meme. Top half is a mouth whispering into an ear. Bottom half is a close up someone's skin with goosebumps.

Caption: Ssssneaky sssnakesss ssslithering sssslowly sssouth towardsss sssskittlesss

Image: 4 panel comic of a business meeting.

Panel 1: Boss asks, "How are you?"

Panel 2: 1st man says, "Good!" Woman asks, "How are you?" 2nd man says, "Tired. Also, she didn't answer your question."

Panel 3: Boss is upset while 2nd man is relaxing head on hand.

Panel 4: 2nd man has been thrown out of a high-story window.