Born To Be Misunderstood
It reaches out… and gets its hand slapped
Yes, my nerds, that’s a reference to The Exchange. But it also speaks to how much I feel like a machine sometimes, and one no one wants to talk to. I’m starting to think there’s no upside to talking to humans and having them think I’m an asshole.
Here’s what happened. Twice in the last few days, I’ve made perfectly innocent, well-meaning comments online and been met with either frosty correction of my inappropriateness or outright hostility about something I wasn’t actually doing. I wish I could say this was rare, but it happens all the time. And from what I understand, it’s pretty common for the neurodivergent, especially autistics.
As an autistic, middle-aged, white, American man, I have the internet textual equivalent to resting bitch face. No matter what I say, people will take it the worst way possible, even people who I’d expect to at least give me the benefit of the doubt.
Let me give you an example. I read a note by someone who clearly knows a ton about neurodivergent issues—and I’m a paid subscriber to her Substack—and I got confused by the terminology. I asked her if maybe calling ourselves “neurodivergent” instead of “neurodiverse” implied a “normal” baseline to diverge from, and if that frame might be not in our best interests. That’s it. No hidden agenda, no sealioning, no “just asking questions.” Just an autistic man reasoning things out from first principles and asking an earnest question of someone seen as an authority.
She replied with, “That’s not the correct usage of those words.”
Well, duh, lady, that’s why I asked. But here’s an expert on neurodivergence, who knows damn well that we are often misunderstood, assuming ill-intent on my part and pointing out the incorrectness of my question.
And you know what? I don’t even really blame her. Of course she assumed I wasn’t asking in good faith. The modern internet is a horrible place, full of “gotcha” assholes who just want to tear someone down, especially a woman. She couldn’t afford to believe I was sincere.
The other incident was even worse. I was talking about my recent post asserting that the way neurodivergent people write shares a lot of heuristics with the way AI writes, and the people that “can always tell something is AI slop” might be doing a lot of ableist damage with false accusations, because no, you can’t really tell.
And another person I subscribed to—though not anymore—replied with an orthogonal point about how AI detectors are invalid and therefore it doesn’t matter what people say. Which, okay, fine, but that’s not what I was talking about. I don’t have to agree with their premise to appreciate the real reputational danger accusations can have on a writing career. I tried to explain that, and started with, “There’s a couple of things I think we’re getting confused about here.”
He came at me, fangs out, accusing me of trying to “handle him,” and saying he was confused. I clearly stepped on one of his hidden triggers by accident—there’s a reason I never play Minesweeper and don’t understand why people think that game is fun—and rather than interrogate what I might have meant, he attacked, and frankly, ruined my Saturday, which I spent the rest of in an anxiety attack.
I wish I could say this was rare, but like I said above, it’s constant and relentless. When I told my daughter about the book I was writing, she immediately assumed the worst about it. When I ask for clarification at work, it’s taken as a challenge to authority when I really just don’t understand the requirements.
But what all this is telling me, and I think all too many autistics feel this, is that my intentions don’t matter. My words don’t matter. People are going to project their fears on to me no matter what I do. Neurotypicals see insolence. Women see the patriarchy. Minorities see “The Man” (and I’m autimain, autie-ace—I’m barely even a man). No one sees the confused, lonely man asking an earnest question.
And if you read this far hoping I’d turn it around, have a hopeful, upbeat ending with a suggestion on how to solve this, I’m sorry. I’m an asshole.
