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Well, being outgoing and talkative is “desirable” in the US.
Since childhood, people have said things like “you’re so quiet!” and the like as though it is abnormal to be quiet.
How many extroverts get told “you’re so loud!” or “you’re so talkative!”, said as criticism? Probably not many.
Exactly...countless times as a child in the backseat of the car with some other kids and always from the parents "are you asleep back there?!" Seriously, 40 years ago to be quiet was to be antisocial or stuckup or worse.
Have things turned around all that much? Perhaps introverts aren't called out quite as much (well, we ARE adults finally!) but even if we are "understood" we're still not seen as quite the norm.
What is it about the absent person, that caused others to feel he "can't read social cues"? That's actually a pretty rare issue. Just because he doesn't always join in on conversations? I'm trying to guess what it could possibly be, that they're interpreting as an inability to read social cues.
Not being able to read social cues is actually pretty common for people with Asperger Syndrome. I like to explain it as going to a party where everyone is wearing sunglasses.
Reading social cues can be learned and most people with AS do learn to read some of the social cues.
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Originally Posted by GSPNative
Extroverts just view introverts as abnormal, not understanding that being an introvert is just as normal as being an extrovert.
Seems like everyone thinks being an introvert is abnormal. My parents made me go to counseling because I never made oodles of friends in school. I remember one of the other mothers talking to my mom and saying she was so lucky that all I did was stay in my room, while her daughter was out drinking and doing drugs. That's why counselors never knew what to do with me. But I was constantly pushed to make friends, go places, join groups at school.
It's hard when everyone you know growing up is trying to change your personality. I always thought I was the weird one and the wrong one.
How odd. I know a lot of introverted people and am one myself. Can't recall these folks complaining they were being unfairly labeled as autistic. Maybe on the extreme end of the spectrum someone might, but the extreme ends of spectrums rarely apply to the majority of anything.
Agreed. I am very introverted. But I am not shy, reserved or quiet.
I just need less social activities than extroverted, and when I have been very social I need lots of alone/quiet time to recharge my batteries.
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Maybe some do, but that's a very VERY broad characterization. MOST people understand that both are normal, and neither is an aberration.
Right? Honestly, as an introvert, most of my friends are extroverts. We have no problems respecting each others differences.
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Agreed. I am very introverted. But I am not shy, reserved or quiet.
I just need less social activities than extroverted, and when I have been very social I need lots of alone/quiet time to recharge my batteries.
I think that's the major misunderstanding about introversion. Online you often see people saying "I'm an introvert--I hate people!" or linking social anxiety or awkwardness with introversion. It's none of those things. Like you, I can very much enjoy spending time around others, but I also feel absolutely drained afterward and need to be by myself.
Ha! the irony of it all. Nowadays some/many people are attributing a lot of things which they are not really.
Take for example, all the people who cannot stand hearing something they do not agree with, depending on their coping skills to things that go against their beliefs, they do not know how to tolerate a bit of disagreement.. They sometimes go on to say they have been triggered by the person's comments, and/or go on so far as to say they were injured. they have no tolerance to other people's opinions. They will scream, shut them out, not listen to the opposing opinion and seriously get traumatized.
For example, some college students do not want to hear an opposing opinion and they shut out guest speakers. I saw a video of a person saying "women have wombs" and the students were actually saying NOT TRUE! and screaming back at the speaker. Of course, the speaker was right. i think the point of the class was saying how trans men (biological men who now present as women) have wombs. The class actually was shouting at the truth. Such indoctrination.
I could go on with more examples, but i hope you get my point. So many in society just scream at people they dont agree with, even though they would learn a lot from the speaker. i wish people would have more ability to listen to opposing views. It would be good in many ways.
I've been noticing for quite a while now the tendency to attribute certain variations in personality to "neurodivergence" or someone "being on the spectrum." No longer is someone described as just "shy," "reserved," "quiet," or even "eccentric," but rather "possibly autistic." Diseases and disorders come in and out of vogue, and currently it seems autism is fashionable or the Disease du Jour. However, I was really disturbed by a recent conversation among friends/acquaintances in which another friend, who was absent, was described as such for his "attention to detail," "indecision," and failure to heed "social cues." It should be noted that the friends discussing this introverted person are all extreme extroverts to the point of being party animals and obviously simply don't like or can't relate to this person's personality. I argued that there was no evidence of this -- some people are just low-key and serious in contrast to them -- but they probably ended up concluding that I'm autistic, too, LOL. I find this pathologizing of differences scary.
Completely agree with you. It is not the same at all. We are too quick to pathologize people when it’s usually not that easy to diagnose a person until you know them quite well (from a layperson’s standpoint). I think autism is thrown around WAY too much. It has been for awhile and I was hoping it would die back down but maybe not. It’s like ADHD in the 80s. I think extroverts really do not understand introverts; maybe we don’t understand them either but it’s easier to imagine a life of extroverted tendencies than introverted ones, I’d think.
I'm sensing a tinge, in this thread, of "I feel persecuted" where I don't think that anyone is trying to actually persecute anybody.
Because in some instances, even if a few extroverts were wondering among themselves if an introvert that they know might be autistic, they are not in fact trying to be insulting. They might be trying to be understanding. And a whole lot of actually autistic people wouldn't necessarily appreciate that some feel that it is an insult, either.
I have an acquaintance who was very involved in volunteering for an org that I used to also volunteer for a lot, and he is autistic. As in, he knows, he's told us, and it's pretty clearly truth. And one aspect of it is that humor can be challenging for him because struggling with social cues means he doesn't always read the room and he may not always know what is inappropriate, especially if someone gives him validation for a bad choice of joke... One night he started making holocaust jokes that were in incredibly poor taste, and this other dude was participating and laughing along, and neither of them seemed to notice/care that we had a guest in the room who was not only Jewish, but as I later learned, the child of holocaust survivors. It was massively inappropriate. One of those two people was judged pretty harshly and denied opportunities for advancement and recognition for being basically an a-hole. The other...the autistic one...was talked to about it, responded well to frank explanation that this kind of humor was not acceptable at these events, and went on to achieve much more in the organization, it didn't ultimately hurt his prospects. Because we understood that he has freaking autism, and he may not always read the room or respond appropriately if signals are mixed, and sometimes needs to be flat out explicitly told, "yeah, in the future...don't do that." And he knows his condition enough not to get defensive, but to accept the guidance and roll with it. The other guy? The one who is "neurotypical" but kind of a jerk? Yeah, when told that his behavior was inappropriate, he got defensive about it.
So sometimes it isn't about judging, it's about trying to determine if someone ought to get a little leeway and others may have reasonable cause to extend some accommodation and understanding.
Though what you described with the conversation you heard, does not really sound that way.
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Originally Posted by otterhere
When I pointed out that they're very different, I was told "it's a spectrum." I'm talking about lay people and amateurs, not licensed professionals, "diagnosing" their friends as such. I find it insulting and harmful when an actual disorder is applied as a label to those someone simply doesn't relate to, and it seems to be happening quite frequently when it comes to this. I'm sure extroverts (and, let's face it, they're the majority in our culture) have always considered introverts weird, defective, and undesirable as companions, and now there's a "scientific explanation" for it. It's simply being bandied about way too much.
OK first of all, I am more extrovert than not, and I adore introverts and I always have. I married one, and we are a wonderful match. But the introverts that I've become close to are legitimately just kind of shy, find large scale socializing to be exhausting, and aren't very outgoing. They are not antisocial or misanthropes. They don't mind interaction, just are less likely to initiate it and would rather it be one on one or small groups in a quieter setting, and also need alone time to recharge. They are often happy and grateful to have a patient extrovert engage them and get to know them. A ton of my friends are introverts. And yeah, some of them are "weird" but then, so am I. What's wrong with weird? It's great to be weird.
As for defective, though? Defective is when somebody doesn't know how to act and then gets affronted when others judge them for bad behavior, and extreme introversion is nothing but an insistence on a right to act however they want with no social consequences. Defective is when someone gets mad at everybody else for problems they have that are rooted in their own unwillingness to cooperate with reality around them. Defective harms your life, your ability to succeed and thrive among a social species. If autism is a spectrum, anyone who is defective because of it, lives on the far end of that spectrum. Introversion isn't defective, nor is shyness...but the extreme of it that lands a person in total and extreme isolation, might be. We actually do need a lot of things that other human beings provide, to LIVE. We are not meant to shut ourselves away totally from everyone else. But it should be pretty obvious who is "defective" and who isn't. They are usually making a certain amount of fuss, if not verbally in real world interactions, then at least online, about how unhappy they are with their lives.
I know a lot more people who diagnose THEMSELVES, than people who diagnose their friends, though.
And I find it harmful when people embrace thinking and behavior that goes all the way past what introversion or shyness properly IS, and into flat out antisocial territory, and defend it as simply "I'm an introvert." At some point it is a defense mechanism if you get called out for being insensitive to others but want to defend that kind of behavior, to just think well, I'm an introvert and I don't need anybody anyways. I've seen some people go an awful long ways to try and justify crappy behavior, and comfort themselves when it results in being socially rejected. Looking, I think, for a way to tell themselves that it's actually fine, that they are OK. Whether they are or not.
Not saying that introversion isn't a legit thing. But human beings are social creatures, it is how our species functions, we don't really thrive in extreme isolation. Doesn't mean that it's unhealthy to be anything but "a party animal." It's definitely a shade of normal to prefer quiet and to find large scale social activity to be tiring in general.
But where people start questioning whether there's some kind of neurodivergence, perhaps even just in the sense of, "is there something here that I should try to accommodate?"...is when someone is behaving in ways that are really not conducive to normal social engagement. When they are behaving strangely, and they do not appear to even realize that they are.
Personally, I like the present day recognition of "neurodivergence" and "neurotypicality." I do not like the old fashioned, "normal" or "sick" dichotomy. I think that the offense that some are taking to this, seeing it as "pathologizing" is a struggle to adjust between the two mindsets. Because in the old days, OK fine, no one would be wondering out loud behind your back if perhaps you're on the spectrum, no. Instead, if you behaved in a strange or socially jarring way, they would not simply accept that you are an introvert and that's fine, they'd probably just think that you are slow, stupid, or a jerk. Now, some who are in the adjustment period between these different eras, might kind of assume that autism is code for that, perhaps, I don't know. But young people today do not stigmatize autism. They understand that some autistic people are brilliant, kind, good, capable people, and the nature of it as a spectrum, and that most are not really disabled by it. They see it as more of a personality type than a pathology or a disorder. And frankly, if this trickles down to the educational system and making minor and completely reasonable accommodations to kids who learn in different ways, I think that this is FANTASTIC.
And this shift in thinking and accommodation can allow for those who really are just mildly autistic, to get better and more clear guidance and communication from others around them, and avoid becoming someone who winds up suffering serious social consequences for a condition that was never their fault.
Or perhaps that person you know, should not need to over-analyze someone in order to consider trying a more honest and direct form of communication. Perhaps you are correct in the sense that some should just accept that some folks need that, and it's fine. I know that I've come to very much prefer honest and direct communication over assumptions and mind games. At that point, even the question of whether the other person is an introvert or not is pretty irrelevant.
Quote:
Originally Posted by otterhere
I understand the difference. My point is, people who know nothing about autism shouldn't label people who are simply quiet and unassuming as "autistic" rather than "introverted" or just "quiet."
Re: "not reading social cues," in this particular case turned out to mean the quiet one had invited one of the extroverts to do something, and the extrovert didn't want to, but said he did and just kept making excuses not to. Apparently the quiet person was supposed to disbelieve the excuses and realize the extrovert really didn't want to do it, but was being fake about it. I guess the problem there is being honest and assuming others are, too...
I agree that introverts can accept extroverts as they are, but extroverts are either trying to "fix" or "diagnose" introverts. You often hear, "Why are you so quiet?" but never "Why are you so loud?"
LOL when I talk about the individuals out there who are "life of the party" type extroverts, like much more gregarious and boisterous than I am, I usually say, "He's kind of a lot. I like him, but...in small doses."
I think that's the major misunderstanding about introversion. Online you often see people saying "I'm an introvert--I hate people!" or linking social anxiety or awkwardness with introversion. It's none of those things. Like you, I can very much enjoy spending time around others, but I also feel absolutely drained afterward and need to be by myself.
I am also shy but extremely open and talkative once I do get comfortable. I tend to hit a wall even with people I enjoy being around after maybe 2-3 hours. It hits me at once and I’m like “alright I gotta go.” Thankfully people have understood. Maybe it’s a SAHM thing in part. We are used to being around kids constantly and talking to adults is refreshing but also takes energy.
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