Ausome Memes

@ickplant @db0
I remember that decades ago this was considered a classic men vs. women thing, so I wonder why that is, what's going on there. Did "male culture" pick up this trait from their 1% minority somehow? Or is there something else to this? :blob_cat_thinking:

I remember an incident where my best friend's girlfriend got pissed off at him for doing this (in retrospect I believe he is classic ADHD), and kicked him out of his own room so she could talk to me alone because I was just listening to her. So, on the surface that's weird since I was the autistic one. OTOH, I've had plenty of people tall me what a great listener I am, when it's more do to with me being "quiet and shy" around people I'm not entirely comfortable with yet, and this too scared to offer solutions. So in that respect, yes, me doing so would be a sign of how comfortable I am with you.

Yeah I'm sitting here scratching my head like "dude, it drives people crazy when I do this, but I do it to connect" and now I'm like ohhhhh.

Maybe I am a bit more nuerodivergent than just my ADHD symptoms.

These are literally normal ways of showing affection lol

It's a spectrum

Neurodivergent is a kind of catch-all, umbrella term, similar to LGBTQ, meant more to differentiate from the norm, the typical, the common.

Autism, ADHD, DID, BiPolar, OCD, Tourette's, Dyslexia, Dyscalculia, Schizophrenia...

All of these are distinct, different conditions, which fall under the 'Neurodivergent' label, similar to how a gay man, lesbian woman, pansexual or asexual or intersex or trans... basically all fall under the LGBTQIA+, or 'queer' collective term... in both situations, there are significant differences between each of the components that make up the whole.

... This meme is generally aimed at Autistic folks, it describes behaviors and preferences and 'love language' that are much more common among Autists.

Just as not all LGBTQIA folks... are gay men... not all Neurodivergent folks are... Autistic, or ADHD, or any other particular kind of ... having a mind that works in a nonstandard way.

Also, as db0 says, Autism, and many other mental conditions... exist on scales, spectrums, and have other kinds of varation within themselves.

... The terminology confusion comes at least partially from that Neurodivergent vs Neurotypical... as far as I can tell, originated mostly within the Autistic community, and medical professionals/literature studying the Autistic community... but the terminology has since expanded to be more inclusive, as ... Autistic vs Allistic already exists, and is more specific in referring specifically to Autists vs NonAutists.

Another element that causes confusion here is... basically, TikTok (in particular, but many other social media as well) is massively popular, but also has a massive tendency to take psychological terms of all kinds and just absolutely warp them far beyond what they actually mean, to the point that their new colloquial meanings bare essentially resemblence to their actual definitions... and then spread these misconceptions everywhere, rapidly.

... Thats all a long way to say: not all Neurodivergent people even have the same mental/psychological condition, so saying that an ND person doesn't identify with a meme about Autism... is not really surprising.