Rants

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So there's that whole advice I'm sure I've heard about acting generically and not talking about your specialist interests.

OK then.

So how come when I do that nobody's interested in me and when I AM myself online and talk non stop about football I get thousands of subscribers willing to do the same thing...

Maybe I'm bad at being generic.

In future. Things I refuse to make friends over:
1 Exact same politics. My friends must be left wing. We mustn't be nodding dogs to each other though that's boring.
2 Pity party back and forth, this is weak
3 Not having pity, this is mean spirited and everyone goes through tough stuff
4 Hating someone outside of football/extreme politics. And hating someone in football better be jokey. Anyone caught making jokes about Fernando yesterday was unfollowed by me.
5 'It's nice to pretend to be friends with everyone'. Sorry but I figured that one out in primary, nobody means they're actually friends with all nice people. Just friendly acquaintances.

Things I'll make friends over:
1 football
2 someone with character. There are some of those on here
3 football
4 meeting someone in person
5 football

Seriously if you don't want to talk about football either have something about you which makes me think you're a real person and I can remember you (some on here are like this, I'll find it hard to forget Kraftie and Isabella) or actually have met me and know how to have a tangible good time with me making art or playing a board game or something.

I do look at the football standings from time to time.

I'll have a look at the Scottish Premier Division, where both Celtic and Rangers reside.

What is the relationship of Hearts with Celtic and Rangers? (you might have already told me----but I don't remember what you said).

Most people on here (yourself included) seem to be real people who I can imagine going about their lives. I think social media flattens out some people? Or NTs don't have strong personalities - eg hobbies and interests and beliefs which aren't all about themselves etc? Introspection for very long isn't healthy for me, I don't know about other people.

It's the Edinburgh derby on Sunday and our pub are showing it. Hearts are 'diet Rangers' and Hibs are 'diet Celtic'. I put it to my mum like 'if Rangers were the BNP then Hearts would be too posh for that so they'd be UKIP' but I don't know if that helps an American.

I should probably start a 'random thoughts about art we're making' thread on the art section of this site. Sometimes I want to mention what I'm making to someone but don't want to be seen as showing off and also I'd like to hear from other people who make art.

My favorite sport is tennis, but I will make friends with people who genuinely support a certain player or team outside of my favorite sport. I like when people have a passion for something and it shows.

You count as 2 though. You have character. I see your username and think 'tennis' not 'boring'.

In fact there's very few boring people on this site.

It looks like Celtic is doing really well, winning at least their last five matches. Rangers is 3 points behind.

Hearts and Hibernian better start plugging away----otherwise, they might get relegated.

That's one thing we don't have in the United States--relegation.

Ok, bloody Brexit, how long can this crap go on for, I'm sick of it. January 31st!! ! For f sake! Will it ever get to the bloody point where we actually know what crap we will have to clean up.
Gaaaaaaaah

i feel the same blinkin' way about the phuqed up mess we'll have to clean up after [big IF] our present fools are voted out.

Ahh our lovely crazy world, has it always been so nuts... I think so

The world used to be more nuts than it is now.

Weary of war, weary of politics, weary of terrorism, weary of people's inability to compromise. Really really really weary.

the world is getting nuttier by the second.

Okay, this rant hasn't been posting, and I don't know why, but I'm going to break it in half and see what happens. I've been trying to get it to post for the past 20 minutes now, so I'd be delighted with any utterances of disgust that you'd like to offer in solidarity to either my rant or my frustrations with computers and internets and what-nots. (Yes, I do know it's not plural.)

I've been holding in an angry rant that just needs a place to go. Four days ago, I picked up a book that I'd been really excited to read. It was about Jane Austen and characters on the spectrum. This was particularly about Pride and Prejudice characters, and that happens to be my favorite book--one I've read countless times. I didn't have any qualms about reading this book--it was a Jessica Kingsley publication and Tony Attwood wrote a foreword. Naive newbie to the label, I thought ASD would be treated respectfully.

Well, I did not have to get very far before I was degraded, demeaned, and disgusted. If you don't want to be, don't read on.

"Having occasionally experienced dinner or house guests whom I now realize were on the spectrum, I can attest that most of those visits were exhausting and unsatisfying, especially if the ratio was skewed and more than one person with ASD was present. In response to the silent, monosyllabic ones everyone else tended at first to talk more or in a livelier way to try to entice them into conversation. Eventually, their limited responses, both verbally and even facially, extinguished the effort the others were putting forward. In contrast, when the guest with ASD was one who frequently launched into monologues, the eyes of the others glazed over or else developed a twitchiness as they watched for the slightest pause to enable them to return to a back-and-forth exchange between the entire group. Either way conversation was a problem rather than a pleasure."

Reading that meant that I was reminded that people have warned others against inviting me to their dinner parties for my entire life, and I was bombarded with flashbacks of trauma I would very much like to forget.

And later, I got to learn that:

"Besides the several dozen children officially diagnosed with ASD with whom I have worked professionally, I have grown to realize that I have encountered a similar or greater number of adults on the spectrum among those I have met in my varied communities and travels. Few of them have been formally diagnosed."

So basically, the woman just stripped herself of all credibility. She only knows about autistic children--admits to knowing few diagnosed adult autistics. Yet, miraculously, a degree in language speech pathology and some ridiculously fixed ideas as to what good conversation requires are all she needs to diagnose more than several dozens of adults with autism. No history, no appointment, just observation in a social setting.

She previously detailed all her "worldly" experiences (not nearly as varied as she'd like to think--Canadians and Australians of a similar socioeconomic status, most of them white). These experiences were supposed to be proof that she has come into contact with many, many different types of people in her lifetime. That and a knowledge of Pride and Prejudice made her qualified to write a book that Jessica Kingsley found worthy of publishing and Tony Attwood found worthy of promoting. Did either read it? I mean, in just the first pages, before chapter 1, she literally admits to knowing very few adults who are definitively on the spectrum, and the entire basis of the book is that she understands the behavior of scores of adults on the spectrum! I don't know what sort of authority she has in Canada, but in the United States, a language speech pathologist can have ten thousand clinical sessions with a client and still is not allowed to make a legal diagnosis of autism--can in fact be sued for trying.


To be continued momentarily:

Sorry, this only seems to let me post in pieces... it's extremely frustrating

Furthermore, let's go a little up to the fact that she's worked with several dozen ASD students. Please, tell me they have a support group. Except that I taught for a little while, and you find these people everywhere, which means that those kids had ten other teachers who were no better. I will tell you that my mother (as a teacher coach) once told a teacher who was complaining about an inclusion class, "You don't deserve the honor of teaching the autistic children"--said it right in front of another co-worker (who was very relieved that the woman finally shut up). But she was an ASD grandma then, and only months away from retirement. She always stood up for the kids, but the ferocity was new. My mother might have screwed me up in a lot of ways, but she does befriend every atypical she meets. And yes, I completely changed the subject without warning, which I am told by this vile woman means that I am not at all skilled in the "art of conversation." We really need to fix that whole subject thing about ourselves, too, because it's obviously terrifying to neurotypicals when we do it, and if we don't warn them that we're about to change the subject, they may just pee their pants in fear. Oh, the fright we do give them!

Part three of ?

Back to the first quote (isn't my transition so comforting), my therapist pointing out that she's trying to be Jane Austen stylistically. Since this is a rant, and since I am very angry at her, I will not find anything nice to say, but also, I really don't think there is. Problem rather than a pleasure most closely meets the style but that's because... oh, look what Miss Bingley says about Mr. Darcy in Chapter XI, "I am much mistaken if there are not some among us to whom a ball would be rather a punishment than a pleasure." Wow. Punishment vs. pleasure sounds much better than problem vs. pleasure. Yep, that's right. Does she honestly think there's nobody reading that who isn't able to identify most lines from the novel and find the exact quote within seconds? Don't attack aspies if you don't expect them to crush you. Twelve years after you wrote your book. On a forum you'll never read. But I am likely to have the last laugh (because you're about 30 years older than I am).

I do have a theory, though, that she's a self-loathing aspie who's too closeted to even realize that she's not neurotypical. Anybody that obsessed with the rules of conversation has to have a reason, and the reason most people become obsessed with something like that is because they had to figure it out and navigate it in a way that others did not. Also, there's other stuff... just little hints. I mean, I hope she's not on the spectrum, because I really don't want her to have anything more in common with me. Same favorite author is already way too much.