digimint (ECC-988287E1B)

i discussed this a little while ago in response to a specific instance where it might have happened, but i feel like it should be said more broadly. If you are going to express your frustrations in the form of a question, please, please, please don't automatically interpret somebody answering that question as them trying to invalidate your frustration. To explain in more detail: it happens very often that someone wants to express something like "It sucks that X happens and I wish that would change" (let's call this "Statment A") and they choose to express it as "Why does X happen?" ("Question B"). This is fine for people who can recognize that structure, but a lot of people - particularly autistic people like me - do not automatically see Statement A when they look at Question B. Instead, to us, it just looks like you've asked Question B. Someone who wants to be helpful and sees someone asking a question might be inclined to answer it based on their own understanding. Such a person might then say, in response to Question B, "X happens because Y." However, because you (and, in my experience, most bystanders to the conversation) weren't actually asking Question B, it might look to you like the other person is responding to what you were trying to say. To you, the conversation looks like this:Statement: It sucks that X happens and I wish that would change. Response: X happens because Y.Looking at this conversation, that reply is, at best, providing pointless information (you probably already know X happens because Y, as well as Z, W, and α). At worst, people will often interpret the response as being a direct refutation of their original point - thus, the conversation implicitly becomes:Statement: It sucks that X happens and I wish that would change. Response: X doesn't suck - it happens because Y. Deal with it.If someone actually replied to you expressing your frustrations like that, it would be totally reasonable to assume they were a terrible person. However, please, please, please keep in mind that the actual, literal words that were exchanged are this:Question: Why does X happen? Response: X happens because Y.In my experience, the most common result of this misunderstanding is that everyone involved in the conversation immediately assumes malice on the part of the person who replied based entirely on implicit information, and then it devolves into shouting at an autistic person for the crime of trying to be helpful - all while the autistic person still doesn't understand why everyone else is angry, because nobody in the conversation recognizes what actually happened. All that to say: i'm not saying that you should never phrase your frustrations like a question. However, if you do, please be mindful of the actual, literal words you are saying, and please don't immediately assume that someone answering based on those words is acting maliciously.