[bruce343434]

"is our checkout page not performing well?" to the React rewrite manager comes off as a rather dismissive "why would you want to do that?"

Could you explain why? I don't see it that way and would like to learn your perspective.

[Beltalowda]

It's hard to explain, but as a first response it implies "the current code is fine", or "we don't need to do this". That is, you risk it being perceived as a challenge to the idea ("rewrite it in React"), rather than a question to explore the goals.

Note that I wouldn't mind such a question at all myself, but others can be more sensitive to such things. Actually, I think "Why? Is the current code not working?" is a perfectly valid engineering question for rewriting or refactoring anything, but not everyone has this kind of engineering mindset.

I would phrase it more open-ended, such as "Okay! What goals would you like to achieve?"

[larve]

Making these kinds of judgments is exactly why autism is a disability.

I understand from the comments and my life experience that there is something there, I learned to smile, be engaging, mirror body posture, ask questions instead of going into statements too quickly, but what are you describing just makes no sense to me. How is "what goals would you like to achieve?" not dismissive, but "do you think our checkout is not performing well?" is?

One is a pretty vague question about something they already stated (they want to ask me my opinion about rewriting the checkout in react because company X improved their checkout), the other one is something I need input on to be able to do that. It's literally the most efficient question I can think of so that I can avoid wasting their time.

I described in another comment how it never "really" occurred to me that a question could be perceived as dismissive. If I wanted to dismissive I would... just say so?

The thing is, saying it is dismissive, getting upset, and shutting me down helps exactly no one here. What could help is to realize I am not actually trying to be dismissive, point out that my question might be interpreted as such, and then move on. Trust me that I don't let this kind of advice go to waste.

[Beltalowda]

Sure, I get all of that. As I touched on in my other comment[1] I had to learn this, too. I think me-from-ten-years-ago would have posted a very similar comment as yours.

Even if it's completely learned scripted behaviour that you don't really understand, that's still a win for everyone involved. But I think that with time and effort a sizeable part (not everyone) of autistic/neurodivergent folk can understand these things at least to some degree too. At least, I was able to and I know some other folks who were too.

> What could help is to realize I am not actually trying to be dismissive, point out that my question might be interpreted as such, and then move on.

Yes, I fully agree; I try hard to look past people's failings in general and not to get upset too quickly at things that don't really matter. But ... people have emotional responses that aren't really rational, and not everyone has that kind of attitude.

And the end of the day – and this really applies to a lot of things – I can't really control other people's behaviour, feelings, or attitudes. The only thing I am in control of is me. So I focus on that, rather than saying "other people need to adjust", because you will have very limited success with that at best.

(This of course doesn't mean we should accept wildly inappropriate or harmful behaviour like, say, racism or other forms of blatant discrimination, just that vague "emotional feelings" like a response to a well-intentioned question are not likely to get "fixed" any time soon across all of society, as these kind of emotions are part of "the human condition").

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32424668

[saltcured]

I'm not 100% sure if you are asking for further explanation of why it would seem dismissive, but I'll try to break it down a bit from an NT perspective, in case that is illuminating.

The query "Do you think..." can sometimes backfire if the other party is feeling defensive or vulnerable. It can imply that you've already decided to frame the conversation as exploring their problematic beliefs rather than objective facts.

The negative phrasing "not performing well" unfortunately echoes another idiom where the non-negated statement is assumed to be true and the negated question bears a tone of incredulity. These questions all probe the same fact but carry different emotional baggage: "Should we try to improve the performance of X?" "Does X perform well?" "Does X have performance problems?" "Is X not performing well?" Slight differences in vocal tone or emphasis can dramatically increase these differences too.

Then, by jumping to specifics (about performance), it can also imply that you are assuming that this is the only reasonable motivation for the work in question, rejecting other avenues. A safe way to avoid this type of interpretation would be to start off more broadly and neutrally to establish common ground before diving into such details. That's why "What are the goals?" types of question are seen as positive and cooperative. That you would like to engage in dialog and explore ideas together.

You put all those elements together in one question, and I can easily see how the other party would feel that they are being blocked. It's almost like some martial arts move where a precise combination of movement and posture is turning the conversational momentum against itself.

I'd also like to point out an ironic twist in your closing lament that "getting upset and shutting me down helps exactly no one here". Unfortunately, such implied tone and emotional content is decoded subconsciously and immediately. The emotion hits concurrently or even before the denoted factual information is fully understood. It can be just as difficult for an NT person to _not_ perceive some of these signals as it is for you to recognize they are being sent. Frustratingly, the same experience between two NTs, if chronic, might be seen as abusive or where the idea of "gaslighting" would come up to describe the perverse torture where the one feeling hurt is told they are mistaken in their feelings.