[scandox]

That is a mistake I think. Many 'normal' people who grow up (emotionally) make a conscious effort not to instrumentalize their social interactions even if they do know how to do it. Certainly with friends they aim to be authentic.

I think emulating things that a serious person discards is a step backwards.

[taurath]

My take living as a relatively high functioning autistic (& other things) person and having many neurodivergent friends is that instrumentalizing is more often due to relational failures due to developmental social differences. The underlying of those is most often a hypersensitive (to sight, sound, smells, touch) individual having periods of being overwhelmed by the world around them. Couple that with parents who really don't have either the time, energy, or temperament to connect with such a kid.

This makes trying to figure out social cues difficult. After enough failures to connect, or being picked on to the point of feeling constant betrayal, we go to the safest place we can to try to play out interactions to avoid being hurt: our imagination. We make systems to predict behavior, we take to shallow taxonomies and try them on like tinted sunglasses. We are so masked, so protected, so... hardcore avoidant of the shame we feel just for existing, and we lean on this until we finally figure out that what we went through was really, really hard, and we find again the threads of our things that we never got a chance to develop, and start to grow them from the level they are, not where we pretend they are.

There's a lot of ways away from that, and those who instrumentalize might still be on the pathway upwards. Its hard to know where someone is from.

[underlipton]

I think this is where the high incidence of neurodivergence in the trans community and certain subcultures (furries, roleplaying) comes to fore. Autism is often accompanied by identity conflicts - between what you're labeled as, and how people treat you, and how you feel about yourself - because communication disruptions are common when neurotypes are unaligned, and identity is both the reason for and the means by which much interpersonal communication takes place.

People who don't feel resonance between their label, treatment, and self-concept will question why that is, up to questioning aspects of their identity themselves. Once unmoored from a proscribed identity, people can find the ambiguity uncomfortable and untenable, and may adopt a concrete identity that fits more closely.

That doesn't make the adopted identities any less true, of course. Identity is socially-constructed, so deciding that you feel more comfortable presenting as a woman isn't any less justifiable than being assigned good ol' football-playin', roughhousin', English class-hatin', red-blooded American manhood at birth. Calling yourself a wolf or an orc is probably more extreme, especially in general contexts, but at a convention where you're surrounded by a thousand other people who find it easier to connect when they've thrown on a (literal or figurative) bear sark? Go ham.

In the end, of course, you're just you. All of the labels - even the ones you internalize and externalize - are just ways of trying to communicate, and to make being around you easier for other people, in part by giving them a box to put you in and to understand you by, because that's what our pattern-matching ape-brains like. The mask is a mask; it's a cover, not a substitute, for the totality of a person's being.

[groestl]

> in part by giving them a box to put you in and to understand you

Identity is a lookup for a custom zlib dictionary, so communication compresses better! Which means we can pick and choose per communication channel. :) Thanks for that thought!

[taurath]

It heartens me that someone else could make that connection between identity seeking and masking.

[seethedeaduu]

I completely disagree, I find this claim to also be unsupported by the current evidence. Identity is only a part of being trans and often comes much later.

[wedje]

> presenting as a woman

When autism meets sexism.

[coldtea]

The goalposts for "sexism" have moved to the edge of the galaxy if people today think that's sexism.

Parent says that "identity is socially-constructed", they defend trans people, they say it "isn't any less justifiable than being assigned good ol' football-playin', roughhousin', English class-hatin', red-blooded American manhood"

- but the fact they said "presenting" as opposed to "being" a woman is sexism, as if they're some "chauvinist pig"?

That's why we can't have nice things...

[seethedeaduu]

This poster is a well known transphobic troll that makes new accounts every week and implies that trans women are autistic males who "pretend" to be women because of sexism.

That being said, saying presenting instead of being is not ideal indeed.

[wedje]

It is sexism, in that this promotes sexist stereotypes regarding how women should present themselves. There is similar sexism inherent in the concept of "manhood", as well.

[taurath]

The irony of your white knighting is that its in reply to a kind thoughtful and insightful reply to probably one of the most gender non conforming people you've ever interacted with, who didn't see any problem with it.

[coldtea]

lol

[mkagenius]

I(non autistic) would love to be friends with someone like you.

[K0balt]

I think many of the “manipulations” are actually more like dances; both people engage in a consensual proxy display of willingness to cooperate. Any “manipulation” occurs only when one person is unaware that the “dance” exists and mistakes a protocol negotiation for a call to action, or where one person is deceptive and intentionally mis-signals their intentions.

I can see why someone not understanding the “dance” could easily mistake it for “innocent” manipulation… but when it’s basically a scripted give-and-take that serves as a symbolic representation of a persons willingness to cooperate and their advertised intentions, it isn’t really manipulation at all, but rather a type of communication that allows (hazy) inferences about a person’s character and intellect in the guise of insignificant banter.

[computerdork]

Although, I agree that for average people, over instrumentalizing your interactions becomes fake (although, to be honest, most could use a bit more, including myself, to communicate more effectively with those close to us).

Still, agree with others, seems like you're generalizing what is good for the average person is also good for those with personalities that are more at the extremes. Yeah, know a couple of people who just don't understand what people are thinking or feeling, ever. And so they have to learn a system of cues to look for to figure out whether a person is angry or sad or happy... These people need to create systems to make socialization work.

[whstl]

> Many 'normal' people who grow up (emotionally) make a conscious effort not to instrumentalize their social interactions

That's definitely not true if we include "work" as a "social interaction".

[somenameforme]

I wouldn't say just friends either. The biggest leap I made in social stuff is to simply stop caring what other people think. If somebody doesn't like me, cool - there's plenty of other people. If they do? Awesome, because they're getting the 'real' me, so it's probably going to be a good relationship.

Basically I think a lot of people's issues with social stuff starts with something analogous to a boy who never asks a girl out for fear that she'll say no. People don't engage in interactions, or try to be overly pleasing, to try to appeal to other people.

But that's never going to lead to a good relationship, because it's fake, and it'll feel exhausting. By contrast when you stop caring, you might be surprised to find people like you even more, it becomes even easier to form "real" relationships, and suddenly social interactions aren't tiring at all.

This becomes even easier after having kids because you're probably not really seeking relations in any meaningful way, so you completely genuinely just don't care. And then paradoxically it becomes so much easier. Well, at least it becomes wisdom you can hand down to your own kids, or random anons online.

[gblargg]

> The biggest leap I made in social stuff is to simply stop caring what other people think.

If you do care what other think, you alter your behavior to make them think what you prefer, and it becomes inauthentic on your part and manipulation of others. That's not to say that all things for others are manipulation; if you find out that you don't listen to people well and improve that, they might like being around you more because being heard is an important core part of relating.

[immibis]

> If somebody doesn't like me, cool - there's plenty of other people

And what if no one likes me?

[mrmlz]

You should probably figure out why - unless you are ok with nobody liking you. If _everyone_ finds you annoying or difficult being around, you most like are annoying and difficult to deal with.

How you go about figuring what bugs people is perhaps the hard part.

[K0balt]

You might not be understanding what is annoying to people, or you might understand it quite well and are using that adopted identity as a shield. You can’t lose what you don’t have.

Either way, if you aren’t content with your situation in this regard, I would recommend study, introspection, and perhaps therapy. Dale Carnegie produced some excellent work in this regard, aiming towards win/win interactions. He’s more business oriented, but that context is easy to strip away, and the principles stand on their own.

[majorchord]

I can tell you exactly why people don't like you.

You speak as if you are an expert on everything in the universe at all times. Way too much black-and-white thinking. And many people often strongly disagree with your statements... a great deal of your comments are quite often downvoted and/or flagged.

There is a reason you have been banned from several different platforms now. Disagreeing/arguing with their actions is not how you improve yourself, and you can't explain your way out of it, you have to want to change how you act, and work hard at it. You have to be ok with being wrong. Your weaponization of logic has destroyed your empathy. You are craving validation through technical dominance, but this just further isolates you/alienates others.

I think real intelligence by definition requires empathy and humility, which is typically the opposite of such dogmatism in my opinion. "As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding."

The Dunning-Kruger effect also applies to smart people. You don't stop when you are estimating your ability correctly. As you learn more, you gain more awareness of your ignorance and continue being conservative with your self estimates.

Also you seem to like to claim that almost everything is illegal and then not back up your claims with any useful sources, instead telling people to look it up themselves or give vague non-answers like "it's in the German law code". That and most of your comments are just plain negative in general, and I think this ultimately stems from some kind of childhood trauma that you have not dealt with.

[immibis]

Many of your comments are you condescendingly implying other people are stupider than you, and you have a disproportionate number of comments targeting me specifically.

[ses1984]

Isn’t aiming to be authentic a form of “instrumentalizing”?

[K0balt]

Excellent point, especially since most people “aiming to come across as authentic” are anything but.

[Nevermark]

Being authentic, is about understanding oneself, and being able to communicate oneself better to others so they can understand you better too.

When we win, by being a better collaborator with others, it isn't operating in a shallow or selfish sense.

It isn't treating others like instruments for our benefit over theirs. It isn't manipulation.

[ses1984]

We are mincing words.

I don’t think collaboration, altruism, and other pro social traits are exclusive of instrumentalizing.

Whatever word you want to use that encompasses pro social behaviors, let’s use that word if you don’t like instrumentalizing.

[Nevermark]

> We are mincing words.

Good point.

These words are unfortunately loaded. "instrumentalizing" is so close to "instrument" for me to see them as unrelated in meaning. But lots of similar words drift in meaning, or have several interpretations.

I don't have any issue with people doing things for "natural" reasons, vs. realpolitik analytical reasons, when the motive is still benefit-neutral, or benefit-benefit relative to ourselves-others.