[1shooner]

>A lot of stuff "normal" people do is charm, manipulate, and game social interactions. Except because they are not conscious about it, we give them a pass. One of the characteristics of autistic-spectrum individuals is that they must make a conscious effort to achieve goals that are achieved unconsciously by most of us.

I have to say this strikes me as a very distorted perception. I don't know about 'normal,' but a socially successful person isn't intuiting their behavior subconsciously, they have learned it, and are actively mindful of it as they engage in it. Otherwise I think socializing would be excruciatingly boring. I think the distinction is that they had the capacity to learn from interacting with others, and had the confidence to iterate until they became comfortable with their social skills (which to others may appear 'unconscious').

I also don't think normative social interaction has much tolerance for manipulation. Maybe in the scope of a night out socializing or a business transaction, but in the context of actual relationships, those people are often ostracized or avoided in my experience.

[makeitdouble]

I read parent's wording of "manipulation" as not in the usual negative connotation, and more as making the other person do something specific.

For instance if you wanted a security guard to help you find your way in a shopping mall, there would be approaches that are more effective than others. For instance making it sound more like you have something important to do and they'd save your day by helping isn't specially abusing the person. They might feel pretty good about helping you, it's still somewhat part of their job so you're not tricking them either.

[underlipton]

>they had the capacity to learn from interacting with others

Or, were allowed to learn it from others.

>and had the confidence to iterate

Or, the safety to iterate.

This seems to be just shifting where socially-successful people received uncommon benefit-of-the-doubt.

[coldtea]

>I have to say this strikes me as a very distorted perception. I don't know about 'normal,' but a socially successful person isn't intuiting their behavior subconsciously, they have learned it, and are actively mindful of it as they engage in it.

Lots and lots of, if not most, social behaviors are intuited subconsciously.

And that's even if the person has actively studied and learned them (and most are picked up by osmosis, not consciously learned anyway).

>I also don't think normative social interaction has much tolerance for manipulation. Maybe in the scope of a night out socializing or a business transaction, but in the context of actual relationships, those people are often ostracized or avoided in my experience.

That's either oblivious to 90% of social interactions out there, or just understands "manipulation" at the con artist or sociopath level.

Even wearing nice clothes to make a better impression is a kind of manipulation. Same for using different manners of speaking and language in different social contexts, and lots of other stuff.

[1shooner]

Yes, I think we have different definitions. Some people make a distinction between social behavior and manipulation that you apparently do not.

If I wear nice clothes and make a good impression on someone, I am creating an outcome we both wanted at the outset. If we are meeting socially, they probably wanted to like me, and I wanted them to like me. That was the shared goal. That is cooperative, not manipulative.