Social Robot

My name is Dave, and I am a social robot.

What I mean by that is, as much as I hate to admit it, I rely heavily on words and phrases that I've picked up from other people, TV, YouTube videos etc. My day job is to help customers via online webchat, and in the webchat world this kind of phrases are called canned answers or canned responses. I've always felt that I don't really have an opinion on most things, but I'm starting to realise that it's more that I do have opinions and feelings, but I don't always have the words to express them. Either that, or I don't care enough to have an opinion. Sometimes when I hear people talking about a certain topic I'll take a word or a phrase that I've heard them say that most closely matches what I feel and either repeat it back to them in the conversation to show that I agree with them, or I'll use it next time I'm talking to somebody about that topic. I think politics is probably the main topic that I've done this with because until a few years ago I really didn't have a clue about it. Not that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to politics these days, but I definitely understand more than I did.

This use and recycling of social canned responses is part of autistic masking, but it's also a way to learn about things for me. It gets me involved in the conversation (or what little conversation I generally take part in...) and helps me to pick things up and learn that way. And I guess the fact that most people don't share a lot of my interests probably helps with the masking side of things in that they don't know that it came from a game or a film or something like that.

Not all of my canned responses came from other places. I came up with some of them myself (although they were usually short) and I have been picked up on using the same words and phrases a lot in the past. One that I remember when I was a kid was that I used to "Yeah, fine" a lot and my dad joked that I should have a button to press so that it says it for me. Looking back it probably sounded a bit dismissive but it was the quickest and easiest way for me to express that whatever we were talking about was ok. I never was one for talking lots.

The term "social robot" itself came from a book I read probably around 10 or 15 years ago about how to meet women. The writer used it to compare the performance of meeting people and obeying social rules of "popularity" to how you would normally be in every day life. I feel that being a social robot is better suited to autistics in reference to masking for survival and to get through social encounters with neurotypicals. A lot of us have actively spent time studying social rules and observing neurotypical behaviour so that we can learn the behaviours and communication methods that we can then perform rigidly in our robot state to pass as neurotypical. I personally haven't done a lot of conscious studying of people, although I do definitely pick up bits and pieces as I go through life and they sometimes become so ingrained in me that I can't always remember where they came from, or that it even came from somewhere else in the first place. This is similar to (or maybe part of) how many autistics including myself have confessed that they don't know where the mask ends and where they begin. I would go into masking in more details but it's not something I've really got my head around yet in terms of how/when I do it, so I've asked somebody for a guest post about it from their point of view which should be coming up soon.

In the meantime, as always, please hit the Follow button in the side bar and follow me on social media. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: Black silhouette of a toy humanoid robot on a white background. Under the silhouette is the word "Autism" in rainbow colours, and under that is "Social Robot" in black.]

Social Hangover

Being diagnosed autistic later in life is weird in a way. There are some things that even now, 18 months after diagnosis, I'm still working out about myself and my past even though in reality they should have been clear signs that I'm autistic. The thing that dawned on my most recently was that whenever I went on a night out I would always feel hungover the next morning, even if I didn't drink. There was a period of about 6 months in my early 20's where I couldn't drink because of the medication I was on, and there were other times here and there where I chose not to drink for different reasons, but every non-drinking night out still left me with what felt like a hangover the next morning. Granted, a less intense hangover than if I had been drinking, but other than intensity it felt pretty much the same. I never knew what it was until it randomly occurred to me the other day.

Now that I'm armed with the knowledge that I'm autistic I've put it down to being worn out by social interactions. I would wake up feeling nauseous, which is known to be a common thing in neurodivergents. When you feel anxious or worried for example, you feel it in your stomach which is why a lot of autistics develop stomach issues or other digestive issues. Growing up autistic (especially if you don't know it) is a stressful experience so it makes a lot of sense that my stomach would be sensitive the following day. I also used to feel physically over-sensitive after a night out, which does happen when I'm tired. I don't think that's just due to staying out late because at the time I was largely struggling to find work so I slept in a lot due to having nothing to really get up for. So the tiredness must have been mostly from trying to be sociable and exhausting myself. I sometimes had a headache in the morning as well, although that wasn't as frequent as the other symptoms. They are all signs of tiredness and/or stress which makes a lot of sense if I'd been putting a lot of effort into masking.

Masking isn't something that I've ever been aware of doing, but looking back I must have masked in some way or another through my childhood and up to around my mid-20's for nobody to have realised I might be autistic. It's a common thing for autistics to not know where the mask ends and where they begin so it's not surprising that I've never knowingly done it.

It's just a quick one this week because I just wanted to share that sudden realisation that when I used to go out but didn't drink I got social hangovers. To be honest, I'm not even sure if "social hangover" is the right term for it, or if there's even a term for it at all so I'd be interested to hear what you call it in the comments or on social media. Also let me know if you get social hangovers whether it feels the same or different for you. Please hit the Follow button in the side bar and follow me on social media. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: Black silhouette of a human holding their head with both hands and lightning bolt-like symbols near the head to show distress. Below that is "Autism" in rainbow colours, and under that is "Social hangover" in black.] 

Guest Post: Am I Autistic?

This week is my blog's very first guest post, so it's something I've been excited about sharing. It's by my online friend Kayleigh Hyland of Kayleigh And Her Friends. Kayleigh focuses on a range of subjects, most notably body positivity and sharing inspirational and positive stories from many others who she meets online. You can check out her own blog here, and also find her on Twitter and Instagram as kayleighann88 and kayleighandherfriends respectively. Of course you can find me in all the usual places online, but this post isn't about me so without further ado, I'll let Kayleigh take it away:

Am I Autistic?

I’ve asked myself this question since I found out what Autism was. There are traits that I see in myself which mirror the traits that put you on ‘The spectrum’.

I struggle with breaking routine and like things to have an order, I also have anxious and obsessive compulsive behaviours. Though in themselves these disorders are not typical of people with Autism, they are more common than in the average person. I can also struggle to concentrate when there is a lot going on at the same time and if I’m into something, like a TV program for example, I will talk/think about it a lot until I replace it with something else.

However, I do not struggle with social cues, in fact I have a better understanding of body language than most people.

I maintain good eye contact and I can differentiate between when someone is being ironic and when they are serious.

I think this is why there is a spectrum as a lot of us will find that we relate to a number of the behaviours even though we are not diagnosed as Autistic.

x

Friendships

As an autistic person I've always struggled to make friends. That's not to say I've never had friends because I absolutely have, but the few friendships I somehow managed to make were mostly temporary and often circumstantial. I had a couple of friends at college but as soon as we graduated we pretty much stopped talking to each other. When I was at school I had a couple of friends who I spent pretty much all my time with, but didn't make friends with anyone outside of our little group of 3 until much later on in the final year of school. Looking back now they weren't all they were cracked up to be as friends, but I enjoyed what I had.

I think one of the reasons that I've never found it easy to make friends is because my special interests have never matched up with what anybody else was interested in so I didn't have anything to talk about. I've always found it hard to know what to say to other people, especially if I don't know them. Similarly, if I see anybody I haven't seen in ages I struggle to know what to say there too, which is why I don't like meeting up with people I haven't seen in years. It's like my head reverts back to them being complete strangers and I start getting anxious, even though I'm a lot more comfortable with those exact same people if I see or hear from them on a regular basis. I wouldn't go as far as saying it makes me more socially competent, but it makes me more comfortable if nothing else.

I think my definition of friendship has changed as well as I've grown older. When I was younger I used to define a friend as somebody I would be happy to go out to a pub with for example. I once explained to some colleagues at one of my old work places that there are lots of people working there who I like and get one with, but nobody I would consider a friend. There were only a handful of people at the time who I would have happy gone on a night out with, and there are even less of them these days. Nothing against most of the people I knew or work/ed with, it's just that I don't value most people's company as much as spending some quiet time on my own in peace.

Nowadays I've come to realise that I wouldn't even necessarily want to go on a night out with a friend. For example, my current team leader at work is probably the closest thing in-work that I've got to a friend. I help her with a few work bits and she's really been there for me when I needed her, brought me out of my shell and massively helped me raise my game at work. I'll be sad to lose her as my team leader when things at work change over the next couple of months, but we'll still be around to see each other which I'm glad about but that doesn't mean I'd want to go on a night out with her. I feel more comfortable going out as a team so that there are at least a few other people there meaning I can fade into the background when I need to. Just as another quick example, there's my friend Emma who I met on Twitter (you can check out her mental health blog here). We've never met in person and I can't say I'm overly keen to change that, but we've got a couple of things in common and we've tried to be there for each other when we needed it so I consider her a friend even though we don't talk online that much.

Going back to my friendships being circumstantial for a minute, almost all of my nights out when I was single had a purpose. That was to get me out and about and hopefully meet someone to start a romantic relationship with. Of course it never worked until I met my wife when I wasn't even trying to (I had bigger things to worry about that night), and it's not that I didn't like being around my friends and have fun because I really did, but for me the centre of every night out was putting myself out there to find love. Looking back, my friends did put up with a lot from me and I appreciate them being there because the search for love in itself became somewhat of an autistic special interest consuming almost every part of my life - which ironically is probably a reason it didn't work! I met my wife one night when I was doing stand-up comedy and was too preoccupied with my set and how badly it failed to worry about meeting anyone, but I did. My comedy group was another set of friends who I almost immediately fell out of touch with as soon as I started working full time and got together with Sarah so I didn't have the time to commit to the actual comedy any more like I used to.

I guess at the core of what I'm trying to say is that I don't gain anything from sociable interaction. It could either be because I'm autistic, or because I'd learned due to bullying etc that I'm better off staying reasonably isolated, or it could be a mix of both. I often wonder what neurotypicals get out of socialising with each other, and especially from small talk. To me, talking to people is a way to get information. I really don't believe that I need or want 90% of the information that people seem to give and take from each other but for some reason that I'll never understand they enjoy it. A perfect conversation for me is if one of us asks for information or an outcome, the other one gives it, and that's the end of it, we both go about our day. I feel very similarly about reading as well. It's rare that I'll ready anything for the enjoyment of it, but if it's something I want or need to know then I'll end up reading everything that I can find about it.

So that's how my autistic mind is with friendships. I'm sure a lot of autistics will likely agree with me, and so I hope it's given you an interesting insight into how we - or at least I - tick. If so, please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: A handshake between a black hand and a white hand. The image is on a white background with "Autism" towards the bottom in rainbow colours, and "Friendships" under that in black.]