Have a very large vocabulary and go out of my way to avoid utilizing the same noun or adjective more than once in a conversation. Also keeping multiple conversations on different topics going at once with any people in the same room, a habit I learned/inherited from my ADHD physician mother who was always on calls while talking to my brother and I and also making dinner at the same time.
Trying to be aware of exits, security cameras, and paths to said exits.
I believe it’s a sensory processing thing since I also have strong ASMR, but I do what I guess might be called “tagging” by some, which is that rubbing the hems of things made with certain fabrics between my fingers or toes, where fingers meet the hand, is incredibly self-soothing. Great when tired.
Not all fabrics are the same. The hems of jeans are usually the best. Needs to be relatively stiff fabric, and sharp corners also do it. Canvas is good. Dress pants, linen, and light fabrics just do nothing.
As a kid my parents had some terrible polyester blanket with a defect where the middle of the hem on one side was some think plastic thread that was like fishing line. In one area it was really tight and bunched up. It was a high I rode until I wore a hole in that spot of the blanket.
May i ask were there any tailors in your ancestry or people that worked with fabric?
None that I’m aware of going back a few generations. No one else in my family has this at all, and I definitely had some of the “should we worry about this child?” stuff for a while.
I wear the same clothes every day, as in the same style and color of shirt, pants, hoodie etc… My wardrobe basically looks like that Simpsons gag where Homer’s wardrobe is just 20 identical white shirts and blue pants.
I picked that up from a buddhist monk who stated that not having to expend any mental effort worrying about what to wear each day felt freeing, and he was totally right.
I stole that same philosophy regarding my hair, and just buzz it all off once a week. Never a bad hair day that way!When I worked in a (casual) office, I did the same. Grey polo shirt, black jeans, every day for about a decade. Now I work from home, freelance, and I wear whatever’s clean with much the same result… I don’t worry about it.
Einstein did the same thing.
That being said, I have various clothes because of weather, and generally expend next to no thought on what I wear in as far as people are concerned. It all mostly goes together, so it’s just grabbing whatever feels right in the moment with no wrong answers other than weather factor. I probably spend more time thinking about what I’ll make for dinner, or how to word a single email to touchy snowflakes.
…that’s not normal?..
…i’ve kept a wardrobe of identical clothing since the turn of the millenium; a coworker confessed that they had a pool as to whether i actually changed shirts, so they covertly marked a dot on the back of my sleeve and money changed hands when it was gone the next day…
I clean my glasses really thoroughly with very diluted dish soap (non citric acid), first by a spray prewash, then I wipe using the same solution and a little glasses cloth, then spray a bit again, then rinse, then let air dry in the glasses holder thinghy
They look like mint for like 5 minutes after I put them on…
Maybe more of a weird compared to my family, but I simply cannot keep the apps on my phone in any other way than alphabetical. Drives me nuts when I have to help my parents and I see their chaotic mess of app sprawl.
This even applies to app drawers as well and their insides. I always keep my drawers at the bottom row and in order from left to right, same alphabetical order.
Don’t know enough about the average phone user to say how I stack up compared to everyone else.
My app drawer is alphabetical and it annoys me to no end when I have to help my parents with their phone. But I do have a bunch of folders with specific placements that don’t follow a specific order besides being in places that my thumb can easily reach so that I can always launch the apps I need without even needing to look at the phone
I use Niagara launcher so it’s like that by default. Folders don’t do much for me since I always remember the name of the app I want to launch.
Fokus Launcher for free and open source with the same concept.
I would tell you but I don’t want to appear odd to you weirdos.
I have a song in my head, almost all the time. Invariably it’s some 90s jingle from a TV commercial. I habitually repeat certain phrases. Pretty sure I’m autistic in some way, but I mask like a pro. I’m popular at work, socially and adapt to people quickly. I retain eye contact, but I’m actually staring at a point just above their eyes as I find eye contact insanely intimate.
I don’t think I’m a complete psycho - if anything I have an almost paralysing amount of empathy. I even sympathise with people who really don’t deserve it (politicians etc). I’m pretty happy now I’m pushing 50 and have a family, but I still use alcohol in excess most weekends. It just makes the world make more sense to me.
I analyse almost every social interaction I have. I feel a sense of triumph when it goes well, and shame / responsibility when I doesn’t. I’ve been told I’m very agreeable and easy company, but the truth is it’s not easy for me and I feel like I do most of the heavy lifting in conversations.
I envy those who can just sit in their own awkwardness, but I feel like I have to perform and make people like me. It usually works, but when it doesn’t I stew on it endlessly. Anyway, no idea why I unloaded all that. Cheers!
I have a song in my head, almost all the time. Invariably it’s some 90s jingle from a TV commercial.
I swear my brain is a broken jukebox that’s permanently set to shuffle.
And yeah, sometimes it’s the most random shit from a TV commercial from 30 years ago.
Sometimes I’ll hear a single word, and it will remind me of a song and it will immediately get stuck in my head whether I like the song or not lol.
Though I have actually figured out some ways to stop that from happening by immediately starting to hum or think of a different song (I’ve got one or two go-tos) to kind of “reset” it, but I have to act really fast or else it’s too late, and I’m singing the theme song to Doug for 2 days straight.
All very relatable probably autistic traits tbh
I recognize people by the way the walk/move, not by their face.
'Tis Cinna, I do know him by his gait.
It’s a thing!
I use that as part of recognizing people. Mostly from behind or far away.
Do you have aphantasia? This is pretty common among people who do.
He probably has some level of prosopagnosia.
I do this because of it! I’m not fully faceblind and can learn to recognize people, but I cannot even form a clear picture of a face in my mind, I can only see parts at the time. But as a compensation I’m really good at recognizing people from far away just from their movement and clothes too, if they’re wearing something I’ve seen before
Nope.
I’m surprised that anyone is answering anything. If something would seem very normal to me, as in, I think this is something everyone does, I wouldn’t know of it would seem odd to anyone else. By virtue of it seeming very normal to me.
Something being normal is rooted on it being the norm, as in, something typical. If you think something is odd, you can’t feel like it’s normal just for you, that’s not what the norm means. Maybe it seems natural to you? Sure, but not normal.
Sorry for my reading my pedantic rant. In my case, these kind of rationalizations of the language using its roots seem pretty natural and fun but I know most people look at me weird for over analysing stuff.
You can have been informed by other people that things you thought were normal are not and continue to do them though. It’s likely that abnormal behaviour is pointed out at some point if it’s encountered enough
That’s why I specified that the things I like doing, that feel natural to me, aren’t thing i think are very normal, but “natural”. Even though I know that they are not normal, they are in my nature, for whatever reason.
The moment you are told that something is abnormal, you can’t think of it as very normal, by definition, no? 😅 You might still think that you prefer it, that it feels natural to you (it’s in your nature, personal preference), but not normal.
I think the unspoken part here is the frame of reference used when defining what the norm actually is. Something your family does that you also do can be considered normal in that context, but abnormal in your wider community. Something people in your community do (Mennonites driving horse and buggies comes to mind) might be considered normal in that context, but abnormal within the broader society that community exists in relation with.
So someone could be doing something they consider to be normal that, from a broader or different perspective, would be abnormal. And it’s usually exposure to that outside/broader position that characterizes behaviour you’d consider normal as abnormal - it’s exposure to a different frame of reference for normalcy.
Yay semantics!
I’m actually trying my best not to buy from countries I see as vile and inhumane, and businesses owned by people who support vile political ideologies. Spend a good amount of time checking for the brand and country of origin while in the shop.
You’re not weird, just more dedicated to being a moral person than most. 👍
Interestingly, according to the common interpretation also mentioned by @[email protected] this is not normal.
but what is it, if not normal?
Have you read the amount of responses in this post? 😂
No way the definition of normal I gave is the common one. At some point it doesn’t really matter what the dictionary says, if enough people change the meaning of a word they use, it changes meaning.
Still interesting to look at the roots of a word to see original meanings and so on though.
No way the definition of normal I gave is the common one.
maybe, but definitely not a rare one. for instance I regularly hear that people deem others weird because the other person cares about their privacy, and does “extreme” things to achieve it, like not using facebook or using a less known email provider. while I think it’s the normal thing to do so, others (mostly who don’t care about privacy) think it’s not normal, reason being it’s not the common thing to do.
I was meaning it mostly about this part:
Something being normal is rooted on it being the norm, as in, something typical. If you think something is odd, you can’t feel like it’s normal just for you, that’s not what the norm means. Maybe it seems natural to you? Sure, but not normal.
Some people argue that you as a single buyer won’t make a corporation go bankrupt. Saying that, they mean they would just go for cost/efficiency when buying themselves, ignoring the moral aspect, cause their contribution isn’t gonna be noticeable. After all, it’s not their fault, it’s the government/capitalism/<whatever_else>.
I find this argument ridiculous cause 20 cent bullets kill people.
Ever since I was a kid I’ve been a people watcher. I can sit and just watch people and observe behaviors. I’ve been out with friends and nudge them to watch out right before fights break out. They tell me it’s creepy. I say not really, those people stand out to me.
Your friends are idiots. People watching is a normal human trait.
I do crowd control when walking near other people or animals. This involves whistling or snapping my fingers to get their attention and putting my hands out if someone gets too close. I picked this up in rehab from a spinal injury that I have since mostly recovered from.
So that they don’t bump into you, is that it ? that’s probably a good habit to keep while out with vulnerable people
It usually takes a very particular kind of moment for others to even notice but I don’t lie ever and I’m completely unable to give short inaccurate answers that borderline on lying.
I’ve basically trained the people around me to not ask if they don’t want to hear the truth or conversely that I’m the one to ask when everyone else is just handing out comforting lies.
I’m in a similar boat. Social deduction games make me very nervous.
… you realize you are almost certainly autistic, right?
I realize the stack of evidence supporting that possibility is quite high.
Same here. It’s a real barrier at work. Leadership doesn’t like facts. That said, apparently ADHD causes some symptoms that most people consider autistic. A doc told me that when one of my kids who appears autistic was evaluated for it. But it’s all just labels anyway. The symptoms are what matter.
A lot of the behaviors are similar, but their causes are not. This Dutch white paper explains this: https://www.anneliesspek.nl/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Whitepaper-ASS-en-of-ADHD_16-9-24.pdf
People in general dislike anything that might inconvenience them, the truth included. Effective communication lies in one’s ability to make them understand despite these emotional barriers (with techniques like the “compliment sandwich”, “I feel” statements or opening with some light jokes, for example). 👍
Yeah, but compliments require lieing in my head usually. Especially to the kind of people we don’t like the truth. I just avoid leadership. Communicate through my manager with them if needed. And avoid any management type positions.
Usually but not always. Sometimes it’s just a matter of perspective. I understand though (maybe it’s my own neurodivergence, although I’m an ADHD enjoyer social butterfly), and in those cases I just say nothing and nod if needed, lol. For me, the truth is something I discuss with those ready for it, for adults I respect (in the absence of trauma, ofc, some things are better left unsaid if all they’re gonna do is cause pain), everyone else gets the kid’s gloves treatment, which I don’t mind providing since I’m somewhat paternalistic in nature.
I have a bit of a righteous tendency as well. It drives me to feel the need to point out when someone says something false. Which leadership types constantly do. Just a bad combo.
Well, uh full irony of the bluntness intended here:
Takes one to know one.
You remind me of… me, just, with friends who aren’t assholes.
Blunt, yet detailed, as fair as you can be?
Giving a half answer feels like lying?
Lying itself is essentially innately not a thing you do, unless you learn how to, by studying it as a concept?
Ding ding ding.
I feel ya. I have the absolute worst poker face, and I cannot bluff. My uncles all liked to get together and play poker over the holidays, but the one time I was invited it was a bloodbath.
The work people haven’t figured this out yet.
Stopping midsentence and expecting other people to know what I was about to say.
Impulsively replacing a word with something that could be considered adjacent; “My teammates” could become “my animals”.
Pretty sure I got this habit from my mum, who is ESL and later developed aphasia after having a stroke young. It kinda bled out into how me and my sisters communicated and I carried it into adulthood, although I only do this around people I feel super comfortable with.
I do the first one all the time. I’ll be in the middle of something while talking, or struggle to remember the correct word, and I’ll just kinda trail off. Then maybe 10 seconds later I’ll remember that I just stopped talking mid-sentence and try to pick back up.
ESL?
English as a Second Language I presume
