Comradeship // Freechat

Yes, I know what you mean. I don't understand tone, most jokes, sarcasm, or social cues at all. If you have close friends, you could try asking them how you come across if that's truly important to you. How do people express their frustration and anger? Deescalation techniques are good to learn if there's conflict over a misundertanding. I've understood over the years that I'm not normal and I began to actively learn about how I differ from neurotypicals and what I can do to self-soothe when situations became too stressful. I get along with people that understand what I go through. It is more difficult to be around people that don't understand but it's not impossible.

Neurodivergent individual who used to be the weird kid then wrecked their mental health masking here, trying to shape yourself into something you are not in order to blend in is not sustainable and will leave you burnt out and hating yourself. Try to find your people who feel safe to be around. It's much better for your well-being. It gets easier as you get older and learn to just not give a shit but it's an uphill struggle until you reach that point. Remember that you are not defective, just stuck in a society that is actively hostile to anyone who differs from the norm.

Have you been diagnosed as Autistic yet? Don't bother trying to be normal. Masking is a death sentence. If you tell people you are autistic you might get a little less frustration and anger from people. If people can't deal that is their problem not yours.

It's been a big struggle of mine. What you wanna develop is called "Interpersonal Skills"

How to use them depends on your environment, unfortunately if you are Neurodivergent chances are your environment is not fit for you, which means you're gonna have to copy other people to get by, aka. "Masking" which can lead to burnout(this is worse than many assume, career ruining potentially), so it's important to mask selectively, consciously, as a survival tactic and find friends who will respect you as your unmasked self. There's really nothing you can do to make someone accommodate you, they will expect you to fit in with the status quo. The only choice we have is either learn to copy them or find our own community.

I'm a heavily masked autistic, so I probably don't have great advice.

But, you don't have a deficiency. There's nothing wrong with you. You have a hard time understanding a mode of communication that seems to come naturally to other people, but you're not like, less of a person because of it.

I think the others are right to find people you don't have to perform around. It doesn't hurt to pay attention to tone and body language of other people, so you can translate what you mean when you want to, though.

Normal isn't really real, it's a societal expectation that everyone performs to, it's just easier for some people. Normal is overrated anyway.

I don’t really have any advice, but I wanted to commiserate with you. And to send you that emoji of those two cute yellow cats hugging. But I still don't know how emojis work. Just image I sent that emoji instead. Oh, and imagine I gave you really good advice or said something that made you feel better and gave you lots of money.

For real though, one of thing only things that has really helped me with social anxiety has been, unfortunately, getting older. The older I get the more other things have mattered to me than being liked by my peers. Still hard though, especially in groups or when I need to get someone’s attention. Sometimes not caring helps. Sometimes it’s isolating.

Cats hugging emoji again.

Consider taking acting or improv classes. Study live stand-up comedy and 'crowd work'

No such thing as normal.

What you essentially have to do is gaslight people into thinking whatever you are is normal.