#autisticwriters — Public Fediverse posts

Socially mandated love

“Hi!”

“AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa… You scared me. I did not see you there, crouching behind the couch.”

“Oh, sorry! I just wanted to surprise you on this day of celebration.”

“You’ve surprised me, so mission accomplished!”

“But that’s not all. My coworkers managed to shame me into performing socially mandated gestures to demonstrate my love for you.”

“Okay.”

“Like giving you this set of dead plants.”

“Oh, flowers. You took upon yourself to go to the florist. How thoughtful!”

“Yes. Though, I think florist is a bad name. They should be called flower undertakers.”

“The socially mandated response is to thank you. So thank you!”

“You’re welcome. Here is a card for you. Open it.”

“Give me a second.”

“None of the cards at the store conveyed the exact message I had in mind. So I edited the message.”

“I see that. How thoughtful! Crossing out the word ‘forever’ is quite sensible.”

“Yes. At best, once I’m dead, I won’t be able to love you. Why make promises I cannot possibly keep?”

“I also like how you scribbled in the words ‘froggy-style’.”

“What? Froggy-style? Er… no… it is ‘doggy-style’.”

“Oh… right. Your handwriting is terrible.”

“Yes. It is. I also have this gift for you.”

“Wow! That’s a big box.”

“Open it.”

“Give me a week! Haha!”

[Five minutes later.]

“Did you find it?”

“I think I did. It is a wad of $20 bills, like I’m a pole dancer or some such.”

“This way you can get whatever you want. However, my coworkers chided me, saying money is not a thoughtful gift.”

“This is surely more thoughtful than the coffee machine my parents gave me.”

“Oh… yeah…. with your difficulty processing caffeine.”

“It gives me hives. Not only that, but they keep forgetting that they gave me a coffee machine already, and they give me that gift every year.”

“At least money never becomes useless, even if you get it repeatedly.”

“I’m sorry, but I have nothing for you. I do love you too, but I am aromantic.”

“Oh, the enjoyment of your presence is quite enough gift for me. Come to think of it… I think I might be aromantic too. The whole thing felt rather unnatural to me.”

#TheDailyIsotope #AutisticWriters #ActuallyAutistic #aromantic #GiftGiving #society

Gift Giving: A Minefield

I’m both a bad giver and a bad receiver of gifts, according to society, at any rate.

Gift giving is a minefield for most autistic folks. It definitely is one for me. Since Valentine’s Day is upon us, here’s a reflection on why most options are terrible. In no specific order,

1. Money? I was taught that giving money is rather gauche. I have to agree. You can discharge yourself of a gift obligation by giving money to anyone. It does not show much thought about the recipient of the gift. I’d rather not give money.
2. Greeting cards? A lot of them talk about forever love, and I have trouble with the word forever. This was true even when I was with my ex-wife. I sometimes bought cards containing the word. I had to editorialize when I gave my card. However, I prefer to skip cards altogether.

   As you probably guessed, the cards’ declarations of forever love to my ex-wife did not pan out. We’re now divorced. *Cough*

3. Flowers? Yay, let’s kill plants for our pleasure!
4. Fashion (like jewelry, clothing, accessories, etc.)? I need to know what size the gift recipient wears, for one thing. Moreover, my sense of style isn’t great. So, no.
5. Gadgets? Oof! Welcome to landmine central. If you get me a gadget, chances are that you are going to miss. I am likely to know more than you about those gadgets that I’d like to own. Moreover, if you get me a gadget, I’m going to compare it to similar gadgets I already have, and to similar gadgets I might want to own. I’ll most likely find the gadget you got me to be lacking. This is a losing proposition for you.

   Conversely, imagine people I’d give a gadget to doing the same thing as I described above. They’ll find the gadget I got them to be lacking in some way. Note that it does not matter if they actually do this or not. I become an anxious mess. Did I pick up the optimal gift? Most likely not. This is a losing proposition for me.

   Of course, it is considered gauche to tell the person who wishes to give you a gift what exactly they should get. However, I’ve sometimes resorted to this stratagem.

6. Food? This is the best option of the bunch. Food is ephemeral. If the gift is lacking, the recipient at least won’t be stuck with it for long.

A great part of the problem with gift giving are all the societal expectations that shape the practice. If you do not conform to those societal expectations, well, good luck not getting flack.

My boyfriend and I are keeping it simple this year. I got him some chocolate. We’re going to a restaurant. I know he has something for me, but he does not have it in hand yet. No biggie. I know society would look disapprovingly upon his tardiness, but society can take a hike.

#ActuallyAutistic #autism #autistic #AutisticWriters #GiftGiving #gifts #YourAutisticLife

Conditional gift giving, is it for you?

A new craze is sweeping the nation, conditional gift giving. We caught up with conditional gift giving guru, Maxine Vance, to learn about this new phenomenon. She explains, “Conditional gift giving is the practice of giving a gift, but you give it only if some conditions are fulfilled.”

She continues, “The people receiving the gift are at first elated, but then when you specify your conditions, their reactions ranges from amused to downright enraged. It really depends on the condition you attach to it. Requiring a kiss might generate amusement, but requiring that the receiver purchases more than eight gallons of gasoline to get the gift might generate rage.”

Some people hold that conditional gifting is not gifting at all. We reached out to Vaxine Mance, a spokesperson for those critical of conditional giving. They told us, “A gift is not a gift if it is not given without strings attached. Conditional gifting attaches so many strings that what you have in the end is a spider web ready to trap the receiver of the gift.”

They added, “Especially annoying are those time limits that some people tack on. Not only do you have to decide to accept the conditions or not, but you have to do it within a specific span of time. You need to make a decision by such and such date, or you forfeit the gift, and possibly a friendship/”

Given the range of reactions that this practice elicits, we suggest that you think carefully prior to engaging in it. A better practice, in some cases, might be to falsely claim to have made a donation in the name of the receiver.

This story was inspired by an email from Exxon promising a “gift offer.” You guessed it. It came with strings attached. They wanted me to buy at least eight gallons of gasoline.

#AutisticWriters #conditions #gift #GiftGiving #satire #TheDailyIsotope

The Distinction Between Migrant And Expat May Not Be The One You Think

The wrong definition will mark you as someone fighting the wrong battle.

If you insist that by definition expat means white skin, while migrant means person of color, what you are engaging in is performative social justice and virtue signaling. “Look at how virtuous I am!” What you are doing actually helps no one. Moreover, it insults large groups of people. The rest of the article will explain my logic.

I’ve seen a few definitions proposed by people in the fediverse. Here’s one:

An expat is someone who goes to another country seeking a better standard of living, but white.

A migrant is someone who goes to another country seeking a better standard of living, but not white.

– A naive person

Your definition is naive and entirely misses the mark. A migrant is someone who moves to another country with the intention to stay there indefinitely. An expat is someone who moves to another country with the intention to stay there temporarily. Temporarily can be months, or it can be years. And yes, they are allowed to change their mind along the way. Skin color does not enter into the equation.

The distinction I’ve given you above is based on the person’s own intent: do they want to stay indefinitely, or temporarily. There is, however, another view, the one held by the government. This view may or may not coincide with the view I’ve given you above. I’m an example of this. I came to the USA on a temporary work visa. It had to be renewed periodically, but in theory it was not a path to citizenship. So the government would have put me in the expat category.

(Quick note, I cannot talk much about other jurisdiction than the US. Moreover, the US government does not talk about expats. You’re either on an immigrant visa, or a non-immigrant one. My visa was non-immigrant. I’m simplifying here. However, going by the definition of expat I’ve given you, the government would have to agree that I was an expat because my visa did not allow for an indefinite stay.)

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Truth be told, at the time, my intent was to stay, but I did not know if I would actually stay. I came to the USA to be in a relationship with my ex-wife. If the relationship had fallen apart, maybe I would have returned to Canada. The relationship did not fail, however, or I guess I should say that it did fail, 26 years later. The way the law is laid out, it was entirely legal for me to get a green card, and then citizenship.

So from my point of view I was a migrant, unless a disaster happened between my ex-wife and I. However, from the point of view of the government I was an expat. There is some fluidity in the two categories that the naive definition I cited above does not allow.

In addition, there is a third view, the one used by the mass media. The mass media likes to call those people moving to another country for temporary work, “migrant workers.” This label is validated by its usage. However, the label itself does not imply a migration from one country to another. Sometimes the term is applied to people within a country that seek work in another area of the same country. It typically has nothing to do with skin color or ethnicity.

Don’t take your cue from the mass media, however. It likes to distort everything, especially when it comes to minorities. If you are autistic, I’m sure you love the stereotyped version of the autistic person that the mass media peddles. This person cannot be a woman, or a person of color. It has to be a young white male savant obsessed with trains. If you are pansexual, or better pansexual or polyamorous, then you are someone who has no boundaries and is greedy. This is all nonsense.

Let’s say you have a group of people moving from a foreign country to the USA for temporary work. If we go by the definition based on intent, these people may be expats, or migrants. Some of them may willingly be coming only temporarily into the country. Others may be looking for a way to stay indefinitely. In the eyes of the government, however, all of them are expats, because their visa does not allow an indefinite stay.

As I said above, I’m a migrant. I’ve also been an expat at times in my life, like when I went to India and Taiwan. I was never aiming to migrate there, but I spent extended time in both place. Consequently, I’ve been a member of several expat communities. The naive definition I gave above insults the people who are part of these communities. Including the people of color who are, in fact, expats but that your definition excludes.

I can assure you that the expat community was not any more or any less racist than the rest of the population. Actually, I’d expect it was less racist, as those people were likely to be okay with interacting with people of different cultures, ethnicities, races, etc. I cannot prove this, however.

Moreover, here’s something you may have not considered. Migrants definitely get exploited, but expats also get exploited by citizens of the country they move to. Let’s take H1B holders from India. It is well-known that employers in the US hire them with the notion that they are going to work on the cheap. Some of them are in the US temporarily, and are expats. Some of them aim to stay permanently, and are migrants. However, the H1B is temporary. Consequently, from the point of view of the government, they are all expats.

I’ve mentioned being a member of several expat communities. These people were oftentimes people teaching languages abroad. And yes, some of them found themselves in difficult situations. Natives of the countries they moved to tried to exploit them. It did not matter to anyone that they were expats and not migrants.

I mentioned above having been an expat. People have tried to exploit me. It is simple, when people see a foreigner, they think they have an easy mark. Both in India and Taiwan, some folks tried to pull the wool over my eyes a few times. They were unable to do so. In India, the local language was Marathi, but I spoke only Hindi. In Taiwan, the main language was Mandarin, which I spoke, though not well. The secondary language was Taiwanese, that I did not speak at all. Who knows what I would have heard if I had been fully fluent in the languages I heard?

Asserting the naive definition that I gave above amounts to performative social justice, and virtue signaling. It makes you feel good about yourself, but it does not actually do anything of substance for the people you pretend to be defending.

#AutisticWriters #expat #immigrant #immigration #migrant #PerformativeSocialJustice #racism #VirtueSignaling #YourAutisticLife

https://www.yourautisticlife.com/2024/01/29/the-distinction-between-migrant-and-expat-may-not-be-the-one-you-think/

When Famotidine Messes With Your Head

I think my anti-reflux medicine is messing up my head.

This is an article that I salvaged from another account. I think it is important to publish it, because I think my autism cause me, after a year of using famotiidne without problems, to eventually develop depression. My article show pretty well the inferences I made at the time.

#YourAutisticLife #AutisticWriters #ActuallyAutistic #famotidine #depression #reflux #THC #insomnia #cancer #vaccines #WellWater

https://open.substack.com/pub/yourautisticlife/p/when-famotidine-messes-with-your?r=2hhuwi&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web