Autist's guide to social rules for adult couple friendships
August 24, 2022 11:01 PM Subscribe
I am having an anxiety attack based on fear of missing an unspoken social expectation in a friendship. We met a couple with a child close to our child's age that I actually feel comfortable around and have been gathering about once a month. Specific scenario inside.
We meet monthly to play a tabletop RPG. It's gone well. My partner facilitates the game. After the most recent game he mentioned being willing to do it more often like every 2 or 3 weeks if they want. (He has to do a fair bit of prep work each time which they have expressed appreciation for.)
So I texted the wife to express his willingness to meet more often, framed it as totally optional to increase frequency of play or not. Offered to host more if they want since that would be more work on them (she's made it clear she enjoys hosting but we can also take turns if I want to). I suggested if we pursue more frequent play sessions, that we should probably limit duration so we can maintain balance in other life areas. (We play for 6+ hours usually.)
She said she would check with the husband and get back to us. It has been 4 days. In the past she has told me to follow up if I don't hear from her since she can forget to answer people sometimes. So I followed up and still nothing. Hence my freak-out. It's hard to make friends as me, harder as an adult that works from home, so the friendships I do develop feel precious to me and like a scarce resource.
Granted, my follow up was almost 10pm and I know that's bordering on too late to talk to anyone outside immediate family for many. They are a two income home with children. So they are busy - as are we. We are close enough that they were willing to help us move but not super close. Did I break a rule suggesting to socialize regularly with close-ish friends too often? Should I have told my husband (also autistic) that most adults with jobs, houses and children would not want to meet that often, even if they like your company?
I'm confused and anxious because she's told me no for things before. She knows how to do that and seems comfortable doing it, and I set up the proposal as noncommittally as possible in case that was asking too much of them so she could make that clear easily. And recently we all had a really uncomfortable conversation initiated by them, so it's clear that they don't handle conflict passively.
But she is usually responsive, and I know social protocols dictate that you not call out a pattern change directly. But I need to understand what I might have done wrong or I'll just keep repeating mistakes and being lonely because everyone expects me to just know these things. That makes it super hard to learn and do better when you don't even know why you were rejected.
So what are some other rules for early to intermediate term friendships with adults who have children, jobs etc? I know a couple other rules for American culture I think?
Don't talk to the opposite sex party of the other couple in private if you are in a cishet situation.
Bring a treat when you visit as a thank you for hosting. Offer to help cover the cost of any food that is purchased during the social activity.
Don't air your dirty laundry in front of them unless you've known each other a long time and even then, wait if you can. (We have some friends that can see us mid-argument but have known them for many years.)
Don't invite yourself to an event even if it's being discussed in front of you. (This one confuses me. My partner's family assumes if they are discussing an activity in front of you then your invitation is implied. But I've been burned by this assumption before so I just assume I'm not invited unless it is made explicit.)
If you or yours break something of theirs, offer to replace it and apologize.
What else is an adult with children in middle class America expected to know?
We meet monthly to play a tabletop RPG. It's gone well. My partner facilitates the game. After the most recent game he mentioned being willing to do it more often like every 2 or 3 weeks if they want. (He has to do a fair bit of prep work each time which they have expressed appreciation for.)
So I texted the wife to express his willingness to meet more often, framed it as totally optional to increase frequency of play or not. Offered to host more if they want since that would be more work on them (she's made it clear she enjoys hosting but we can also take turns if I want to). I suggested if we pursue more frequent play sessions, that we should probably limit duration so we can maintain balance in other life areas. (We play for 6+ hours usually.)
She said she would check with the husband and get back to us. It has been 4 days. In the past she has told me to follow up if I don't hear from her since she can forget to answer people sometimes. So I followed up and still nothing. Hence my freak-out. It's hard to make friends as me, harder as an adult that works from home, so the friendships I do develop feel precious to me and like a scarce resource.
Granted, my follow up was almost 10pm and I know that's bordering on too late to talk to anyone outside immediate family for many. They are a two income home with children. So they are busy - as are we. We are close enough that they were willing to help us move but not super close. Did I break a rule suggesting to socialize regularly with close-ish friends too often? Should I have told my husband (also autistic) that most adults with jobs, houses and children would not want to meet that often, even if they like your company?
I'm confused and anxious because she's told me no for things before. She knows how to do that and seems comfortable doing it, and I set up the proposal as noncommittally as possible in case that was asking too much of them so she could make that clear easily. And recently we all had a really uncomfortable conversation initiated by them, so it's clear that they don't handle conflict passively.
But she is usually responsive, and I know social protocols dictate that you not call out a pattern change directly. But I need to understand what I might have done wrong or I'll just keep repeating mistakes and being lonely because everyone expects me to just know these things. That makes it super hard to learn and do better when you don't even know why you were rejected.
So what are some other rules for early to intermediate term friendships with adults who have children, jobs etc? I know a couple other rules for American culture I think?
Don't talk to the opposite sex party of the other couple in private if you are in a cishet situation.
Bring a treat when you visit as a thank you for hosting. Offer to help cover the cost of any food that is purchased during the social activity.
Don't air your dirty laundry in front of them unless you've known each other a long time and even then, wait if you can. (We have some friends that can see us mid-argument but have known them for many years.)
Don't invite yourself to an event even if it's being discussed in front of you. (This one confuses me. My partner's family assumes if they are discussing an activity in front of you then your invitation is implied. But I've been burned by this assumption before so I just assume I'm not invited unless it is made explicit.)
If you or yours break something of theirs, offer to replace it and apologize.
What else is an adult with children in middle class America expected to know?
You sent a non-urgent question and mentioned that they are busy people. It’s not only that she’s busy, but he is also busy, and she needs to find the time and remember to bring it up when he can think about it and they can discuss it and then get back to you during acceptable hours of the day. This can take much more time than answering a question that only impacts herself, since there are several steps involved. And again, it’s not an urgent question and they may have many other more time-sensitive things going on. All that to say, I’d assume it’s nothing personal.
If you have your next monthly game night already scheduled, you can just bring it up again then (and say they can think about it and get back to you later, so you’re not putting them on the spot where they may feel they need to agree immediately).
posted by meijusa at 11:49 PM on August 24, 2022 [17 favorites]
If you have your next monthly game night already scheduled, you can just bring it up again then (and say they can think about it and get back to you later, so you’re not putting them on the spot where they may feel they need to agree immediately).
posted by meijusa at 11:49 PM on August 24, 2022 [17 favorites]
Yeah, I would just wait to bring it up again at the next regularly scheduled game night. I don’t think you have broken a rule but I also think with one follow up, letting it drop until the next time you see them is appropriate.
posted by Bottlecap at 12:48 AM on August 25, 2022 [34 favorites]
posted by Bottlecap at 12:48 AM on August 25, 2022 [34 favorites]
You haven’t made a mistake but right now they don’t want to game more often. Let it drop and enjoy them next time you see them.
.
posted by shadygrove at 1:08 AM on August 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
.
posted by shadygrove at 1:08 AM on August 25, 2022 [6 favorites]
I'm not an American and I don't have kids, but I am both socially anxious to some extent and a player and runner of multiple tabletop RPG campaigns (although sadly none right now).
Nothing in your behaviour sounds inappropriate to me. This was both a non-urgent question and a question to which a "yes" answer means a significant repeated time commitment, so it's something that it's reasonable for a busy couple to want to take some time to decide.
I personally would have ended the suggestion with something like "let's discuss this further after the next session", and from your description of the interaction I wouldn't be surprised if this has been implicitly assumed.
I don't think there was anything wrong with bringing it up over text -- you could also have mentioned it in person after the next session, but I can understand not wanting to wait that long. Either way I think they would have needed time until the next session to decide.
(My default assumption for tabletop RPG frequency is one or two weeks, although I realise that this is probably unattainable for people with very busy lives, so I don't think it's weird at all to suggest a move from once a month to once every two to three weeks. If they ultimately decline, please don't interpret it as an unfavourable referendum on your company -- they could really just not have the space in their lives right now. It's not just about the time spent and any additional burdens of a host; it's also an immersive interactive experience which can be emotionally tiring.)
posted by confluency at 1:46 AM on August 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
Nothing in your behaviour sounds inappropriate to me. This was both a non-urgent question and a question to which a "yes" answer means a significant repeated time commitment, so it's something that it's reasonable for a busy couple to want to take some time to decide.
I personally would have ended the suggestion with something like "let's discuss this further after the next session", and from your description of the interaction I wouldn't be surprised if this has been implicitly assumed.
I don't think there was anything wrong with bringing it up over text -- you could also have mentioned it in person after the next session, but I can understand not wanting to wait that long. Either way I think they would have needed time until the next session to decide.
(My default assumption for tabletop RPG frequency is one or two weeks, although I realise that this is probably unattainable for people with very busy lives, so I don't think it's weird at all to suggest a move from once a month to once every two to three weeks. If they ultimately decline, please don't interpret it as an unfavourable referendum on your company -- they could really just not have the space in their lives right now. It's not just about the time spent and any additional burdens of a host; it's also an immersive interactive experience which can be emotionally tiring.)
posted by confluency at 1:46 AM on August 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
You've broken no rules at all - totally acceptable behaviour. The 'right' thing to do now is to leave it - the ball's in her court and it would be impolite to keep chasing her. You've done your part and sent out a kind suggestion, the next kind thing you can do is to let them deal with it however suits them best.
Her non-responsiveness means one of two things -
* They're busy and haven't had the time to discuss it, decide how they feel about it, and get back to you (as mentioned above that's several steps, each of which can take time, especially with two people involved).
* They don't want to increase, but like you and care about how you feel, and don't want to make you feel bad, so are slightly putting off telling you until they have time to sit and think about a nice way to say it.
Either way, the right thing for you to do now is to let go of it entirely, like sending a little paper boat out onto the sea. You've floated it, and it's now out of your control and you can let it go on its merry way. Maybe it'll bob back to you one day, maybe it won't.
Likely outcomes will be -
* She never replies and you chat about it at your next meeting, in a no-pressure "We could do this but no worries if not" way.
* She never replies and you decide not to pursue it, in which case, just forget it happened, it's fine.
* She replies, delayed, by text, and you have your answer.
posted by penguin pie at 3:59 AM on August 25, 2022 [13 favorites]
Her non-responsiveness means one of two things -
* They're busy and haven't had the time to discuss it, decide how they feel about it, and get back to you (as mentioned above that's several steps, each of which can take time, especially with two people involved).
* They don't want to increase, but like you and care about how you feel, and don't want to make you feel bad, so are slightly putting off telling you until they have time to sit and think about a nice way to say it.
Either way, the right thing for you to do now is to let go of it entirely, like sending a little paper boat out onto the sea. You've floated it, and it's now out of your control and you can let it go on its merry way. Maybe it'll bob back to you one day, maybe it won't.
Likely outcomes will be -
* She never replies and you chat about it at your next meeting, in a no-pressure "We could do this but no worries if not" way.
* She never replies and you decide not to pursue it, in which case, just forget it happened, it's fine.
* She replies, delayed, by text, and you have your answer.
posted by penguin pie at 3:59 AM on August 25, 2022 [13 favorites]
There's no reason why asking to increase the frequency of a social gathering would be socially unacceptable to the point of breaking a friendship and going no contact. The increase might be unlikely to occur if this is a working family with kids, but the request itself is fine.
And recently we all had a really uncomfortable conversation initiated by them, so it's clear that they don't handle conflict passively.
This is the one red flag for me--if this friendship is already on the rocks, perhaps asking to increase the frequency of contact wasn't a great idea. However, I have no idea how big this conflict was and whether it was about interpersonal problems or the relative spellcasting power of your mages or what. Although actually, if it was the latter, maybe movie night would be better than gaming...
posted by kingdead at 4:45 AM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
And recently we all had a really uncomfortable conversation initiated by them, so it's clear that they don't handle conflict passively.
This is the one red flag for me--if this friendship is already on the rocks, perhaps asking to increase the frequency of contact wasn't a great idea. However, I have no idea how big this conflict was and whether it was about interpersonal problems or the relative spellcasting power of your mages or what. Although actually, if it was the latter, maybe movie night would be better than gaming...
posted by kingdead at 4:45 AM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Actually I think you HAVE broken some rules (though not "serious" rules, just minor ones).
> I texted the wife to express his willingness to meet more often, framed it as totally optional to increase frequency of play or not. Offered to host more if they want since that would be more work on them (she's made it clear she enjoys hosting but we can also take turns if I want to). I suggested if we pursue more frequent play sessions, that we should probably limit duration so we can maintain balance in other life areas
This all seems to me to be waay too much for a first message suggesting more frequent meetings. You got ahead of yourself. Ideally you would have just asked, "Hey, my partner said he'd love to do another game night sooner than planned because we enjoyed this one so much. How about X date from p-q pm? We are happy to host!"
Instead you went into a spiel about increasing the frequency of gaming forevermore, which made it into a much larger and sustained plan that they must commit to or reject right now, right now, right now by text. Furthermore it is an inexact large and sustained commitment because you have not specified whether it's going to be every 2 weeks or every 3 weeks from now on. Does a person you just met recently and have gamed with maybe once or twice so far want to get into it with you right now to haggle about every two weeks or every three weeks? No!
And then you got even further ahead of yourself by setting self-protective boundaries preemptively on the increased game frequency that you are asking for which would give me, personally, a wtf reaction.
It's all too presumptuous. It feels like you're in conversation with yourself rather than with other people. In conversations with other people, you don't present fully complete, multi-clause proposals with contingency plans and compensatory checks and balances and every single tweak you can think of! You float an idea, a single small idea, see if they say aye or nay. You wait for them to make the first suggestions to fine tune the idea because that participation would prove their buy-in, their willingness to be in this plan. You collaborate on the planning and the tweaking. Maybe if you know someone very very well for years and years, yes, you let your anxiety run away with you and present fully formed plans to them the way you did here. But that's not how it works with people you barely know.
> I texted the wife to express his willingness to meet more often.
Lastly, I am wondering why you are even doing any of this if your partner is the one who is interested in more frequent meetings. With a new acquaintance that sort of "here I am to speak for my partner and do the work of making things happen for him" would make me take a step back from the person, because I am personally not a fan of this dynamic where men don't speak for themselves and their female partners enable them. But that's just me and other weirdos like me. I fully admit that you're not breaking social norms here, rather you're adhering well to them.
posted by MiraK at 4:57 AM on August 25, 2022 [16 favorites]
> I texted the wife to express his willingness to meet more often, framed it as totally optional to increase frequency of play or not. Offered to host more if they want since that would be more work on them (she's made it clear she enjoys hosting but we can also take turns if I want to). I suggested if we pursue more frequent play sessions, that we should probably limit duration so we can maintain balance in other life areas
This all seems to me to be waay too much for a first message suggesting more frequent meetings. You got ahead of yourself. Ideally you would have just asked, "Hey, my partner said he'd love to do another game night sooner than planned because we enjoyed this one so much. How about X date from p-q pm? We are happy to host!"
Instead you went into a spiel about increasing the frequency of gaming forevermore, which made it into a much larger and sustained plan that they must commit to or reject right now, right now, right now by text. Furthermore it is an inexact large and sustained commitment because you have not specified whether it's going to be every 2 weeks or every 3 weeks from now on. Does a person you just met recently and have gamed with maybe once or twice so far want to get into it with you right now to haggle about every two weeks or every three weeks? No!
And then you got even further ahead of yourself by setting self-protective boundaries preemptively on the increased game frequency that you are asking for which would give me, personally, a wtf reaction.
It's all too presumptuous. It feels like you're in conversation with yourself rather than with other people. In conversations with other people, you don't present fully complete, multi-clause proposals with contingency plans and compensatory checks and balances and every single tweak you can think of! You float an idea, a single small idea, see if they say aye or nay. You wait for them to make the first suggestions to fine tune the idea because that participation would prove their buy-in, their willingness to be in this plan. You collaborate on the planning and the tweaking. Maybe if you know someone very very well for years and years, yes, you let your anxiety run away with you and present fully formed plans to them the way you did here. But that's not how it works with people you barely know.
> I texted the wife to express his willingness to meet more often.
Lastly, I am wondering why you are even doing any of this if your partner is the one who is interested in more frequent meetings. With a new acquaintance that sort of "here I am to speak for my partner and do the work of making things happen for him" would make me take a step back from the person, because I am personally not a fan of this dynamic where men don't speak for themselves and their female partners enable them. But that's just me and other weirdos like me. I fully admit that you're not breaking social norms here, rather you're adhering well to them.
posted by MiraK at 4:57 AM on August 25, 2022 [16 favorites]
Don't talk to the opposite sex party of the other couple in private if you are in a cishet situation.
I just wanted to point out that I have never followed this 'rule' and none of my friends have either. Frankly I would find it weird if my neighbor (who I talk to a lot) tried to contact me through my wife (who she doesn't talk to as much). It's kind of insulting to assume that a couple is so jealous of their partner that only same-sex contact is allowed? I have lots of healthy friendships with women who are coupled with other men, and the converse is true for my wife. If I got a "you can't talk to my wife unless I am present bc you are a man" vibe from a guy, I would find that to be sexist and controlling, and end or limit my contact with him.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:59 AM on August 25, 2022 [22 favorites]
I just wanted to point out that I have never followed this 'rule' and none of my friends have either. Frankly I would find it weird if my neighbor (who I talk to a lot) tried to contact me through my wife (who she doesn't talk to as much). It's kind of insulting to assume that a couple is so jealous of their partner that only same-sex contact is allowed? I have lots of healthy friendships with women who are coupled with other men, and the converse is true for my wife. If I got a "you can't talk to my wife unless I am present bc you are a man" vibe from a guy, I would find that to be sexist and controlling, and end or limit my contact with him.
posted by SaltySalticid at 4:59 AM on August 25, 2022 [22 favorites]
In conversations with other people, you don't present fully complete, multi-clause proposals with contingency plans and compensatory checks and balances and every single tweak you can think of! You float an idea, a single small idea, see if they say aye or nay.
Agree - this seems accurate for new acquaintances. I have a few friends who want this level of specificity, but we have known each other for a long time and are fully versed in each others' need for detail. But for a new interaction, it's too much.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 5:22 AM on August 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
Agree - this seems accurate for new acquaintances. I have a few friends who want this level of specificity, but we have known each other for a long time and are fully versed in each others' need for detail. But for a new interaction, it's too much.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 5:22 AM on August 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
I missed the part in the OP about the uncomfortable conversation -- It doesn't change the substance of my reply, but depending on how uncomfortable it was and what it was about it might change my perception of how the friendship is doing overall.
MiraK does have a good point. I definitely do have a natural tendency to present elaborate multi-clause proposals -- it comes from a desire to eliminate unnecessary and tedious back-and-forth by presenting as complete a set of information up-front as possible, and pre-emptively answering and clarifying what seem to be obvious follow-up questions.
But the failure mode of this is that 1) you can end up having a conversation with yourself in front of another person, 2) if the questions you're anticipating are actually not questions the other person wants to ask your pre-emptive answers may seem presumptuous / condescending / annoying, 3) a lot of people are going to skim-read and miss most of what you wrote and ask questions anyway (I mean, I'm the kind of person who gets annoyed at other people's reading comprehension, and I missed a bunch of stuff you wrote), and 4) you can put an excessive amount of time and effort into constructing this detailed first overture and derive proportionally little benefit.
So whenever I can see myself falling into this pattern I make a conscious effort to make myself stop, delete most of what I've written, and just ask a simple question or convey one idea and wait for the other person to ask what they actually want to know.
I don't necessarily think that this is what you did. I also missed in my first reading that your sessions are typically 6 hours long, so I don't think it's completely bizarre to clarify that what you're suggesting is more frequent but shorter sessions. But it also wasn't absolutely necessary -- I agree that a much simpler "Hey, what do you think about playing more frequently?" would have sufficed.
I am also getting minor "wives managing their husbands' social calendar" vibes. Why did your partner, the originator of this idea, not email / group chat all of you to suggest it? Do you have a method of group communication? If all your text communications are one-on-one, that adds some etiquette awkwardness which I think can be avoided with a technological change.
posted by confluency at 5:26 AM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
MiraK does have a good point. I definitely do have a natural tendency to present elaborate multi-clause proposals -- it comes from a desire to eliminate unnecessary and tedious back-and-forth by presenting as complete a set of information up-front as possible, and pre-emptively answering and clarifying what seem to be obvious follow-up questions.
But the failure mode of this is that 1) you can end up having a conversation with yourself in front of another person, 2) if the questions you're anticipating are actually not questions the other person wants to ask your pre-emptive answers may seem presumptuous / condescending / annoying, 3) a lot of people are going to skim-read and miss most of what you wrote and ask questions anyway (I mean, I'm the kind of person who gets annoyed at other people's reading comprehension, and I missed a bunch of stuff you wrote), and 4) you can put an excessive amount of time and effort into constructing this detailed first overture and derive proportionally little benefit.
So whenever I can see myself falling into this pattern I make a conscious effort to make myself stop, delete most of what I've written, and just ask a simple question or convey one idea and wait for the other person to ask what they actually want to know.
I don't necessarily think that this is what you did. I also missed in my first reading that your sessions are typically 6 hours long, so I don't think it's completely bizarre to clarify that what you're suggesting is more frequent but shorter sessions. But it also wasn't absolutely necessary -- I agree that a much simpler "Hey, what do you think about playing more frequently?" would have sufficed.
I am also getting minor "wives managing their husbands' social calendar" vibes. Why did your partner, the originator of this idea, not email / group chat all of you to suggest it? Do you have a method of group communication? If all your text communications are one-on-one, that adds some etiquette awkwardness which I think can be avoided with a technological change.
posted by confluency at 5:26 AM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: I should clarify that we have been playing together for five months and known each other for about a year. Is that considered a new friendship?
Unfortunately the next session isn't scheduled yet. We schedule as we go. I will give it a week or so then message them on our Discord server to ask about the next date and leave the other conversation thread alone.
Uncomfortable conversation happened prior to our most recent gathering. There was nothing abnormal about the gathering after that, to my knowledge/awareness. In fact they asked if they can invite another person to join our party next time.
Point taken on the anticipation of contingencies ahead of time. I thought people would appreciate having their potential concerns considered and recognize that I'm trying to see from their point of view. Good to know that this is not desirable to most people.
Wife isn't on the Discord and she's the more social of the pair. My husband posts in the Discord for all game related things and the husband relays info to the wife. My husband has severe ADHD and doesn't even attempt to manage a personal social calendar because he has gotten us into trouble before not conferring with me before making plans. Although I suppose some of this might be gender crap anyway. We live in an area with old fashioned gender norms and would be considered progressive by the majority standards.
Also, I appreciate people chiming in to vote on whether I broke a rule, but I'm actually asking for examples of unspoken rules that govern adult friendships, because even if I didn't break a rule this time, I'm bad at knowing these things and want to avoid making mistakes.
posted by crunchy potato at 5:45 AM on August 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
Unfortunately the next session isn't scheduled yet. We schedule as we go. I will give it a week or so then message them on our Discord server to ask about the next date and leave the other conversation thread alone.
Uncomfortable conversation happened prior to our most recent gathering. There was nothing abnormal about the gathering after that, to my knowledge/awareness. In fact they asked if they can invite another person to join our party next time.
Point taken on the anticipation of contingencies ahead of time. I thought people would appreciate having their potential concerns considered and recognize that I'm trying to see from their point of view. Good to know that this is not desirable to most people.
Wife isn't on the Discord and she's the more social of the pair. My husband posts in the Discord for all game related things and the husband relays info to the wife. My husband has severe ADHD and doesn't even attempt to manage a personal social calendar because he has gotten us into trouble before not conferring with me before making plans. Although I suppose some of this might be gender crap anyway. We live in an area with old fashioned gender norms and would be considered progressive by the majority standards.
Also, I appreciate people chiming in to vote on whether I broke a rule, but I'm actually asking for examples of unspoken rules that govern adult friendships, because even if I didn't break a rule this time, I'm bad at knowing these things and want to avoid making mistakes.
posted by crunchy potato at 5:45 AM on August 25, 2022 [3 favorites]
I would say you haven't done anything actually wrong but generally as background I would say autistic people can like fuller communication with more information to help us decide and see how things would work and treat information as factual and practical. Its a way of being thoughtful and generous even. But non autistic people for whatever reason socially often don't respond to information in the same way. They tend to parse it for emotional requests and implicit social status when people provide lots of information. So they might decide as you've provided more information its your way of signalling you're really emotionally invested in the plan. Or that you're trying to hint you want to host more or who knows. A more non autistic style of communication would be to float the idea of meeting up more and watch for emotional cues to gauge whether the person likes the idea. And then set up the practicalities slowly basically going off peoples emotional cues.
Tangentially there can be a similar dynamic with asking questions. Non autistic people misinterpret questions because they parse them as about emotional requests and social status rather than information seeking.
posted by mosswinter at 5:50 AM on August 25, 2022 [7 favorites]
Tangentially there can be a similar dynamic with asking questions. Non autistic people misinterpret questions because they parse them as about emotional requests and social status rather than information seeking.
posted by mosswinter at 5:50 AM on August 25, 2022 [7 favorites]
I'd be feeling anxious in your shoes too, but taking a step back I think she's still well within the reasonable time frame for busy adults to respond to things, and the most likely explanation is that this has nothing to do with you or anything you said. I wouldn't follow up again; just let it be, and if you don't hear back, bring it up in person at your next get-together. (I would appreciate the level of detail in your query but I'm neurodivergent too, and yeah, you might dial it back a little next time. If talking to a neurotypical person I might leave off the stuff about session length until I knew if they were interested in the idea at all.)
As for your other rules, I generally would not go with the "don't talk to the opposite sex person privately" thing, and I'm always wary of the husbands offloading the planning/communication onto the wives. But I'm also rarely socializing in purely cishet spaces, so maybe that's still what The Cishets are doing. If it's working for you, might as well keep that one up.
I think that offering to host roughly evenly is a good idea, and would have suggested that as a good guideline if you hadn't done it already.
If you're not already, I'd say build a little helping-with-clean-up into your visits. Bus dirty dishes back into the kitchen, pick up the trash, put the game pieces away, whatever. They may not want you to full-on do dishes - they may have their own idea about how to do that - but making it a little easier for them to do that when they're ready is nice.
posted by Stacey at 6:10 AM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
As for your other rules, I generally would not go with the "don't talk to the opposite sex person privately" thing, and I'm always wary of the husbands offloading the planning/communication onto the wives. But I'm also rarely socializing in purely cishet spaces, so maybe that's still what The Cishets are doing. If it's working for you, might as well keep that one up.
I think that offering to host roughly evenly is a good idea, and would have suggested that as a good guideline if you hadn't done it already.
If you're not already, I'd say build a little helping-with-clean-up into your visits. Bus dirty dishes back into the kitchen, pick up the trash, put the game pieces away, whatever. They may not want you to full-on do dishes - they may have their own idea about how to do that - but making it a little easier for them to do that when they're ready is nice.
posted by Stacey at 6:10 AM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
OK, I promise this is my last comment because I don't want to threadsit. I think the problem is that what you're asking for doesn't exist (an objective, universal set of Rules for navigating an adult friendship). People are different. They come from different upbringings and have different personal preferences. Different people can interpret other people's objectively identical behaviour in extremely different ways.
If you hang out here for long enough, you will see umpteen examples of "It drives me crazy when people do ABC, because I interpret that as DEF, which is infuriating and incredibly rude; what is wrong with people?!" followed by "What?! I do ABC because I mean GHI! I was trying to be polite! I can't understand why anyone would JKL instead; that's so MNO!! Outrageous!"... and then there's always at least one Spiders Georg who thinks we should all PQR, and everyone thinks Spiders Georg is a moon person.
This happens allllll the time, in pretty much any kind of human interaction. The only real solution is to try to learn and remember your friends' different preferences -- but don't forget that this is a two-way street. If you and your friends majorly disagree about how a particular kind of social interaction should go, the onus isn't always on you to change what you do to make them 100% comfortable and yourself 100% uncomfortable. You aren't automatically "wronger" about what is polite than a randomly selected allistic person -- that allistic person could (for example) be an over-the-top extrovert whose behaviour is considered beyond the pale by introverts, or a very conservative person who is considered by more progressive people to have some weird and awkward social hangups, and so on. (You can see my personal bias in these examples, but it goes in all directions.)
(As a final note, from your followup it doesn't sound like whatever the uncomfortable thing was has made your friends not want to game with you, so I don't think it's likely to be a factor here.)
posted by confluency at 6:19 AM on August 25, 2022 [15 favorites]
If you hang out here for long enough, you will see umpteen examples of "It drives me crazy when people do ABC, because I interpret that as DEF, which is infuriating and incredibly rude; what is wrong with people?!" followed by "What?! I do ABC because I mean GHI! I was trying to be polite! I can't understand why anyone would JKL instead; that's so MNO!! Outrageous!"... and then there's always at least one Spiders Georg who thinks we should all PQR, and everyone thinks Spiders Georg is a moon person.
This happens allllll the time, in pretty much any kind of human interaction. The only real solution is to try to learn and remember your friends' different preferences -- but don't forget that this is a two-way street. If you and your friends majorly disagree about how a particular kind of social interaction should go, the onus isn't always on you to change what you do to make them 100% comfortable and yourself 100% uncomfortable. You aren't automatically "wronger" about what is polite than a randomly selected allistic person -- that allistic person could (for example) be an over-the-top extrovert whose behaviour is considered beyond the pale by introverts, or a very conservative person who is considered by more progressive people to have some weird and awkward social hangups, and so on. (You can see my personal bias in these examples, but it goes in all directions.)
(As a final note, from your followup it doesn't sound like whatever the uncomfortable thing was has made your friends not want to game with you, so I don't think it's likely to be a factor here.)
posted by confluency at 6:19 AM on August 25, 2022 [15 favorites]
I have a bad habit of over-explaining/pre-planning/asking for commitments way in advance. It's because I'm a planner and not knowing what the next move is makes me anxious. My BFF is the same way, as are some of my other friends, so this often isn't a problem.
However, some folks I interact with regularly just aren't this way. I tried to plan a rehearsal with a substitute drummer two months in advance while he was on vacation and spun out a bit when he didn't respond or agree to commit/say he couldn't within a day - I was convinced he hated me and didn't want to do the gig. My BFF pointed out that the sub's personality is probably not calibrated the way ours is and to give him a week before following up. (Also, he's on VACATION nayantara, slow your roll.)
My partner is the same way. If I ask him what he has planned for the weekend as short as one week in advance he gets stressed out because he is accustomed to figuring things out on the fly (unless it's something that requires PTO/vacation time, in which case he plans wayyyy ahead of time). Partner also has joked with me that if he asks me what time it is I explain how to build a clock. It cracks me up, because yes, I do tend to over-explain/caveat/pre-emptively give people outs/convey more info than is necessary in the minute both verbally and over text, and some people just can't deal with the TMI-ness.
So this may be a personality mismatch. Not necessarily a faux pas, but perhaps something for you to take note going forward to prevent anxiety tailspins. You mentioned that you usually schedule as you go, so I think this may be the issue.
But as for this...
Don't talk to the opposite sex party of the other couple in private if you are in a cishet situation.
Yeah, I would be deeply uncomfortable if I sensed that this was the vibe/rule with any friends of ours. It's not a healthy dynamic within a relationship and it would make me feel like there were weird control issues at play or some deep insecurities or even I might intuit some unspoken trust issues within my friends' relationship which would be inappropriate for me to know. It's totally normal to have platonic friendships of the opposite sex, coupled or not. My aforementioned BFF is a guy. I'm also good friends with his girlfriend, but if I'm making a plan with them, I contact my male BFF to initiate the planning because our friendship is the primary point of contact. I enjoy hanging with his girlfriend one-on-one when it happens but it doesn't happen often and that's fine! We just don't have the same connection. She and I text each other from time to time to grouse about work (we work in similar fields) of it I need a woman's opinion on an outfit or a woman's health issue because both my male partner and my male BFF are not helpful in those circumstances. But usually when I'm visiting them, I'm hanging out with male BFF, she'll join us for a time and then go do her own thing. If it's explicitly a couples activity, then we're all together - but again, male BFF and I do the planning because we are the connective tissue between the two couples.
So I'd urge you to reconsider this particular rule or yours because I would find it off-putting if I noticed it - and chances are after several social interactions this would be noticeable to anyone outside of your relationship.
posted by nayantara at 6:27 AM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
However, some folks I interact with regularly just aren't this way. I tried to plan a rehearsal with a substitute drummer two months in advance while he was on vacation and spun out a bit when he didn't respond or agree to commit/say he couldn't within a day - I was convinced he hated me and didn't want to do the gig. My BFF pointed out that the sub's personality is probably not calibrated the way ours is and to give him a week before following up. (Also, he's on VACATION nayantara, slow your roll.)
My partner is the same way. If I ask him what he has planned for the weekend as short as one week in advance he gets stressed out because he is accustomed to figuring things out on the fly (unless it's something that requires PTO/vacation time, in which case he plans wayyyy ahead of time). Partner also has joked with me that if he asks me what time it is I explain how to build a clock. It cracks me up, because yes, I do tend to over-explain/caveat/pre-emptively give people outs/convey more info than is necessary in the minute both verbally and over text, and some people just can't deal with the TMI-ness.
So this may be a personality mismatch. Not necessarily a faux pas, but perhaps something for you to take note going forward to prevent anxiety tailspins. You mentioned that you usually schedule as you go, so I think this may be the issue.
But as for this...
Don't talk to the opposite sex party of the other couple in private if you are in a cishet situation.
Yeah, I would be deeply uncomfortable if I sensed that this was the vibe/rule with any friends of ours. It's not a healthy dynamic within a relationship and it would make me feel like there were weird control issues at play or some deep insecurities or even I might intuit some unspoken trust issues within my friends' relationship which would be inappropriate for me to know. It's totally normal to have platonic friendships of the opposite sex, coupled or not. My aforementioned BFF is a guy. I'm also good friends with his girlfriend, but if I'm making a plan with them, I contact my male BFF to initiate the planning because our friendship is the primary point of contact. I enjoy hanging with his girlfriend one-on-one when it happens but it doesn't happen often and that's fine! We just don't have the same connection. She and I text each other from time to time to grouse about work (we work in similar fields) of it I need a woman's opinion on an outfit or a woman's health issue because both my male partner and my male BFF are not helpful in those circumstances. But usually when I'm visiting them, I'm hanging out with male BFF, she'll join us for a time and then go do her own thing. If it's explicitly a couples activity, then we're all together - but again, male BFF and I do the planning because we are the connective tissue between the two couples.
So I'd urge you to reconsider this particular rule or yours because I would find it off-putting if I noticed it - and chances are after several social interactions this would be noticeable to anyone outside of your relationship.
posted by nayantara at 6:27 AM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Don't invite yourself to an event even if it's being discussed in front of you. (This one confuses me. My partner's family assumes if they are discussing an activity in front of you then your invitation is implied. But I've been burned by this assumption before so I just assume I'm not invited unless it is made explicit.)
This is a really interesting one, because actually, there is a spoken (or written, as the case may be, by etiquette mavens) rule on this issue and that rule is 'Don't discuss events in front of people who are not invited to them.' But many people are tremendously bad at good etiquette and thus you end up in a situation you should never even be in, trying not to be rude.
It's helpful to think of etiquette like grammar -- there are prescriptivist and descriptivist points of view.
You can read Miss Manners religiously and attempt to apply her rules in real life and they will take you a long way, because Miss Manners, while prescriptivist on etiquette, is also very sensible and if you scrupulously follow her advice, you will rarely do something that actively offends people.
But you can't force other people to actually do the things that Miss Manners says, so then there's the descriptivist point of view of 'what do people actually do and say and expect in these scenarios?' rather than what they *should* do and say and expect.
An example is gift-giving. As far as Miss Manners is concerned, presents are optional at all but the tiniest number of events (children's birthday parties, bridal or baby showers), having a registry is presumptuous and mentioning the registry or presents on the invitation is rude. But still, millions of gift registries have been created, so you can follow her advice at your own events but still end up faced with an angry bride if you don't bring a present off the registry to her event, because even though a wedding is not supposed to be a shakedown, a wedding is a shakedown.
Ask vs. Guess culture also comes into play with this. Some people would be fine with you asking as long as you are fine with being told no. Other people will find it incredibly awkward that you asked and forced them to tell you no.
In cases like the fun-sounding event, you won't offend anyone if you never ask to be invited along, but you also might miss out on fun things that you might like to do that you would have been invited to if you asked. The sort of classic 'guess' response to this sort of scenario would be to say something like 'oh, wow, that sounds really fun!' and maybe follow it up with a seemingly innocuous question about the details ('are you going to the pool in Port Charles or the one in Sunset City?') and hope for an invitation.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:32 AM on August 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
This is a really interesting one, because actually, there is a spoken (or written, as the case may be, by etiquette mavens) rule on this issue and that rule is 'Don't discuss events in front of people who are not invited to them.' But many people are tremendously bad at good etiquette and thus you end up in a situation you should never even be in, trying not to be rude.
It's helpful to think of etiquette like grammar -- there are prescriptivist and descriptivist points of view.
You can read Miss Manners religiously and attempt to apply her rules in real life and they will take you a long way, because Miss Manners, while prescriptivist on etiquette, is also very sensible and if you scrupulously follow her advice, you will rarely do something that actively offends people.
But you can't force other people to actually do the things that Miss Manners says, so then there's the descriptivist point of view of 'what do people actually do and say and expect in these scenarios?' rather than what they *should* do and say and expect.
An example is gift-giving. As far as Miss Manners is concerned, presents are optional at all but the tiniest number of events (children's birthday parties, bridal or baby showers), having a registry is presumptuous and mentioning the registry or presents on the invitation is rude. But still, millions of gift registries have been created, so you can follow her advice at your own events but still end up faced with an angry bride if you don't bring a present off the registry to her event, because even though a wedding is not supposed to be a shakedown, a wedding is a shakedown.
Ask vs. Guess culture also comes into play with this. Some people would be fine with you asking as long as you are fine with being told no. Other people will find it incredibly awkward that you asked and forced them to tell you no.
In cases like the fun-sounding event, you won't offend anyone if you never ask to be invited along, but you also might miss out on fun things that you might like to do that you would have been invited to if you asked. The sort of classic 'guess' response to this sort of scenario would be to say something like 'oh, wow, that sounds really fun!' and maybe follow it up with a seemingly innocuous question about the details ('are you going to the pool in Port Charles or the one in Sunset City?') and hope for an invitation.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:32 AM on August 25, 2022 [4 favorites]
Just chiming in with a big agree with confluency above. I'm a neurotypical adult but I can get hung up on understanding the nuances of every different friendship; I wish there were "rules," beyond the very basics. For Reasons, I am recently in a position of trying to navigate/nurture some Couple Friends and some just sort of new friends, and it's frankly very hard and awkward no matter what, so please don't feel like you're struggling in a way that your friends would never ever understand!
I do think a lot of your rules above are good guideposts. The "opposite sex spouse" thing seems excessive but it also just depends on your region and which spouse you actually met first (if you didn't meet them at the same time). If you (f) met the husband (m) at work but then only communicated with his wife that would be bizarre, IMO.
The other rules are all really just questions of basic etiquette, most/all of which apply to friendships to some degree (though as jacquilynne points out, a lot of people have bad etiquette knowledge).
The main thing, or anyway it seems like it (we'll see if I succeed in actually keeping my new friends), is just to be really nice and kind, above all, and to fully admit when you're confused about the rules. Any number of awkwardnesses can be washed away by a big smile and "sorry if that was awkward, I sometimes can't help [overexplaining/TMI/overplanning/whatever]".
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 6:39 AM on August 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
I do think a lot of your rules above are good guideposts. The "opposite sex spouse" thing seems excessive but it also just depends on your region and which spouse you actually met first (if you didn't meet them at the same time). If you (f) met the husband (m) at work but then only communicated with his wife that would be bizarre, IMO.
The other rules are all really just questions of basic etiquette, most/all of which apply to friendships to some degree (though as jacquilynne points out, a lot of people have bad etiquette knowledge).
The main thing, or anyway it seems like it (we'll see if I succeed in actually keeping my new friends), is just to be really nice and kind, above all, and to fully admit when you're confused about the rules. Any number of awkwardnesses can be washed away by a big smile and "sorry if that was awkward, I sometimes can't help [overexplaining/TMI/overplanning/whatever]".
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 6:39 AM on August 25, 2022 [5 favorites]
I sort of treat it like early dating and watch my invitations closely. If I make the first move to hang out, I won’t make the second (but will make the third). If they made the first move and I’m into it, I’ll reciprocate so that’s clear. If I see two “no” responses in a row, regardless of the stated reason, I back off and wait. And I try to make invitations for a specific time/place when it’s early days so that if they’re not feeling it, they can invent a conflict so as to save face. They will be much more well-disposed toward me, even if we don’t become friends, if I don’t put them in a weird position.
(I say I treat it like early dating, but that’s a little silly because I’ve dated so little, and it’s very possible those dating rules aren’t even how it works now.)
I’ve had friendly arguments with Mr. eirias about this stuff before. His position is, just ask anyway, you don’t need to game this out so methodically, you’ll never succeed if you don’t try. He’s much better than me at making friends, but l’m better at keeping them. *shrug*
I love the sidebar about not making this gaming-out explicit because it winds up feeling like pressure. I feel this so much. I spend hours on an email sometimes writing a whole bunch of prose and then carving it down until it has the normal amount of nested ifs, which is basically zero. It’s like I’m trying to be Hemingway but I’m starting as fucking Mark Danielewski, where my footnotes have footnotes. And when other people mess this up when writing to me, I laugh internally and say, Aw, I’m not the only neurotic person out there, and this one cares. Then I try to say something reassuring to take the temperature down a little.
posted by eirias at 2:09 PM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
(I say I treat it like early dating, but that’s a little silly because I’ve dated so little, and it’s very possible those dating rules aren’t even how it works now.)
I’ve had friendly arguments with Mr. eirias about this stuff before. His position is, just ask anyway, you don’t need to game this out so methodically, you’ll never succeed if you don’t try. He’s much better than me at making friends, but l’m better at keeping them. *shrug*
I love the sidebar about not making this gaming-out explicit because it winds up feeling like pressure. I feel this so much. I spend hours on an email sometimes writing a whole bunch of prose and then carving it down until it has the normal amount of nested ifs, which is basically zero. It’s like I’m trying to be Hemingway but I’m starting as fucking Mark Danielewski, where my footnotes have footnotes. And when other people mess this up when writing to me, I laugh internally and say, Aw, I’m not the only neurotic person out there, and this one cares. Then I try to say something reassuring to take the temperature down a little.
posted by eirias at 2:09 PM on August 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
One of the main things I’ve come to embrace in middle-age is not caring as much what people think of me. You’re really anxious about this one friendship and trying to guess how they feel about you.
But you’ll be happiest if you can meet gaming friends - or any kind of friends - that you know accept you as yourself. If they become close friends then awesome, if they don’t well you can still play games with them.
Since 2017 I’ve been part of a local group that plays a mobile game. Pre-pandemic we met every single week for happy hour. I’ve been various levels of tipsy, drunk, friendly, overly-friendly and wildly inappropriate with them all and I’m still part of the group. As lockdown has lifted I haven’t participated as much but I hung out with them tonight and it was so nice to spend time with people who accept what I may think of as “bad behavior” and remember that they just see me as who I am and that they like that person.
posted by bendy at 12:20 AM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
But you’ll be happiest if you can meet gaming friends - or any kind of friends - that you know accept you as yourself. If they become close friends then awesome, if they don’t well you can still play games with them.
Since 2017 I’ve been part of a local group that plays a mobile game. Pre-pandemic we met every single week for happy hour. I’ve been various levels of tipsy, drunk, friendly, overly-friendly and wildly inappropriate with them all and I’m still part of the group. As lockdown has lifted I haven’t participated as much but I hung out with them tonight and it was so nice to spend time with people who accept what I may think of as “bad behavior” and remember that they just see me as who I am and that they like that person.
posted by bendy at 12:20 AM on August 26, 2022 [1 favorite]
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My solution in situations like this is to try and find something else to text about, which will often spur them into remembering the earlier question without making them feel pressured/bad about the original question. You can also try another contact medium (email instead of text) as maybe they were having phone problems or your messages got filtered to spam. I lost contact with my dad for a few weeks because our android phones decided to stop sending texts until I forced it into SMS instead of some new feature that didn't work. In this case you could reach out to the other partner as well, that shouldn't come across as weird. I know it's very easy to jump to the worst case but there are other explanations. I do start to freak out if I don't get a response from two different methods though, as that means something is either actually wrong or they're deliberately ignoring me.
posted by JZig at 11:21 PM on August 24, 2022 [3 favorites]