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Not sure if this question makes sense but
Jan. 22nd, 2019 07:51 amDoes anyone else have a thing where they have trouble figuring out how other people mean or parse short sayings? Because I’ve always had it and it gets in my way terribly sometimes.
Like, most recently it was me noticing a flurry of “no cops at Pride” posts on tumblr and being confused. Like... I’ve seen that before, I know it’s a common opinion in progressive spaces, etc. but I never knew exactly what prompted it, so:
i know what Pride is. I know what cops are. I know what at means and I know what no means. So I put that all together and I get: if you are a cop, don’t come to pride.
Now I figure it’s gotta be slightly more nuanced than that, as no one knows you’re a cop in you’re not in uniform unless they know you, so I add that in and I get “do not wear your uniform to Pride if you are a cop.”
All right, I guess I can see that, as fights with cops were the original riots. But if the idea is that something like a cop uniform is triggering, then what about people with uniform kinks, whose outfits may obviously not be local police uniforms but are intended to elicit a visceral response? Are those people not allowed to wear what they want to pride? Isn’t it more likely a clothes ban would hit them and actual cops would shrug it off?
so I say something like “I know no cops at Pride is a saying, but how would that even work?” And someone gets upset. And it takes a while of argument before they finally say “the issue isn’t whether cops can attend, it’s whether they get to be in the parade.” “Oh. Well, why would t they?” “Because this particular department very recently mishandled a serial killer preying on the local gay community and we want to seNd a message that they’re not welcome until they learn some sensitivity.”
Which, maybe that’s a good message to send and maybe it’s not! But it’s a very different discussion than the one I expected, which was “is a person a member of the gay / queer community in good standing even if they choose to become a cop or a soldier or etc., professions which require people to do stuff a lot of us oppose?” To which my answer was “we should not have progressiveness based entry fees.”
How was I supposed to get all that out of four words? Does anyone else have this issue? Because I try to remember never to take people literally but I keep doing it and saying “x seems really weird” and then someone goes “hmm, I believe x or kind of do?” And then a conversation results which we both only find out later is not a disagreement.
Is this just an online communication thing or is it a neurodivergence thing? I would say it’s online poison but it happens a lot with a particular person I know offline (NOT any of you don’t worry) too. We’ll be halfway to a screaming match when we suddenly realize what one another are actually talking about.
Saying “what do you mean by that?” helps, but only when one or the other of us remember to do it.
Like, most recently it was me noticing a flurry of “no cops at Pride” posts on tumblr and being confused. Like... I’ve seen that before, I know it’s a common opinion in progressive spaces, etc. but I never knew exactly what prompted it, so:
i know what Pride is. I know what cops are. I know what at means and I know what no means. So I put that all together and I get: if you are a cop, don’t come to pride.
Now I figure it’s gotta be slightly more nuanced than that, as no one knows you’re a cop in you’re not in uniform unless they know you, so I add that in and I get “do not wear your uniform to Pride if you are a cop.”
All right, I guess I can see that, as fights with cops were the original riots. But if the idea is that something like a cop uniform is triggering, then what about people with uniform kinks, whose outfits may obviously not be local police uniforms but are intended to elicit a visceral response? Are those people not allowed to wear what they want to pride? Isn’t it more likely a clothes ban would hit them and actual cops would shrug it off?
so I say something like “I know no cops at Pride is a saying, but how would that even work?” And someone gets upset. And it takes a while of argument before they finally say “the issue isn’t whether cops can attend, it’s whether they get to be in the parade.” “Oh. Well, why would t they?” “Because this particular department very recently mishandled a serial killer preying on the local gay community and we want to seNd a message that they’re not welcome until they learn some sensitivity.”
Which, maybe that’s a good message to send and maybe it’s not! But it’s a very different discussion than the one I expected, which was “is a person a member of the gay / queer community in good standing even if they choose to become a cop or a soldier or etc., professions which require people to do stuff a lot of us oppose?” To which my answer was “we should not have progressiveness based entry fees.”
How was I supposed to get all that out of four words? Does anyone else have this issue? Because I try to remember never to take people literally but I keep doing it and saying “x seems really weird” and then someone goes “hmm, I believe x or kind of do?” And then a conversation results which we both only find out later is not a disagreement.
Is this just an online communication thing or is it a neurodivergence thing? I would say it’s online poison but it happens a lot with a particular person I know offline (NOT any of you don’t worry) too. We’ll be halfway to a screaming match when we suddenly realize what one another are actually talking about.
Saying “what do you mean by that?” helps, but only when one or the other of us remember to do it.