Asklemmy

In particular, women are more likely to be viewed as "bitchy", "bossy", etc for doing the exact same thing that a man could do without being considered as such.

So it's not just women speaking up, but also that there's a gender imbalance in how that speaking up can be viewed.

Eh, if it's coming from an adult who should know better, I wouldn't say it's being misinterpreted as a sign of being an asshole.

I think the big deciding factor is how they're approaching the questions and what the questions are. Like, if someone is "just asking questions" where the questions just so happen to be a common bad faith talking point, yeah, I'm gonna assume they're also acting in bad faith.

Eg, leading questions are a particularly common example here. The amount of lean towards their already-decided viewpoint can vary. They might word their question to be convinced away from their viewpoint as the default ("why isn't the moon landing fake?"), or maybe they'll provide a statement that obviously gives more weight to their side ("the government is so untrustworthy, so how can we trust the moon landing was real?").

But often, they even do word the questions in a perfectly valid way, because they're not trying to get an answer. They're not gonna be convinced and they're trying to get an answer. What they want to do is make someone else mistake being stumped for "this person might be right". Eg, if someone asks you "is the moon landing real?" and you don't actually know how to prove that it's real, that can make you think that perhaps it wasn't real. After all, you can't explain how it is. But that's a fallacy. You not being able to explain it has nothing to do with whether or not it's real. Asking questions is cheap and easy. It takes no time investment compared to answering or understanding an answer. That makes it effective for planting seeds of doubt. And of course, people should think critically, but many folks aren't going to or aren't don't have the time. So they'll retain this low effort seed of doubt and that's it.

Plus of course, searching for these questions, especially leading ones, can get you to fall into conspiracy theory or alt right echo chambers, which will have the leading question included in multiple times and technically is a better match from a pure SEO point of view. Search engines do try and train themselves against the common leading questions, but they often have to do that explicitly. This is actually an area where search engines like DuckDuckGo do worse at. You're more likely to have a leading question in the top results because, again, it really is the most accurate match for that question. Should search engines direct you to the correct results or should they direct you to the results that are most accurate for what you searched for? Nobody really agrees and it'll be criticized either way (personally, I think that correctness is far more important because otherwise the search engines propagates misinformation).

I find that struggling to be on time is fine, actually not being on time is disrespectful of my time. In modern society we have so many options available to make sure we can keep on time. Set up alarms, time how long it takes you to get dressed and out the door, time how long it takes you to get somewhere, set alarms to keep you on time based on what you've actually measured, not what one "feels" is enough time.

Personally I'm more often than not 5+ minutes early; I can always wait a little more before I go in or something, it's often harder to "just get there faster".

BTW; if someone is late because of something outside their control that's fine; just make sure to inform me ASAP.

I think it's important to bear in mind that some of those things are what neurotypical folks, I guess you could call them, use to convey interest or disinterest. Eye contact is a way to express interest, and helps to show one is intently listening to the speaker. Conversely, frequently glancing away is kind of the body language equivalent of giving short "uh huh" type answers when one is trying to disengage from a conversation.

My point isn't that you should feel bad about struggling with these nuances; I just think it's worth mentioning that some of those negative reactions you may have experienced just has to do with expectations in body language. It's not that someone who's neurodivergent is being an asshole, it's just that they're sending out signals we're otherwise used to interpreting as disinterest, and that is (often) off-putting.

Again, it's not something to feel bad about, it's just communicating on different wavelengths so-to-speak. Sort of like a language/culture difference.

I tell people this all the time. But I have to. It's like... If I don't, I won't know if I'm still real.

I was on the train once headed into the city. A dude getting off the train looks me dead in the eye and says "never trust unsolicited advice" and then stepped through the door.

That was it. That was the entire interaction. Completely blew my mind. I did ultimately decide it was legitimate advice. But still, it was wild being told not to trust the advice I was receiving.

And some people genuinely want to help, without implying the other person is stupid, weak, incompetent either.

Unrequested advice is always taken for criticism. Don't do it. Ask first. "May I give you fome advice?"

Reminds of a post a few days ago, that described how people think you're condescending and sit on a high horse, just because you use some fancy words here and there.

Meanwhile I'm just trying to describe something with as much detail as possible, because it's important to convey exactly what I mean.

Being vague and expecting everyone to know what you mean with a particular acronym. HFAYQT? 🤷‍♂️

"I'd love to, but unfortunately I am busy tonight."

That really depends on if it's an exception or a consistent pattern.

100% depends on the opinion

I'm not a bigot, but in my opinion the sliding scale between jam and marmalade is so fine that it's not worth distinguishing between them, it should be a spectrum of preserves.

Agreed, and along the same lines, pointing out bad logic or factual errors used to support a point you actually agree with.

If your trait as the word brutal in it, you're probably an asshole.

This is almost always just being an asshole. You can be honest and be an asshole all at the same time. There is a reason that people train in conflict de-escalation and how to talk to people in a tactful way.

Honesty? Yes. Brutal honesty? Hell no.
If you don't want to be a twat, you should take at effort at considering how your words will impact a person, and try to take brutality our of it. Not lying, not hiding anything, but being considerate, that's, like, bare minimum