No political posturing.
Driving without touching my phone.
So close to an upvote until I saw it said phone.
WHAT DID YOU THINK IT WAS???
I genuinely do not know
Penis
Being isolated. It’s always confused me how much people complain about loneliness. I genuinely don’t think I have ever felt that emotion before.
With age, I have become more introverted also. I guess i havent met that many amazing people. But ive been working in offices a lot, so probably why.
There is a tv show called 60 days in. It’s about sending people into these US shithole prisions without anyone knowing that they don’t belong. The idea is to figure out what goes wrong and where drugs come from and so on. Anyway, they always talk about solidarity confinement and how bad it is. Like the biggest and baddest dude is worried about getting into “the hole” Then there was this one guy who was on the show who got into solitary confinement and enjoyed the shit out of it. He would get in trouble again and not do anything to get out of the hole.
I always felt like this guy.
Solitary confinement is torture. That guy just felt it to be less torturous than being with the general population. Which is quite a commentary on the horrors of the prison environment when you think about it.
Popping their ears. I can “pop” my ears by opening my eustachian tubes on demand. I can even hold them open if I want to. Apparently a lot of people can’t do that.
I can do this too. It feels like I’m trying to flex my jaw muscles downwards. And makes that satisfying crackling noise when they open up.
I can also do this but it feels like I’m flexing them outwards, not down. Weird!
TIL there are people who can’t do this
I can pop them also! Which is good because I need to do it frequently because of sinus problems ‘clogging’ them.
Same; can you also, by any chance, wiggle them?
Being able to see through fake people’s masks. Like, people who appear nice and friendly on the surface, but are narcissistic snakes who will destroy you to benefit themselves. The people who everyone will swear “oh, they aren’t like that.”
It’s so obvious to my wife and I, possibly because we’re on the spectrum, but no one else sees it until one of us lays out all the supporting evidence that they are in fact like that.
I grew ip with a narcissistic mother and I can spot those people, too. Sometimes others don’t believe me someone is bad news until month later when they get screwed by that person. I’m always baffled how people fall for the obviously fake niceness.
It’s the dead eyes. Every photo of Mr. Beast has them.
Navigating UIs on PCs, Smartphones, Ticket Machines etc.
Fixing things. Repair. Assembly. Construction. Diagnosis. It always surprises me how many people are incapable of understanding how something works or what needs done to repair it.
From engines to furnaces to plumbing, computers, electronics, whatever, I do it all myself. And it’s not even remotely connected to me career. Repairmen hate me!
Being happy by myself.
Explaining difficult technical concepts to laypeople. Just gotta find the correct analogy.
I am grateful and envious: I would love to have the same ability. Stuff is crystal clear in my mind, and I still hardly can transform it into something someone else can parse… analogies are great, but finding the correct one is often beyond me
I’m not a fan of analogies. They can be very condescending and convoluted and I find I dont learn much from them. I dont think there are any shortcuts to learning in that way really.
I find most the times the issue I have with someone teaching me something is that they are treating it as a one sided communication. If the person teaching won’t learn about the student, they end up assuming a lot of things and that is what breaks understanding.
Analogies are nice when the purpose isn’t to really learn but to socialize, though. Its more a way for people to acknowledge each other and show respect for the things we are interested in. Its a mutual thing in that way.
If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t know it well enough.
That’s one of my favorite sayings.
The problem is that people who are subject matter experts in a field tend to over estimate the amount of knowledge a layperson has about their field.
Doing basic research on the people I vote for.
Spatial awareness.
I was in gymnastics as a kid, so built up a strong sense of balance and where my arms and legs are in relation to the stuff around me.
I have a good imagination. After meeting people with aphantasia it seems I have an exceptional ability to call to mind sights, smells, sensations, sounds, and simulate the interactions they would have entirely in my mind. I can imagine a different set of curtains on the wall and tell you if it would clash with your paint, and I can taste a spoonful of a soup and go through a mental library of tastes and combine it with more salt, onion, wine etc and make a suggestion based on what “tasted” the best. I thought everyone could do it but some people don’t have a “mind’s eye” at all. Some people only can see in their imaginations, not smell or taste or hear etc.
It’s funny - I am very good at knowing what will look good, design sense is strong, and I can throw together food and know what it will taste like.
But I wouldn’t say I literally see or taste when I do this. It’s a different sort of perception.
I do absolutely see, hear, taste and feel in dreams so I know my mind CAN do it, it’s just not how I figure things out, it’s a different sort of imagining.
It apparently doesn’t have to be as realistic as hallucinating or dreaming to be exceptional though. There are tests for aphantasia that involve picturing a loved one, their face, then some common piece of clothing they wear and if you can see them clearly in your mind and describe them as if they were in front of you that is something reasonably out of the ordinary. You might be “hyperphantasic” too
Embracing the chaos.
Not everything works out, not everything goes to plan. Routines will be disrupted.My job in a nutshell. Not a bad job, per se, but I’m the kind of employee who get paid handsomely to show up at weird corners of the world to make stuff work with whatever resources I can muster. Planning ahead can only get you so far.
What about something that everyone else thinks is easy but it’s difficult for me?
Whistling. I’m fucking 35.
Reminded me of a time when my gf’s dad blamed video games for why gf and I can’t whistle.
Before every 3rd annual review I set out getting competitive wages from competitors to bring to my review for my current employer to match or else I accept the competing offer and my current employer can use my annual review as my 2 week notice.
Has worked 5 out of 5 times accross 3 different companies over my 20 year work span.
Do you go through the whole interview process or do you just reach out to competitors and ask what they’d pay for someone with your resume?
I’m really good at finding flaws in things. It’s not that I’m trying, I guess I just use things differently. A colleague of mine told me I should be a tester for product development to help find the problems when I asked him why some software worked the way it did. He just said, “I don’t do it that way.”
Consequently, I’m excellent at writing manuals because I always write them in such a way that no one will make the mistakes I did. The real bummer is I HATE WRITING MANUALS.
