Social Hierarchy From the Eyes of an Autistic
For those of you who lack Autism, this post may seem confusing and even more so, a bit strange, perhaps even redundant. For the Neurotypical, (that’s a person who does not have Autism) some of the things outlined are likely behaviors you do at such an automatic level, that you probably have never thought about it before.
Lets start by defining what social hierarchy is. It is the concept that some people are more valuable than other and thus their time is far more valuable than others. This includes minimizing people who they view as having less social hierarchy as themselves from interacting with them.
There are certain types of people so high up on this scale, that most people will drop everything they are doing, just to get a glimpse of these people. Deep down people hope that by basking in their obvious superiority that it may rub off on them, or something to that degree. An example of this is when a celebrity shows up. I am sure just about every person who read this is guilty of acting in this way. I am sure that we are all guilty of blowing off our friends who we had promised time to, but famous people are far more important than our friends and we must bow to their every whim.
If my last statement sounded foolish, then you may be surprised to learn that this is a natural human behavior and you should not be ashamed that this is how you do behave. It is so automatic, that you are probably in denial as you read this post that you even do it. This way we behave is coded into our DNA. Its part of our evolution having to die with always seeking out good genes for reproduction and spending as much time around the people that have those genes as possible.
So you may be wondering what Autism has to do with any of this. Well it is most important to understand the statement above. People with Autism are perceived by the rest of the world as having inferior genes. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that this means that Neurotypicals do whatever they can to avoid people with Autism.
This becomes incredibly frustrating for individuals like myself who are just trying to strike up conversation, which becomes very difficult when the people we are interacting with, find just about any other person they encounter to be more worthwhile to spend time with than us.
It becomes hilarious in hindsight when I recall many “friends” guilty of this behavior who constantly drill me about how it is rude to start a new conversation in the middle of an old one, or to walk away from someone and blatantly ignore them. This rule of course only seems to apply to people with Autism. Neurotypicals have no problem doing this and don’t even feel any remorse at all for the people they have blatantly ignored. After all, the person they walked away from is no where near as important and beneficial to them as the person they are now interacting with.
If this post upsets you and the natural behavior is something you wish to change, look deep within yourself and monitor your behaviors when out in public. In doing so, you will make yourself a better person and even gain a little understanding about the struggle of a person on the spectrum who has to monitor their behaviors in public as a full time job.