I grasped how accurate all this was when I read "plausible deniability that you’re leveraging your attractiveness" because I remember Miss Manners specifying that flirting is expressing interest but in a way "from which either party can retreat at any point with honor".
A very very very easy hack I've found for making other women like (or at least diffuses dislike) you quickly is to give unprompted appearance bases compliments. Outfits and jewellery ideal. If you can't figure out what to say, just pick something you like about her outfit and say you like it.
I think it signals that you're paying attention to her (people like being seen but in the kind of stereotypically male dominated scenes that lots of us hang out in, women can often feel especially left out), and also it's something something recognition from a peer/ high status individual. I know I love compliments from girls who in my opinion are my own level of attractiveness or hotter - the signal is that she thinks of you as an equal in the attractiveness game, and that's very validating. It's especially good on something you have control over - outfits, makeup, hair - because to some extent these things are skill based. If you can pick out what seems to be the most effortful part of the outfit, compliment that. Nails are an underrated thing to compliment.
Yes, this is really insightful and correct. I'm a heterosexual nonaustistic man and this makes sense of a lot of things for me. I'll give you a couple of examples from my recent experience that illustrate this.
I recently met a very flirty woman who is doing the opposite of your ladylike strategy. She is very feminine, flirty, talks about sex, talks a lot, takes up a lot of social space. Although she's not very pretty I was immediately attracted to her and ended up talking to her quite a lot. However, I quickly decided she wasn't the right person for me to date - too chaotic (among other reasons). I thought I could still have her as a friend but the problem is she monopolises my attention too much. This is partly passive - by drawing me in - but also active - by talking a lot and taking over conversations I'm in. I also don't think she's specifically attracted to me - she just flirts with everyone - and that feels a bit manipulative. I've decided to withdraw more from her and keep her at a distance.
By contrast, someone else I met recently is utterly beautiful and I approached her for that reason. However, she quickly said she had a boyfriend (which was helpful she did that) and has never flirted with me. She dresses modestly and elegantly. Because of the way she acts I usually don't feel particularly attracted to her even though she is much more beautiful than the other woman and much more suitable for me in other ways. This makes it easier to be friends. And because she has other qualities I value, I want to keep being friends with her.
I think there is also a mirror of the strategies you laid out, but for men - by replacing "attractiveness" with "desire". For men, we can hide our desire - which is tempting because the desire seems embarrasing or risky. Or we can be really overt in our desire - which while authentic risks being creepy by forcing people to deal with our desire even when they don't want to. But better is to show desire in light, plausibly deniable ways that allow women to either engage with it or not as they please, and where it gradually escalates as she shows availability and interest, and de-escalates when she doesn't.
Your advice to learn from an older etiquette book is spot on. Some if it might seem ridiculous or dated, but the general idea of having good manners was to smooth interactions with others. There are generally two parts. There's using safe, recognizable language which helps avoid a broad variety of pitfalls when talking to someone as yet unknown, and there's showing consideration for their goals and feelings which is surprisingly rare and so appreciated. Maybe I'm an old timer, but I still call 800 numbers, and I've found that good manners can get me all sorts of good responses because I've given people a reason to want to help me.
"another aspect is that he might feel that he could never hijack attention in the same way, that he could look good but what you are doing to him is something he’s incapable of–so the easiest, most available go-to negative is resentment, which is very poisonous. "
i don't like that i do this but i've definitely noticed myself doing it. nice to see some else mention it explicitly.
I found this essay refreshing and possibly even groundbreaking in its explicitness and honesty. But there’s one big question that’s conspicuous by its absence: namely, what are the autistic woman’s GOALS? What is she trying to achieve with all these strategies? We can infer that she wants certain unspecified benefits from being perceived as sexy, and that she wants them without other women resenting her, perceiving her as a defector, or colluding against her; and also without men feeling foolish or led on. Well OK, but is she actually looking for a date, a boyfriend, a husband, whatever, or does she only want non-sexual benefits from sexiness? One might feel differently about the ethics *or* the tactical effectiveness of these strategies depending on the answer! Or maybe the refusal to specify is *itself* part of the “ladylike” strategy? :-D
This is so insightful and resonates with me a lot. I was protected from female resentment by growing up in a skewed female environment where male attention was scarce and then immediately getting into a monogamous long term relationship in college. I actually was oblivious of how attractive I was and didn’t know how much I leaned on my sex appeal to make up for my social cognition shortcomings until I was much older because being married made it very clear I wasn’t available. I thought I was just talking about cool sex facts from my research and happened to get along better with guys— both of those things were true but they also let me play social interactions on easy mode. It wasn’t until I got into what I realized was basically an emotional affair that I started to suspect the extent of how I was using sexuality as a crutch. When I later got divorced (not bc of the inappropriate relationship, btw— I ended that when I realized what was happening), I saw that my normal behavior was, from a single woman, almost universally interpreted as an invitation. As you can imagine, this was already a hard time in my life, and it was pretty devastating to realize that I wasn’t just super witty and interesting all this time. It made me much more seriously consider that i might be autistic to really how much I relied on people being nice to me because of my ditziness and flirtation (mostly while i was married!!). I was genuinely naive about what was going on (which was great for the plausible deniability) but there were many things about my previous social dynamic that should have made me suspicious and I felt all-around shitty about not seeing it and hurting people or causing them to resent me. But I’m glad I came to see the truth and I’m happy that I interact with others in a way that’s more on-the-level now and less self-deceived.
I don’t think it’s wrong to shine with your beauty and sexuality but I feel much better now that I don’t lead with that and don’t *need* to lead with that. And I wish I had been more aware of what I was doing.
You are wrong about one thing. You write "this strategy is bad for you, which isn’t true (yet)". No, that strategy is bad for you then too. You are so close, you will see it.
You're the first person ever who manages to explain this to me in a way that makes sense.
I work a job with a 10:1 male:female ratio, and I spent all of last year trying to figure out why some of the other women were horribly badmouthed while it virtually never happened to others. The differing variable wasn't promiscuity or lack thereof. The best hypothesis I eventually settled on was that the ones who got badmouthed were the ones who gave indication of being bothered by the horrible things said about them, and the unapologetic ones just never cared so people stopped bothering them.
Now, after you pointed it out, I realised that an important variable that was missing was signalled sexual availability. "Signals sexual availability but doesn't have sex"-> disdain by men, "signals sexual availability and has sex"-> disdain by women, "doesn't signal but does have sex"-> no one cares that much. Sample size relatively small, from n=1 to n=4. No 1:1 applicability for everyone due to confounding factors.
I probably didn't help that my social skills deficiency meant it took me a long time to catch on to get integrated into the gossip networks and realise who was actually behaving promiscuously and who wasn't.
Have you read the book Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent? You will probably like it. It is about learning explicit rules that most ppl absorb implicitly while growing up.
I liked this. I am a much older male who dated Aspie and autistic girls in the 1970s, though we didn't have the terminology then. I have tried to figure out why I was so easily attracted to them, but won't bore you with the answers. (Except to note that one of my sons is as well, even though he knew little about my GFs) I will note that when I transferred your suggestions to "I wish Anne/Mary/Jeanie had known this" I picked up very quickly that your observational advantage is that you notice reciprocity as an important value - whether tactically or generously - while they generally did not. I suppose your audience, if looking to you for some advice, may possess it as well or they would not be even asking the questions. Thank you and be of good cheer.
This is a strategy for lots of non-autistic people, too, to wield good looks as a source of power and a store of value. It makes me sad, especially because you say at one point that you choose this as a behavioral strategy in order to *not* have to worry whether people like you because of your looks or because you are nice. Does strategically deploying your looks to get what you want from people protect you from the possibility that people might only like you because of your looks, or that they might not find you attractive?
What would be different about your strategy if you weren’t considered attractive?
I grasped how accurate all this was when I read "plausible deniability that you’re leveraging your attractiveness" because I remember Miss Manners specifying that flirting is expressing interest but in a way "from which either party can retreat at any point with honor".
A very very very easy hack I've found for making other women like (or at least diffuses dislike) you quickly is to give unprompted appearance bases compliments. Outfits and jewellery ideal. If you can't figure out what to say, just pick something you like about her outfit and say you like it.
I think it signals that you're paying attention to her (people like being seen but in the kind of stereotypically male dominated scenes that lots of us hang out in, women can often feel especially left out), and also it's something something recognition from a peer/ high status individual. I know I love compliments from girls who in my opinion are my own level of attractiveness or hotter - the signal is that she thinks of you as an equal in the attractiveness game, and that's very validating. It's especially good on something you have control over - outfits, makeup, hair - because to some extent these things are skill based. If you can pick out what seems to be the most effortful part of the outfit, compliment that. Nails are an underrated thing to compliment.
Yes, this is really insightful and correct. I'm a heterosexual nonaustistic man and this makes sense of a lot of things for me. I'll give you a couple of examples from my recent experience that illustrate this.
I recently met a very flirty woman who is doing the opposite of your ladylike strategy. She is very feminine, flirty, talks about sex, talks a lot, takes up a lot of social space. Although she's not very pretty I was immediately attracted to her and ended up talking to her quite a lot. However, I quickly decided she wasn't the right person for me to date - too chaotic (among other reasons). I thought I could still have her as a friend but the problem is she monopolises my attention too much. This is partly passive - by drawing me in - but also active - by talking a lot and taking over conversations I'm in. I also don't think she's specifically attracted to me - she just flirts with everyone - and that feels a bit manipulative. I've decided to withdraw more from her and keep her at a distance.
By contrast, someone else I met recently is utterly beautiful and I approached her for that reason. However, she quickly said she had a boyfriend (which was helpful she did that) and has never flirted with me. She dresses modestly and elegantly. Because of the way she acts I usually don't feel particularly attracted to her even though she is much more beautiful than the other woman and much more suitable for me in other ways. This makes it easier to be friends. And because she has other qualities I value, I want to keep being friends with her.
I think there is also a mirror of the strategies you laid out, but for men - by replacing "attractiveness" with "desire". For men, we can hide our desire - which is tempting because the desire seems embarrasing or risky. Or we can be really overt in our desire - which while authentic risks being creepy by forcing people to deal with our desire even when they don't want to. But better is to show desire in light, plausibly deniable ways that allow women to either engage with it or not as they please, and where it gradually escalates as she shows availability and interest, and de-escalates when she doesn't.
Your advice to learn from an older etiquette book is spot on. Some if it might seem ridiculous or dated, but the general idea of having good manners was to smooth interactions with others. There are generally two parts. There's using safe, recognizable language which helps avoid a broad variety of pitfalls when talking to someone as yet unknown, and there's showing consideration for their goals and feelings which is surprisingly rare and so appreciated. Maybe I'm an old timer, but I still call 800 numbers, and I've found that good manners can get me all sorts of good responses because I've given people a reason to want to help me.
I'm so glad I'm far out of my twenties and don't have to think about this shit anymore.
"another aspect is that he might feel that he could never hijack attention in the same way, that he could look good but what you are doing to him is something he’s incapable of–so the easiest, most available go-to negative is resentment, which is very poisonous. "
i don't like that i do this but i've definitely noticed myself doing it. nice to see some else mention it explicitly.
I found this essay refreshing and possibly even groundbreaking in its explicitness and honesty. But there’s one big question that’s conspicuous by its absence: namely, what are the autistic woman’s GOALS? What is she trying to achieve with all these strategies? We can infer that she wants certain unspecified benefits from being perceived as sexy, and that she wants them without other women resenting her, perceiving her as a defector, or colluding against her; and also without men feeling foolish or led on. Well OK, but is she actually looking for a date, a boyfriend, a husband, whatever, or does she only want non-sexual benefits from sexiness? One might feel differently about the ethics *or* the tactical effectiveness of these strategies depending on the answer! Or maybe the refusal to specify is *itself* part of the “ladylike” strategy? :-D
Wish I could have read this when I was a teen. Wow. But now I appreciate the advice all the more
have you seen https://www.tumblr.com/naliniasha/144531756591/can-you-talk-more-about-elle-woods-being-autistic
This is so insightful and resonates with me a lot. I was protected from female resentment by growing up in a skewed female environment where male attention was scarce and then immediately getting into a monogamous long term relationship in college. I actually was oblivious of how attractive I was and didn’t know how much I leaned on my sex appeal to make up for my social cognition shortcomings until I was much older because being married made it very clear I wasn’t available. I thought I was just talking about cool sex facts from my research and happened to get along better with guys— both of those things were true but they also let me play social interactions on easy mode. It wasn’t until I got into what I realized was basically an emotional affair that I started to suspect the extent of how I was using sexuality as a crutch. When I later got divorced (not bc of the inappropriate relationship, btw— I ended that when I realized what was happening), I saw that my normal behavior was, from a single woman, almost universally interpreted as an invitation. As you can imagine, this was already a hard time in my life, and it was pretty devastating to realize that I wasn’t just super witty and interesting all this time. It made me much more seriously consider that i might be autistic to really how much I relied on people being nice to me because of my ditziness and flirtation (mostly while i was married!!). I was genuinely naive about what was going on (which was great for the plausible deniability) but there were many things about my previous social dynamic that should have made me suspicious and I felt all-around shitty about not seeing it and hurting people or causing them to resent me. But I’m glad I came to see the truth and I’m happy that I interact with others in a way that’s more on-the-level now and less self-deceived.
I don’t think it’s wrong to shine with your beauty and sexuality but I feel much better now that I don’t lead with that and don’t *need* to lead with that. And I wish I had been more aware of what I was doing.
You are wrong about one thing. You write "this strategy is bad for you, which isn’t true (yet)". No, that strategy is bad for you then too. You are so close, you will see it.
slay
You're the first person ever who manages to explain this to me in a way that makes sense.
I work a job with a 10:1 male:female ratio, and I spent all of last year trying to figure out why some of the other women were horribly badmouthed while it virtually never happened to others. The differing variable wasn't promiscuity or lack thereof. The best hypothesis I eventually settled on was that the ones who got badmouthed were the ones who gave indication of being bothered by the horrible things said about them, and the unapologetic ones just never cared so people stopped bothering them.
Now, after you pointed it out, I realised that an important variable that was missing was signalled sexual availability. "Signals sexual availability but doesn't have sex"-> disdain by men, "signals sexual availability and has sex"-> disdain by women, "doesn't signal but does have sex"-> no one cares that much. Sample size relatively small, from n=1 to n=4. No 1:1 applicability for everyone due to confounding factors.
I probably didn't help that my social skills deficiency meant it took me a long time to catch on to get integrated into the gossip networks and realise who was actually behaving promiscuously and who wasn't.
Thank you. Your post has made my life better.
One semi-alternative take, https://theredquest.wordpress.com/2023/01/13/learning-the-social-game-from-a-womans-perspective-and-what-men-can-learn-too/
Have you read the book Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent? You will probably like it. It is about learning explicit rules that most ppl absorb implicitly while growing up.
I liked this. I am a much older male who dated Aspie and autistic girls in the 1970s, though we didn't have the terminology then. I have tried to figure out why I was so easily attracted to them, but won't bore you with the answers. (Except to note that one of my sons is as well, even though he knew little about my GFs) I will note that when I transferred your suggestions to "I wish Anne/Mary/Jeanie had known this" I picked up very quickly that your observational advantage is that you notice reciprocity as an important value - whether tactically or generously - while they generally did not. I suppose your audience, if looking to you for some advice, may possess it as well or they would not be even asking the questions. Thank you and be of good cheer.
This is a strategy for lots of non-autistic people, too, to wield good looks as a source of power and a store of value. It makes me sad, especially because you say at one point that you choose this as a behavioral strategy in order to *not* have to worry whether people like you because of your looks or because you are nice. Does strategically deploying your looks to get what you want from people protect you from the possibility that people might only like you because of your looks, or that they might not find you attractive?
What would be different about your strategy if you weren’t considered attractive?