The Poor Autist and Social Currency
When offered a compliment as a child, I either thought of the compliment as “true” or as “false.” If it was true, I would say, “Yes, that’s true.” If it was false, I would say, “No, that’s not true.” Language was about information to me then, and I couldn’t understand compliments as a social nicety, though my father pestered me to say, “thank you” when someone said something nice. It was hard to figure out when it was nice and when it was a sarcastic compliment (“Nice hair!” “Nice job!” “Nice paper!” can all mean either what they seem to mean or the opposite).
As an adult, I’m warier around compliments than I was a child, precisely because I understand now that they are part of a world of social currency that I am poor in and that I only vaguely participate in. When people offer a compliment to me, I can see now that they think that this is a gift. If someone says to me, “You’re beautiful,” I have come to accept that this has a value in social currency and that, like the fae, I am now in this person’s debt and “owe” them some kind of return gift. People more adept than me at this kind of thing will easily return the gift in kind by offering a similar compliment. I am more likely to reject the compliment as I might reject a gift I didn’t want and think should be returned to the store for a refund.
In fact, social currency is paid back and forth in the social world around me all the time and it has taken me close to fifty years to see it more clearly, though perhaps if you are neurotypical, you will insist that it isn’t at all like it seems to me, that you’re just being “nice” to each other and aren’t trying to build yourself a social 401k or investing in social stock of whoever it is who seems the best investment at the moment, funds you will withdraw from a failing company as soon as you sense that the social current has turned and the investment is now a bad one. Then, neurotypical people will often insist that they never invested in that failing stock and that they “always knew” that it was a “bad idea,” even though of course they did not.
When I became depressed for the first time a couple of decades ago, I felt like I had a sudden glimpse into the darker side of this social currency. If someone called and asked me to do a simple favor for them that I had no energy to do, I found that I couldn’t simply say, “No.” I had to find a way to make them accept my “no” or they would keep asking. They wanted me to give them energy or be nice to them, and I was furious that I was being forced to pay some kind of toll just because I had answered the phone. You may not be surprised to discover that I stopped answering the phone at this time. I also stopped listening politely to phone salesman and simply hung up because I didn’t have any of that currency left, and it seemed to be more difficult for me to get more of it than others. Depression meant that I was extremely poor in social currency.
Those who are socialized as women are expected to be born with more social currency somehow, as if it is attached to the eggs that we are born with. As we age, perhaps we are given permission to be less pleasant, but that only hits above seventy, and I’m not there yet. If I say no, I’m expected to “be nice” about it and “think about their feelings” even if someone has treated me rudely. I’m also expected to walk around with a smile on my face, with makeup on, my hair done, and wearing clothes that I have to constantly replace every season as fashion changes. This is what is called the “women’s tax,” but as an autist, it feels doubly difficult.
I have no interest in building castles of wealth made up of other people’s good opinions of me. Perhaps the most autistic thing about me is that I only care about my own opinion of myself.