Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship

Neurodiversity and Friendships

• James F. Richardson • Season 1 • Episode 110

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Episode #110: "Neurodivergent friending"

Thrilled to welcome Dr. James F. Richardson, author of Our Worst Strength: American Individualism and Its Hidden Discontents, who explains how his neurodivergent friend difficulties inspired a deeper exploration of, "how our American value of self-reliant individualism encourages us to be way too independent, undermining many relationships, including our friendships." 

Listeners will appreciate James's sense of humor, heart, and practical tips for understanding each of our friends as individuals and considering the people in our community who could use an invitation.

James, like many GenX neurodivergent people, had no diagnoses until later in adult life. He says, "In writing my recent book, I step back and connect disparate laments in public discourse (weak community, weak friendships, weak family ties, shallow approaches to fun and dating, junk food, impulse-driven diets) back to our very American, hyper-individualistic approach to life in general. We are settlers on our own personal frontiers, I like to say. We curate, personalize, and edit everything. And it's not working out too well for many of us—this unstructured, de-ritualized life of infinite opportunity and lonely stumbling. We try hard to curate our social worlds as executive editor instead of letting them build through giving and receiving our time organically. I was the worst at this in my twenties. I curated an austere, monkish life that was not good for me or anyone. Monks have far more community than I experienced! And more friends!" 

 

Meet James F. Richardson:

James F. Richardson is a Ph.D. cultural anthropologist who has studied American society for twenty years as a market research consultant. Recently, the author of a new nonfiction book – Our Worst Strength: American Individualism and Its Hidden Discontents - questions our approach to individualism as a way of life. He lives in Tucson, Arizona, where he writes a weekly Substack — Homo Imaginari — for a growing international readership.

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* All transcripts are available on the main Buzzsprout "Dear Nina" site. Click on any episode and find the transcript tab.

Let's connect over all things friendship!

[00:00:00] James: I realized I'm going to have to, this is like special ops, man. I've got to schedule it. I've got to just force it. And so I joined the swing dancing scene in Milwaukee. I just drove there twice a weekend. Swing dance is hilarious. It's a perfect place for neurodiverse people , because it's super structured. You get to touch people in approved ways, pre approved, because they're dance moves. So you get physical touch, you get rules, you get interaction. It's not dependent on what, Nina? It's not dependent on walking into an open, chaotic party zone of seven way conversations with beers in hand. 

[00:00:39] Nina: Welcome to Dear Nina: Conversations About Friendship. I am so glad to be doing today's episode because it is such an important topic. And it's one that is sort of unspoken in a lot of episodes, but it's time to actually have a full episode about it. And that is neurodiversity and friendship. It is applicable to everybody because it highlights understanding who your friends are as an individual. 

Neurodiversity is one important example of that. Really understanding how other people are processing information and maybe why, how they see the world. And listen, no one guest can speak for any particular community or label in any episode that is the case. That is certainly the case today. 

But I was really grateful to be able to speak to James Richardson, who is a Ph.D. cultural anthropologist. He has studied American society for 20 years as a market research consultant. He's the author of a newer nonfiction book called our worst strength, American individualism, and it's hidden discontents. And it questions our approach to individualism as a way of life. And that comes up in today's conversation a lot in terms of how he as a neurodiverse person has come to, learn how to operate in the world in a certain way, both socially and the business world.

He takes us through what his life was like before having any kind of label and therapy to help him navigate the social world. Just a lot of good tips from him about the way he approaches friendship, and the way people who share how he explains his diagnosis approach friendship.

Again, there's, there's, a whole variety of being neurotypical, being neurodiverse. Each category isn't one kind of person. And that's true for neurotypical as well. Those are two sort of helpful terms, neurotypical, neurodiverse, and we use them a lot in the episode.

James also writes a Substack called Homo Imaginari. James is an insightful guest with so much to share with the audience, and I am eager to share the conversation with you. Hi, James. Welcome to Dear Nina.

[00:02:50] James: Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

[00:02:52] Nina: I get an email sometimes. It might be a comment on social media. I got one just this week on YouTube and it said quote, that sounds very neurotypical. I had a clip on YouTube talking about how if somebody is in the corner on their phone, hoping to get other people's attention, hoping that people will come up to them and say, Oh, are you feeling left out?

I was thinking more of teens. And my point was like, that's actually not going to happen. They're going to say, Oh, that person is off putting that person doesn't want to hang out. And the comment I got on YouTube was that sounds very neurotypical. And then they're kind of mad at me. They're annoyed that I haven't accounted for how other people think. And that's why I was really thrilled to be able to talk to you. I think I have a lot to learn about it. So I'd love to hear more about your story and and how you describe yourself. Let's start with that.

[00:03:38] James: Well in the context of this show, I would describe myself as a high functioning, autistic, intellectual, consultant author guy. I did not discover my neurodiversity sort of as a, as a identity or as a label, I guess, to put on myself until I was 35 years old. So I bounced around in life. My twenties were pretty miserable in a way that we'll probably get into, but

[00:04:02] Nina: If you don't mind, just like in the in the order of your story. I think that's helpful. It's like what was miserable about it. What happened

[00:04:09] James: So I, if you give me any kind of school, if you give me any of the Asperger's quizzes, I'll score off the charts on an atypical intellectual, whatever. I went to graduate school right after college. Huge mistake for, for someone like me. I gave up an opportunity to enter the real world and work on social skills.

Went straight into PhD program. I mean, that was my fishbowl and I felt fine until about, you know, five months in. I realized I had no friends, no life. I had broken up with my girlfriend cause we were long distance. And I just became totally depressed. But more than that, I didn't know what to do.

Like I, I literally, I remember spending 30 minutes trying to figure out how to call this male colleague in my department just to go out for a beer. I didn't even, I just hung up. I couldn't do it. I didn't know what to say. It felt so awkward. It actually felt humiliating to have to make the call, if that makes sense. And that, and that's how the, I, I just didn't know what to say. I didn't know I thought I was confessing a disease. 

[00:05:10] Nina: Is it that like expressing the desire to want to hang out with somebody was did you not feel like that's something people had to do to hang out?

[00:05:16] James: I'd never had to do that in my life. because I'd been in school Nina, I'd been at highly structured environments and this is one reason why, like my teachers, I think, I mean, a couple of college professors, I think they didn't know how to intervene, but they noticed something was off. But they, you know, they don't, you don't stick out and when you're high, when you're a teenager, everybody's awkward. I have, I have high schoolers, you go to the high school campus, it's hilarious, they're all awkward. It's like, there's like 5 percent that look cool. so everybody's weird, I mean weird, right?

[00:05:45] Nina: So is it a little easier for you? I mean, again, you were in a more structured setting. 

[00:05:48] James: it was, but I also went to a private school, so I wasn't exposed to bullying. Bullying, if they had one zero tolerance rule, it was that. But they would kick you out of school. That just didn't happen to me. I was spared that.

And it would have, Because I say weird stuff all the time. Still. mean, when I get, I get nervous socially, I will, I lean on jokes and humor, which actually kind of has saved me at times, but also gets me in real trouble. I've gotten so much better, but in my twenties, I was not able to really anticipate, wait a minute, this person isn't going to find that funny. That's a pretty sophisticated social calculus. And I just wouldn't even do it.

[00:06:23] Nina: Would it end up offending people?

[00:06:24] James: Oh God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But see, the problem is on outside of like Boston, New York, where people are super abrasive, disproportionately, like they'll tell you that you just defended them. That's only like 10 percent of the country. Most of America is very passive aggressive. I've studied this country for 20 years.

And I don't mean that in a, in a typical condescending way. It's just true. They don't want to get an abrasive fight with people. They just smile and, you know, switch the conversation. And then you don't hear from them again. But they're not going to invite you to their party. I think the problem for me in graduate school is I had this intellectual obsessiveness, which is typical of Asperger's. Got into a program that just fed that. There's no community that says, Whoa, dude, you are so out of control. You have zero life.

I'll wrap that up with a story that I think really illustrates a lot about American culture. Which I unpack in my latest book, which is very much a personal, confession. And I use myself as kind of this, because, because I am atypical. I'm actually a pretty good guinea pig, sort of like litmus test for major cultural issues in the United States, because I don't fit in that well.

[00:07:28] Nina: Mm-Hmm.

[00:07:29] James: But I did have a professor who pulled me out, pulled me out of class as it was beginning. So there's like 20 people in the room. She says, James, I need to talk to you. We go out in the hall. So everyone's like, what's he, what'd he do? This is a grad level seminar too, not like a bunch of little kids. I go out in the hall, and I'm like, totally panicking.

Like, what the hell? And then she proceeds to confront me on the fact that I don't have any friends. And that some of them are worried about me. And I became, I just became enraged. I became defensive and angry. I said, Why are you talking about this now? and so then she backed off. And she never brought it up again. That was the only attempt at an intervention that happened the entire time I was there. But see, she was dysfunctional in her intervention, right?

This is how strong communities intervene with someone who's wandering off in a ditch. They don't psychoanalyze them. They don't tell them that they have a X, Y, Z's problem. They don't confront them with a label, You have no friends. 

You don't do that. You know that in your head. And what you do is you say, James, before I forget, because I'm starting class, before I forget, I want to, I'm having a barbecue and some people over this Saturday. I really want you to give them the solution. You don't need to talk about the problem.

[00:08:40] Nina: Do you think you would've gone in a case like that? I know it's like 

[00:08:43] James: No, because I didn't like, I didn't like that particular professor and she never would have in a million years had such a barbecue There were other people who were, had that kind of personality, but they weren't doing that. people like me. we need the rest of the world to invite us. 

[00:08:55] Nina: So what, did work? What happened between having no friends and then realizing, wait, there's this whole skill set that I could be working on. Was there a loneliness? 

[00:09:05] James: All I can describe, I mean, it's severe clinical depression is what it is. So I've been there two or three times. Not diagnosed because I kind of just, I, whatever you want to call it, stoically pushed my way through it. I do have a very strong relationship with my parents. I don't know what I would have done if I, if I didn't have that.

[00:09:21] Nina: And do you have siblings?

[00:09:22] James: I do, but I wouldn't say it's the strongest relationship. We like each other, but it's just not very, it's very Anglo Saxon. I didn't have a lot of resources other than the parents, but you know, and I talk about this in my book, we're not, you know, especially Gen X and boomers. We were handed all the social autonomy, but we actually inherited a whole bunch of really older ideas about don't get people involved in your, that come from like strong family based societies where the family's there as your primary resource.

Don't get other strangers involved in your problems. You have to keep things to yourself, be private, right? None of this is functional in a world where family's not there, and all you have are your friends. So if you have none, what pray tell do you have?

[00:10:01] Nina: Yeah.

[00:10:01] James: And that's exactly the ditch that I had walked into, because whatever social awkwardness people thought I had, they didn't think it was problematic, or they would have said something. And that, that's a problem with a lot of folks on, who are on the higher functioning end of the spectrum, is that they don't. I've had colleagues who just, their solution was basically to join the drug scene, because it's an instant community,

[00:10:23] Nina: Mm hmm.

[00:10:24] James: and the ritual is obtaining and using, it's just a distraction, right?

[00:10:28] Nina: Right. And like a way to kind of put on a different personality, perhaps, even while you're under the influence. 

[00:10:34] James: I just couldn't relate to that. I didn't want to do that. It scared me. So I had nothing really. Luckily I didn't drink. So that could have been bad.

I mean, I'm an extreme case, but there's a lot of people who get lost and socially disconnected. And this society actually does, I mean, there really isn't some scanning device out there. People don't come up to the weirdo, quote unquote. They actually are afraid of them. When I went and lived in India, Nina, I went there to do research.

I didn't go there because I, I don't know, had some Indian relative or my dad was a colonialist or something. There was some interesting backstory. There's not. So I didn't even know what I was walking into, really. And that was part of the adventure, was what's going to happen.

[00:11:13] Nina: How old were you just for context? 

[00:11:15] James: The first time I went, I was 23, and then I went back two years later for the language training, and that was like two and a half years. So I was in my late 20s that time and it ended up becoming a really healing process for me without even intending it. Healing in the sense that I encountered a society that refused to leave people alone.

[00:11:35] Nina: That's fascinating and so part of your work. 

[00:11:38] James: That sounds really creepy to Americans.

[00:11:41] Nina: No, I understand. They're more like more community based. 

[00:11:45] James: So yeah and this is true in, in urban India to this day, if you go down, you know, if you arrive in some neighborhood, you will be processed on the street within seconds. And most likely someone will come up and ask you, who are you, what are you doing here? And it might even be kind of in an irritated tone of voice.

Because they're trying to process the stranger. But what's funny is if you say the right things, da da da da, like, Oh, well, I know Mr., blah blah, Subramanian, he lives down here. Suddenly, they're like, ear to ear smile, Oh, can I buy you coffee? Like, I don't even remember the guy's name I just met.

And he's already buying me coffee, because I just said I know this guy. The first thing he said, he looked like he was going to kill me. But I had never been like in a society, which is just the drawing you in. I had a few families I was very close with during that time. In Tamil culture, there's a lot of fictive kinship behavior with friends and strangers, right? If you develop a long term relationship, it could be through any kind of axis.

It could be business, could be just help, could be whatever, some community association, whatever it is, doesn't matter. People will start to treat you like their son. Their daughter. I was on a pilgrimage with this one family, in part for research, but also because they'd invited me.

 On the train ride, the mom had made all this food. These people had no money. I mean, they lived in like a one room house. she'd made all this food for the journey. Because you got to feed people, you got to take care of your peeps. It's like 10 hours on the train.

She takes, starts taking the food out and feeding her kids. And in Tamil culture, unless you're pretty highly educated, you feed your children with your hand. Almost ritualistically, even if they're adults, it's sort of like hugging, So you give them the first bite with your hand.

And she then proceeded to do that with me. And I, of course, freaked out because I'm a white dude and I offended her and oh dear. Anyway, we got over it, but that's, a society that believes in community and bonding and is far less concerned with, how perfectly normal you are. And that's a real American problem.

Every society has norms. That's not the issue, but we're a perfectionist, aspirational. For me, it was healing because I realized, Oh, I don't have to live the way I was raised. I can actually change a whole bunch of things. You know, because I think when I was in graduate school, sort of depressed and by myself and just reading books, and by the way, I did well in grad school.

I just didn't have a life. I realized I could do things. So I came back from India, I actually, I had a very intentional, I architected my social life because I realized I have to. In America, I am going to have to literally turn my social life into a like a special ops mission.

[00:14:05] Nina: I love that though. And like, you're going to have so much to share. 

[00:14:09] James: Well, it has to be that intentional, right? You can't just sit back because you will just waste away and they'll collect your body.

[00:14:15] Nina: That clip I was describing at the beginning when I said that the commenter was irritated at me for basically saying that you can't expect, people to come up to you and you're like sitting in the corner on your phone. And the comment to me was like, Oh, you sound so neurotypical.

I mean, well, first of all, I am okay. So I, I'm, I can't totally apologize for that, but I would like to I'm not going to be the resource for, every single person at all and how to handle friendship, but I would hope that this episode, at least I can point people towards if they or their kids, are the people sitting in the corner with their phone. What You know, what can we do to help them?

And I think starting with just understanding, of course, that not everybody is the same, not every processes the same, not everybody does friendship the same. But I, what I feel like I hear you saying, and I, I hope, and maybe it's just, I'm hoping this is what you're saying, cause it is why I do my whole podcast is that friendship is important. And I end every episode saying when our friendships are going well, we are happier all around. I firmly believe that no matter how your brain works. I do think that if you are very lonely, it's a problem.

[00:15:22] James: It is and I think I just lived an extreme case of this because as a young adult I just did not know how to go and make a friend. And I think, you know, it is harder for all adults I think in today's society in the U S. Most people have the basic sort of social chit chat, cheat sheet sort of burned into their brain and I don't. I have to have a highly transactional reason to begin a friendship still. Like, what can I do for you? that's, what's weird is cause that's how Indian friendships start. It's

[00:15:50] Nina: with like that transactional 

[00:15:52] James: Yep. That's how it starts. And then it keeps going. And then suddenly, you know, 10 years later, you're like, you're fused at the hip and they'll do anything for you.

[00:15:58] Nina: So what would be an example of some of those transactions that would work? Or maybe we're skipping too far ahead. 

[00:16:03] James: well, the problem in America, Nina, is that we don't do anything for our friends. Friends are, they're for their form of entertainment. We go and hang out with them and tell stories. Now that can get really fun. That's why we keep doing it. But that's not doing for people and then reciprocating.

When I did interviews with older Americans, boomers, they're the last generation alive that actually had parents and grandparents who lived a highly reciprocal transactional definition of friendship because there was no service sector for the home. There was no technology. There were very few appliances. When you wanted to renovate your house, you did it with your male friends. I am not making this up. That's what everyone did. You didn't go to Home Depot and do it by yourself.

[00:16:45] Nina: And watch a YouTube video 

[00:16:47] James: no, you did it with your friends.

[00:16:48] Nina: Yes. I can see that. 

[00:16:50] James: And if you were like me, if you had no skills, you would have to find the friends with the skills. And you could do their taxes, whatever the exchange was, right? People just do this all the time in this country. But we don't do anything.

The friends are, oh, well, let's go to Applebee's. Complain about our, whatever, It's entertainment. It's storytelling. I don't know what it is. Now sometimes those friends were formed long ago. Sometimes they're new. I just found having lived in India, these, there's kind of shallow.

And that was one of my problems is that I don't do shallow. defining Aspie trait is if it's not obsessively intense, don't call me, don't bother. 

[00:17:27] Nina: Define Aspie for my listeners who maybe have never heard that term. 

[00:17:31] James: Asperger's high functioning autism. So we tend to want to do things super intensely and come off as really intense. And I've learned as an adult to mask with this sort of goofy smile you've been noticing, but that's not actually how I function if you were here with a camera.

[00:17:46] Nina: I've heard the term mask before, but let's define it. I just think it's important . What does that mean? 

[00:17:51] James: Masking means that you are trying to, with your face primarily, your body language, trying to act, neurotypical. So for example I'm focused very intently. I'm looking at the screen. I'm looking at myself. Make sure I'm smiling enough. None of this. I used to do. I used to just have the Aspie blank face walk around and then I just didn't care what you thought about. You know, it's not that I couldn't smile is that I rarely did. Yeah. But Americans especially it's got to be, we have to have a, if we exchange anything, it's little smiles, conversational smiles, right? And I just didn't do it. And so I've learned to just, like, I'm doing it right now.

Like, this is not a real emotion. I'm just trying to, I'm trying to address a thorny topic. And I will smile now just to make that more palatable, right? Other masking things are just forcing yourself not to light in with criticism, even though that's really what you're just, you're trying to communicate, but sort of backpedaling your way into, which is normal behavior here in America.

Not everywhere. I had to learn how to do that as an adult. And, you know, I think the business world was where I really fell on my face. Communication style is super political, super calculated, almost conniving. I'm not good at that. I just want to barf it out. 

[00:19:06] Nina: There's a saying, and I think it's pretty true, whether we like it or not, that, you know, all things being equal, we tend to do business with people we like. I mean, that's just how it is.

[00:19:14] James: And the problem is I'm inclined not to like a lot of people with my condition. Neurotypical behavior drives me crazy because it comes off as dishonest to someone like me. In America it can be very hard to know where you stand with people because there's not a lot of incentive to actually be clear about that.

[00:19:31] James: In fact, there's incentive not to be clear because the more weak ties you have, the more you can game them, you know, for job opportunity or vacation invite. It's a very gamified world we live in, but the game doesn't have a lot of rules. It's almost like a non stop improv, which to me is terrifying.

[00:19:47] Nina: So it seems like you made the choice to sort of accept that this is how the world works, right? Like you have to kind of act a certain way in it to maybe get by, get ahead and work make friends. You've accepted that friendship is important. And did you desire that kind of connection?

[00:20:03] James: don't know that I can maintain a lot of intense relationships at all at one time. So, for my own sanity, I focused on making that my wife. Marrying my best friend was my biggest achievement.

[00:20:13] Nina: That makes a lot of sense. You live with that person. So there you go.

[00:20:17] James: It just took forever to meet somebody and someone I could trust enough that I could form a long term relationship with. So that was a long journey, but once it happened, that became kind of my focus. I'm not the kind of person who's going to need a lot of friends, but I do need some.

I mean, you need somebody, to sort of talk yourself into being outside your house. And so I value that. And I've gotten better with the chit chat as I've gotten older too. and I think once you get middle aged, everybody gets a lot more confident in general.

Because their identities are more secure. The challenge for we folks in our 20s is that , America gives us all this autonomy, but it's asking us to drive the train for some of the most really bizarre, fluid, chaotic, unstructured, aspects of life such as dating, If that's how you're going to find a life partner, this is a nightmare for aspie people. when I was, You know, I got rejected in high school and literally couldn't even contemplate dating for five years. I mean, I was that devastated. You know, there should have been an intervention,

[00:21:13] Nina: I mean, you have teenagers now too, did you say? Do you find, I mean, it must be compared to, you know, when you were in high school, but if things were the way they are now, like, would you have been identified way back in elementary school, do you think? Is that when some of those tendencies, 

[00:21:27] James: yeah. And back then, you were the nerd. 

The geek. That was the label. It was stigmatic, for the most part. And, you know, I don't know a lot of people who wore that as a badge of pride. It wasn't helpful. Because it was, it was the neurotypical world sort of just putting a little, shh, shh, let's put you in a box. But it wasn't a box that was meant to actually help you. They didn't care, the point was they don't care.

[00:21:51] Nina: I think the world is much more open now and there's a lot of labeling and I don't know, how do you feel about that?

[00:21:57] James: I grow a little concerned. I mean, I think it's great that people are discovering these neurological issues early, because I think only if they're going to get, intervention. My son has Asperger's as well, but, you know, we were able to get that identified at the age of 10.

And so he's been working, he has, you know, resources. He's been given that. He's so much more self aware about his behavior patterns than I was. We can have a conversation like, look, these are your patterns. Understand that this is how the world's going to react to you so that you're prepared for that reaction and you can then handle and handle yourself.

You know, because, we rant, we go on monologues, have a hard time. having volleying conversations. It's just how we are. And that really offends people.

[00:22:39] Nina: What you said is so important this part of it, I'm backing up for a second, teaching your son and learning for yourself. And this idea that we may not like that things are the way they are. But learning what your patterns are and then accepting that the world's gonna react in some way. We can have a judgment like it is I think it's okay to have a judgment of like the world shouldn't react this way or it's so frustrating at the world reacts this way, but accepting that it does and therefore what are you gonna do about it? It doesn't mean you have to fit into every single aspect 

[00:23:08] Nina: just knowing. Mm 

[00:23:10] James: I think it's much better to have that truth. And then you can, maturely come to some kind of, You can develop your own habits and routines to adapt to that. I mean, I, I work for myself now and I've done that since 2017. And I, and I didn't get diagnosed until I was 35. There was a lot of crisis going on with babies and thought I was going to get fired cause I was pissing off clients, because of my communication style, my non empathetic communication style. I think I remember saying to my boss once, I don't understand, why it is our job to manage their emotions. 

[00:23:44] Nina: That's a that's a fair point 

[00:23:46] James: It's a classic, autistic sort of statement, and I think he was kind of like, oh dear god. I don't understand. This poor kid, 

[00:23:53] Nina: Yeah, 

[00:23:54] James: he didn't want to do it either. Right. As the owner. Nobody wants to deal with needy clients, nobody, but neurotypical people are pretty good at it. 

[00:24:01] Nina: you know I wonder if 

[00:24:03] James: I'm not. 

[00:24:04] Nina: I wonder how neurotypical people become good at it. And it's probably through some failure as well, by the way. I, it's not like, right. It's not like being neurotypical means you never offend anybody or say the wrong thing 

[00:24:17] James: yeah. I think that the challenge, what I've learned is that I need to architect my life. I need to take the power of autonomy that the U S society has given me, and I need to actually take control. Okay.

[00:24:29] Nina: that because we, you know, let's, that's what I, I'm think we can really help you, not really we, but you can really help other people with. So what are some of those things that has helped you maintain some connections and friendships? I know you don't need a lot, you said 

[00:24:44] James: Right. 

[00:24:44] Nina: ones you have. 

[00:24:45] James: So I try to make sure that I'm doing something for them. Like I have my best friend here in Tucson teaches at the university. I come in and guest lecture. It's not a lot of my time or I'll just come in and be on a panel. It doesn't take a lot of time, but I feel like I'm helping him you know, check off things. This is what India taught me, is like that is, and the business world taught it to me as well, because this is so perverse. The business world is where on it, we're actually, we're the deepest friendship reciprocity cycle.

It's retreated there. Because capitalism is basically said, well, you want to, yeah, reciprocity, a little back rubbing. Yeah, because there's moolah there. Some cash opportunity might open up. So that ancient form of friendship, it's retreated there. But then when we go and try to be with our friends, what if we just sit there, what if we go to Applebee's and have a cocktail?

I mean, it just, I guess it's fun, but it's like, there's nothing happening there. There's no doing. Oh,

[00:25:44] Nina: here going on in this conversation. Cause when I, when I think about sitting around, I'm just going to tell you, honestly, when I think about sitting around with my friends, it depends on which friends, but we could be having really deep conversations where we're processing, issues we're having in our life. Now that might be slightly more of a female oriented,

[00:26:04] James: So yes, the research support, 

the research supports you. but I still think American women are, trained and because we train ourselves in high school and college to form friendships around partying. It's just that the parting gets really tame. It becomes two beers and Applebee's. But 

[00:26:19] Nina: yeah. 

[00:26:20] James: mean, it's

[00:26:21] Nina: Okay. That's interesting. So it starts out as partying, like, you know, maybe when it doesn't start, but it gets to that high school, college, and then you're saying this is just sort of a tamer version 

[00:26:30] James: , think about it. Just be the anthropologist and look at it. And that's what I see. Because if you go to societies where you actually need strangers, non family members to get things done, you have real deep friendships. Because you are doing really important work for them. And that's how most humans have lived in urban civilizations. We can buy everything. There's no labor that can't be bought.

So our friends have been reduced to amateur therapists and party companions. And you're right, men are really bad because they won't even go to the therapy side. Now I, I'm a recipient of therapy. You know, I found anybody on the spectrum who's on the high functioning end I think that it's mandatory that they have a relationship with somebody. And that they process how to mask what their issues are. I just don't want anybody to go through the 20s just stumbling around 

[00:27:19] Nina: So you feel like therapy can really help. 

[00:27:21] James: Yeah, I mean, here's my breakthrough insight after two years. It took two years for this guy to Because I don't build rapport easily, you can imagine. So, two years of weekly meetings and he finally had the opportunity to basically do what a good therapist does once they know a person is assemble their bullshit in a little pile and then shove it right in their face. And it doesn't matter if you're Aspie or not. This is what good therapists do. 

He's like, James, you keep talking every week as if, there's no such thing as a really intelligent person, high achieving person who has fantastic social skills. I know at least three people in my social network right here in Seattle. Thank you. So what are you, when are you going to stop pretending it's not possible and just go for it?

I mean, do you want to have the skills or not? Or do you want to keep complaining? No, that's unrealistic. And I needed someone to say that when I was 22. 

[00:28:14] Nina: Tell me more about building the, you said you, you had a very exact kind of way after that, basically, on programming. I think you used the word programming your social life?

[00:28:24] James: Architecting it. Yeah. I just, I can't, I came back from India and I was, I kind of, India is a society that you just accumulate friends. I'm the test that you don't have to do anything. I don't wake up saying, God, more friends, bring it on. So, but I, everybody needs kind of relationship in their life. It's your connection to the public. To the commons, to the publics, to society. we all need it. I came back and I realized I'm going to have to, this is like special ops, man. I've got to schedule it. I've got to just force it. And so I joined the swing dancing scene in Milwaukee. I just drove there twice a weekend.

Swing dance is hilarious. It's a perfect place for neurodiverse people and especially Aspie people, because it's super structured. You get to touch people in approved ways, pre approved, because they're dance moves. So you get physical touch, you get rules, you get interaction. It's not dependent on what, Nina? It's not dependent on walking into an open, chaotic party zone of seven way conversations with beers in hand ha ha 

[00:29:27] Nina: brilliant. You're right. And there's, there's probably hardly any talking at all. Like it's like the music's on. That's so smart. I just, listen, I got to tell you, cause you, you sent me some notes ahead of time and some of your advice on there, I think is helpful for all people. And to like, remember that everyone's an individual, we are all different. The overall concept is to assume that everybody approaches friendship, the same way is to get yourself into trouble. Did you say twice a week? 

[00:29:53] James: I didn't really do, I did some lessons, but I would, we would just go This is what's funny. We would go to these bars they just have a DJ doing swing. It might seem unstructured to the novice, but actually the dance form is very structured. It was the kind of partying that I enjoy.

[00:30:08] Nina: Yeah, right 

[00:30:09] James: Not having, not having seven way conversations where I can't follow. I don't know what to say. I'm interrupting people all the time. And then I make a rude joke. I didn't I mean, that was my experience with parties. I was the clown. 

[00:30:21] Nina: and then 

[00:30:22] James: What's that? 

[00:30:23] Nina: sports 

[00:30:24] James: so I and my wife too gravitate to pretty intense outdoor activities. That's how we, kind of met and bonded initially. She was a rock climber, I was a mountain biker. And those are extremely time intensive. They require enormous amounts of mental focus. And again, there's no chit chat. 

So it was just like, it's all doing. Not chitty chatting. I've always made fun of American culture, when we quote hang out with her friends, like I said, since it's, it's got this storytelling, entertaining storytelling focus, cause it's just so talky talky talky. And I can do that, but I do it like a monologue. Well, that doesn't work, right? That nobody wants to sit at Applebee's and listen to me lecture.

[00:31:04] Nina: That's true. Monologues can be, can be tough to listen to. Do you, does your wife consider herself neurotypical? 

[00:31:11] James: No, I think she's probably on the spectrum too, but she's better at masking and a lot of women are because they're penalized by their mothers from an early age like mother mothers are all over whim of girls who aren't being neurotypically social, right? And men have been given a pass until recently. I noticed they're being much tougher on kids in school, on boys in schools and everything else. I don't know if that's good or bad, but I think it's part of the trend. I think that's how I was raised. It was very much a gender divergence as to who got, you know, I could be more rude and inappropriate than a female.

I didn't have any sisters, so I didn't get to see that. 

[00:31:47] Nina: there's a tension here in this conversation. I mean, not just our conversation and all conversations about neurodiversity because on one hand, you don't want to make a person be someone they're not like, right? Like I, I'd hate to advocate that a person should totally change. But on the other hand, if I truly believe, and I do that we are happier in general when we have connections and our friendships are healthy, there is probably some change in behavior that has to get, I, People need to be identified in order to get help. And this idea that , everyone should just be who they are and never have to adapt is nice, but it's dangerous because it’s not realistic. 

[00:32:23] James: The worst outcome of our hyper individual society is to come to that conclusion. And I was there in my head in my twenties. Cause my defensive reaction to not fitting in was, you know, screw you all, I do my own thing.

It's America, baby free country. I mean, so see some of that out there? Like I see. 

[00:32:37] Nina: Cause I do see that pushback. That's the pushback I'm getting when people yell at me on social media. People do yell at me. They're like, Oh, that's so neurotypical. And I, I feel bad cause I don't want to insult anybody. But on the other hand, I also throw out my hands a little bit.

 Everything I talk about is not going to be able 

[00:32:52] James: Well, the problem, the problem Nina, is that our individualist sort of approach to social life has gotten so , so extreme, that we have lost the ability to intervene with people like me in a functional manner. I talked to you about the professor who tried to intervene, but it was so, it was so aggressive and dysfunctional and judgey. It was just judgment. She had no solution. Like, it's like, obviously somebody has no friends, has a part, I can't make them. The solution is , insert them into a social world. Why couldn't she have figured that out? Because we've become incompetent at doing this. Then I go to India and people are like, people knew I was weird there too, but they didn't care.

[00:33:29] Nina: And they would invite you to things,

[00:33:31] James: Yeah, no, it was weird. I'm like, why they tolerate me more here in this country? It's because the priority is on the group. And they would tell me if I was doing something stupid or offensive, 

they would just be very direct. The group would correct. That's what I wanted to share, I think, with your audience, is like, when you meet people like me, don't let a citizen sit off in the corner. Invite us in. We'll let you know if we're overwhelmed and need to be by ourselves. We'll tell you. But often we just don't know what to do. 

[00:34:00] Nina: what might be something someone could say, I want more specific, 

[00:34:04] James: Invite them to a party, invite them to a thing. And what's, what could be, I mean, if they come to your party and they're weird, I mean, what's, what's the end of this?

Is it really the end of the world? First of 30 other people that it's not the end of the world. Don't overreact. This is the problem I actually had at my old workplace and I had to leave. It wasn't the only reason I had to leave. It was a big reason. People could not, they just couldn't interpret my bluntness or whatever as anything but a vicious attack on them.

[00:34:27] James: They just couldn't. Now that had to do with really bad leadership at the company, So when everyone's afraid. Threw in an Aspie guy, and it's like, I might as well be shooting a machine gun. So the context had a lot to do with that. I couldn't understand why you're just like I am who I am. It's like, why is this so difficult to accept? It's not like I'm verbally harassing people, right? But we've got we've got a society now where we're having a lot of lifestyle fragmentation, a lot of debates over what's right, what's wrong, and it's a classic sign of rapid social change. Basically there isn't a lot of cohesion, we are having active debates. What is civil, what is not civil, all this stuff. And so when we're in this moment, folks like us get just, we just get spat out because it's just the center can't even agree.

You know. So I think including people is the first thing you can do. The other thing is you got to tell people like me and people do, you know, but not enough. Like, hey, whoa. enough with the lecture, Mr. Professor. I mean, there's lots of humorous ways to do this based on who the person

[00:35:21] Nina: This is advice I really could use, like, how do, like, me personally, how do you get somebody who is monopolizing the whole conversation to not. I can do that. I mean, you can imagine as someone who hosts a podcast, I can find myself and I can hear myself doing it. And so I will self regulate, but then it makes me frustrated when I'm with someone who doesn't self regulate.

And I know that's maybe not fair to me, but I'll be like, Hey, I stopped. I have three more stories I'd love to tell, but I stopped myself. 

[00:35:50] James: I think we've lost the art of, non sequiturs.

[00:35:53] Nina: What's a nice way to interrupt somebody? And I'm not saying neurotypical or not neurotypical. I mean, I'm just anybody. What is a nice way to interrupt? And we maybe don't have the answer. We can brainstorm for a second. What is a nice way to tell somebody okay, we already told that story or we've been talking about this topic for a long time. You know, it's hard. 

[00:36:10] James: I think sometimes we have to be subtler than that, so just finding artful ways to transition the topic and and I think, yeah, what you don't want to do in a group situation with someone like me, like, put a big spotlight. You're getting weird out.

Please stop being so awful. But pull us aside if we said something inappropriate. I mean, sometimes I'm usually pretty self aware now because I'm 52. I can catch myself more than half the time or I'll know right afterward. So I think have a discussion with that person privately, I think that's fine. I'm used to being corrected at this point. Does that make sense? there's nothing wrong with that. Also, you know, a lot of us have tonal problems. The tone of our voice is not actually the emotion we're trying to convey, and 

[00:36:52] Nina: hmm. 

[00:36:53] James: of problems.

[00:36:54] Nina: Do you find text easier or harder for that reason? 

[00:36:57] James: Oh, like email has been great for me.Because there's tonal ambiguity, so I can ride 

[00:37:02] Nina: Right. Well, I would, that's what made me ask that because I think that's an issue for everyone is tone. When I'm helping my kids, right? Like if my kids are upset about a text or, or I'll often tell them don't text because people don't know what your tone is. The text maybe sounds angrier than their voice would sound. But what you're telling me is, in your case, perhaps, your voice will sound angrier than the email or the text might sound. 

[00:37:25] James: Yeah, yeah, 

[00:37:26] Nina: might be warmer. 

[00:37:27] James: I don't spend a lot of time, unless it's a business communication, even processing any of that, looking for the tone that I missed. My brain is looking for literal communication.

[00:37:36] Nina: So I think there's a lot that the neurotypical could learn from everything you're saying, because I get a lot of anonymous letters from people who really struggled to make plans and make friends and they don't describe themselves as neurodivergent and I don't know if they are or not, but either way it can be older we get to an earlier point you made, it just gets harder. No matter what your background is socially. So like what I'm hearing is doing favors for people

Is a huge thing. And accepting a favor, you know, sometimes people offer to help and we're very with all the individualism and everything we're very like, no, I got it. I got it. I. Maybe accepting help also is big making Structured plans, joining a class, which I often recommend by the way, always is put it on the schedule, show up regularly. And even if you don't make friends in those experiences, it's at least getting out of the house. You're not making friends sitting in your house. You're just not. At least do an activity you enjoy. If nothing else, you, you've done an activity you enjoy. 

Is there any final, you know, we got to wrap it up. So there's any, final thoughts, something that you want to leave my listeners with? 

[00:38:37] James: I think this is more for the younger people listening is that don't assume that everybody under the age of 25 is super excited to party that the first thing they want to do is be invited to some large group free for all. You know, because I was never that way. I always preferred one, one on one or one on two.

So sometimes you might have to offer different structure to specific friends. Like, you hang out with them in a different way. Don't make the extroverted pharmaceutical sales rep assumption.

[00:39:02] Nina: That's right. We have different friends for different reasons. . . Yeah. James, thank you so much for talking to me about this because like I said, it is something I've become extra sensitive to knowing that each of my episodes is not speaking to everybody and there's no way for it to, but I would love my shows as a whole to have something to offer somebody. And you're such a great resource. And I'm so interested in the work you've been doing. I will have your Substack, your book, everything in the show notes. 

[00:39:30] James: Thanks for having me on the show, Nina. It was fun.

[00:39:32] Nina: Thank you. And I'm going to say it now. Cause I say it every time when our friendships are going well, we are happier all around. So come back next week, everybody. 

 

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Nina Badzin

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