Brianna Parkins: People think I am a ‘weapon’ because I don’t always read social cues

A few months ago I found out about an online celebrity gossip website. Actually, it’s more a forum where you can write whatever heinous stuff you want about a person you have never met, whether it’s true or not.

I’m not saying I’m above gossip, I just happen to be too self-centred to really care about anything that isn’t about me. So I wasn’t really interested until a friend sent me a screenshot of the site with the message; “they’re talking about you”.

Now it was worthwhile, in part because I am very boring and unknown. What rumours were spreading about me? Was I embroiled in a sex scandal? Was I involved in an espionage ring? I knew it probably wasn’t a nude photo leak. (No one would want to see those. If I had an OnlyFans account it would be the reverse model where people would look at my page and go “you’re grand thanks” while giving me a tenner to keep my clothes on instead.) But maybe it would be something half-decent, like allegations I was running a drug cartel?

No. Instead it was that I’d been overheard giving out about dogs in the local dog park. While everyone else got sex, drugs and rock roll scandals, I got municipal issues.

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Cillian Murphy would like us all to know that’s just his face. Okay!

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And worse, they got it wrong. It’s kids who annoy me in the park, not dogs. This was defamation.

I have a photo album of Simon Coveney and Stephen Donnelly on my phone so I could tell them apart during Covid press conferences

The message started out promising, with “I’ve met her a few times, she’s a weapon of the highest order.” They said they lived near me. So, did I mug their elderly mother? Put a curse on their home? Seduce their partner?

It turns out, what I did was worse, I didn’t say hello back.

My neighbourhood, they wrote, “is quite close knit so people would say hi etc and she just never said anything back or [sic] just ignore you ... She also complained about dogs being in a dog park ha ha.”

I had two reactions. The first was to go door-to-door looking for the offender, daring them to “say it to my face ya mole” as is Australian tradition, but it was raining and I’m a coward. The second was to internally crumple inside and feel exactly like an eight-year-old again, standing in the playground trying to work out why no one wants to play with her.

It’s a feeling familiar to most neurodivergent people know, particularly late diagnosed adults, particularly women. Online, the community talks about constantly being disliked for what they perceive to be no reason. Some theorise that even high-masking individuals (those who are able and want to pretend to be neurotypical) eventually slip up on an unsaid social code somewhere, causing people to vaguely dislike them.

They say the same “uncanny valley effect” that causes us to feel weird about human looking robots also influences how neurotypical people view neurodivergent people, that there’s something about us or how we interact that’s slightly different, and it puts people off.

It took me years to figure out that friends would like a check-in text every so often, instead of thinking they would just call if they wanted help

There’s a good chance I might not have said hello to that person. I tend to wear noise-cancelling headphones outside for one, because noise is overstimulating so there’s a chance I didn’t hear them. Or I was zoning out in the line at the shop and didn’t notice. Then there’s the issue I have with facial recognition, common in people with ADHD and autism.

On at least one occasion this year I have grabbed a stranger’s bottom because I thought it was my friend – they both had long blonde hair and my friend had texted me that she was in that exact cinema queue. I have a photo album of Simon Coveney and Stephen Donnelly on my phone so I could tell them apart during Covid press conferences. It would be very embarrassing if someone found those pictures with no context.

When I have only met someone once and I see them again, especially out of context with different people or in a different place, there’s a chance I won’t recognise them unless they go “It’s X from X, we met at X, remember?” (I love these people).

If someone did say hello and I thought I didn’t know them, I would assume it was directed at the person behind me and carry on. There is nothing more mortifying than waving back to someone who wasn’t waving to you in the first place, after all.

Social codes remain a lifelong struggle. Recently I learned that most people don’t count the seconds in their head to when they should be holding eye contact, or trying to figure out what the pause is in a conversation so you can respond. It took me years to figure out that friends would like a check-in text every so often, instead of thinking they would just call if they wanted help.

I don’t mind people thinking I’m a weapon, but it stings to think some of it is down to misreading social cues. It makes me anxious thinking that some of my neurodivergent traits, things I can’t help, can make me look like a bitch to some people. I’m quite capable of doing that all on my own, thanks.