Controlled Spontaneity and Demand Avoidance

Years ago, I was told the stereotype, apparently common in the Philadelphia area, of the Main Line mother who brought her teenage daughter into Wanamaker's to buy a winter coat.  As she dropped her off at Outerwear she told the clerk "All Wool. Navy Blue. Mid-length.  Beyond that, whatever she likes."

There might be a hymn sing at your church where the congregants will get to call out what they want. "From the Blue Hymnal, right?  Not the Silver Hymnal?" There is a pause, almost a shudder. "Right. Not the Silver Hymnal."

The comedian Sarah Millican has a bit about sexual romance where she says "You can do anything that you like." ( At 6:08 if the link doesn't bring you there.)

WE are a people who go to book discussion groups at the library for the broadening effect of getting to hear from people different from us. Then six months later we stop going because they don't choose the sort of books we like. 

It is the principle behind Montessori Schools. We reassure children "You can choose any work you like," gesturing to the whole room.  But everything on the shelves is educational, and usually in some developmental way. Basically, we are tricking them.  I wonder if autistic children do better in such environments, where you avoid telling them what to do, so that you do not activate their Demand Avoidance

Yes, this is part of the autism series.  You were wondering whether I would ever get back to that plan, weren't you?  I am still wondering myself. Autistic people hate interruptions more than most. They get very attached to their plans, both daily and long-term. Many have Demand Avoidance. This raises the pathology and degree question again.  None of us likes being told to do something, especially if it is an interruption, but not all of us have even a hint of autism. There is an escape into calling it Pathological Demand Avoidance, but I am not impressed. That seems to be arguing in a circle. As in Fielding's Tom Jones: "Pains in the left side are merely vapors and signify nothing." "But doctor, these pains are on the right side." "Ah, those are what we call 'right side vapors.' They signify even less!" (At the link you will also see this compared to Intolerance of Uncertainty. Well, none of us likes uncertainty that much.  But some tolerate it pretty well, while others have a much harder time with it, and will go to great lengths to evade such situations, sometimes causing themselves more trouble than any outcome the question at hand would bring them.) Because even if you are absolutely correct, it's hard to palm yourself off as a pal once you've said that. 

Yet people who show many signs of autism consider themselves to be spontaneous, carefree people, and could put evidence before you that this is so. They have visited Cuba! They have tried octopus! In my case I talk to strangers, and many of them.

When people go places with me they notice - they cannot help but notice - that I talk to many people spontaneously: shopkeepers, other Rail Trail walkers, people waiting for buses. Yet I see myself as a person who avoids many gatherings because it just seems oppressive to have that many people around me. The trick is to notice that my spontaneity is highly curated. I go to places where I am very likely to like the people there, or I at least have a solid idea what to expect.  Seafarer's Mission has strangers from all over the world coming in.  I'm fine with that. Other gatherings in Boston excite me much less.

My wife and I celebrate the 50th anniversary of our first sort-of date, at college, where we walked together late in the evening and were immediately impressed with how much more we had in common and were aligned in our plans than others we had been seeing. The next fifty years has only built on that commonality. We are both a bit Aspie, getting an idea in our heads and finding it hard to give up. When I have suggested travel she smiles and says "Take me anywhere," because she knows that the places I would choose to take her are places she would also like to go. In fact, she has a separate list of places where she would like to go but I would be unlikely to suggest.  Mostly places where you can get a sunburn. Except when I suggest places she usually vetoes them, or puts them far enough down her mental list it is unlikely we will ever get there. This has been true of restaurants, who to visit, Christmas presents.  I don't say this to note how dysfunctional we are, only to point out that lack of spontaneity may go in disguise.  We may not be able to diagnose even ourselves on that scale. 

Some of us like things to be nice and predictable, but we hate being told what to do.  Is it the interruption we don't like, or the novelty, or the implied status downgrade, or some fourth thing? 

Thus so many attempts to understand ourselves and others go awry. Our best strategy is not to go by intuition, but first to want "none" of the answers to be true. So many diagnoses are in aggregate only.

We will come back to this.  It was mostly just a fun setup for future discussion.