this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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Autism

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Help on how to interact with my brother. (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 year ago by throwmeaway42068@sh.itjust.works to c/autism@lemmy.world
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I have a little brother that is on the spectrum and he is obsessed with meme culture and memes to the point that he cares about nothing else. He can't talk about anything else and always tries to say memes without context and understanding hoping to make us laugh. I would not have a problem with this unless it was not the only thing that came out of his mouth. I am worried about his future. He won't be able to live with just memes. He maybe sometimes plays minecraft and that is the only creative thing he does. He is great but he will do some pretty upsurd stuff like, he will avoid his friends just because they bought a memed soft drink. He hates talking unless it is memes. He doesn't like questions. He hates thinking. What do I do? I literally can't connect with him. Once I will give him a piece of advice, like, "maybe find a better time to say the jokes so that they land better" and "please try not thinking about memes all the time" and he will say yes and proceed to ignore whatever I said.

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[–] Pandoras_Can_Opener@mander.xyz 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

How old is your brother? I've been hella awkward until about my mid 20s (there were complicating factors delaying my social development) but I'd like to think my social gaffes are a lot less intense now. AFAIK many autistic people adapt a little more with age.

I like what others said about learning how to communicate in memes to connect with your brother. Memes might be his native spoken language. It can help him a lot if he isn't the only one speaking that language.

The tips you gave him probably don't make sense to him. Trying to find a better time when he probably doesn't understand social context well might have gotten translated to "wrong time of the day, try this one after 1pm". If he is interested you could explain social context to him on a case by case basis an explain why sometimes things are funny and sometimes they aren't. But it's exhausting work.

If memes really are his native spoken language you asking him not to think in memes might have sounded to him like "don't think in words" (because he doesn't know another way to think) which is a confusing request and he probably only agreed to make the confusion go away.