I've been thinking recently about the fact that "treat others how you want to be treated" wasn't very helpful advice for me growing up. It led to me feeling confused, then frustrated, then cynical and defeated. I only recently realized the reason for this is because the things that impact me and the things that impact these hypothetical "others" have very little overlap. I found that adults, instead of just saying "this bothers me and this is the reason why," would try to standardize their experiences in a way that just made things unnecessarily convoluted.
"How would you feel if you were trying to have a conversation with someone who was listening to music in one ear?"
My friends did that all the time and it didn't bother me.
"What would you think if you passed someone you knew in the hall and they didn't stop to speak to you?"
Depending on the situation, I might prefer that.
"What would you do if someone asked you that question?"
"What would happen if your friends planned an outing and didn't invite you?"
If they purposely didn't invite me, it was probably because they knew me well enough to know that whatever it was wouldn't interest me, or that I already had something else planned. If they forgot or thought they invited me but didn't, that sucks, but we could just plan something else.
"I can't believe you would listen to music with headphones on and not share it with anyone else!"
Why would I assume that the people around me want to listen to the same song as me? Especially if they were already listening to something else?
"Why bother inviting someone to hang out with you if you're just going to do separate things on opposite sides of the room?"
Wanting to be around someone and wanting to interact with them are two different things. I was more than content playing the Sims with the volume off while my friend read a book on the couch.
Problem is, the people who asked these questions didn't actually want my answer, they just wanted me to stop acting in a way they'd decided was universally considered rude. But they didn't tell me that, so I would answer honestly, which would get me told off for talking back on top of whatever I'd originally done.
The inverse of this is behavior that I would never in a million years expect someone to be okay with is often the norm, to the point that when I complain about it people either look confused or get angry at me for complaining about "normal human behavior" and expecting everyone to be like me.
People play music/videos aloud on their phone in public, and take phone calls with the speaker turned on and talk loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. I'm so averse to making unnecessary noise in public that I had to be pressured by my parents to keep my phone on vibrate instead of silent because I kept missing their calls and texts. I always keep my volume down as a default, and double check that it stayed that way before I tap on a video. I also triple check that my earbuds are plugged in if I want to listen to something in public.
I'm so aware of how my body is positioned in any public space, to see if there's even a possibility that I could be in someone's way. I keep my belongings close to me and move through tasks as efficiently as possible. People at the gym keep their towels and water bottles on equipment to "save their spot" when they go to the bathroom or wander off to talk to someone. Other times they'll hover possessively over a piece of equipment while talking to someone nearby, and only rush to use it when someone asks them to move out of the way. Keeping car doors open long after they get inside, regardless of if anyone nearby might need to maneuver past them, whether or not the car next to them is on or has someone inside who needs to get out, etc.
If I make plans, I either stick to them or explain why I can't. The fact that so many people are so casual about being significantly late or not showing up at all blows my mind. (I just went to an event yesterday where the people who organized it said food would be ready at 2:30 and it wasn't ready until 3:15, and they didn't say a single thing throughout the 45 minutes everyone was standing around waiting and then continued on with the event as if nothing was wrong. Never going to anything they plan again lmao) I also inform people of plans as early as possible so they have time to plan around them, but some people will just invite me to something within the same day it's happening like it's nothing.
I've seen people say something similar to "obviously anyone in this situation would act this way" as an adult, too. I hate it. One, it's simply not true. Humans are vastly different and there's no one way everyone would act in any situation. Two, I'm often one of the people who wouldn't have reacted that way, so it's a little reminder that the way I am is apparently so bizarre that people routinely forget that I exist. Three, it's often said as a way to skirt responsibility for how someone reacted to something, even in situations where nothing bad happened. Either you don't need to justify yourself because no one was negatively impacted by anything you did, or the reason why you reacted a certain way only matters as much as working to keep it from happening again. Four, if you are actually trying to explain how you feel about something, just saying "of course someone would react this way" doesn't actually give any information.
I think people can only get away with responding this way because the way they are matches up with what's expected of them often enough that they don't regularly run into pushback. I can't really relate to that, as I've kinda been forced to be self-reflective to a borderline harmful degree from a pretty young age due to how often people would say "that makes no sense" or just stare at me in utter shock when I said or did the most basic things. That, and my parents often wouldn't let me do certain things unless I explained in great detail why they'd be beneficial.
There's also something to be said about how often people are okay with universalizing an experience if it's their experience. If I so much as mention that I don't see the problem with something that someone else is so upset about or vice versa, then the same people who say "of course anyone would have reacted that way" feel the need to throw out phrases like "I'm not a mind reader" or "humans are humans; you can't expect them to be perfect," but when I actually dig into what they mean by that it's usually that they want me to (at least pretend to) view things exactly the same way they do so they stop having to put effort into communicating.
I've seen this happen with autistic people online, too. If they either complain about a general trend in society or a specific interaction they had, people will feel the need to point out why those things make perfect sense, actually, and they just need to try harder to understand. As if trying hard to understand and still not quite getting it isn't a fairly common autistic experience, or that someone could logically understand something and still be annoyed about it. Or that, just maybe, if they put a little more effort into understanding autistic people than explaining to said autistic people how natural and normal their behavior is, then there wouldn't be as many misunderstandings to begin with. Though I just don't like it when someone expresses they're upset about something and the immediate response is "but think about how the other person feels" in any context, not just with autism/social stuff. It does feel extra shitty when someone's pushing back against a largely accepted expectation or an experience people generally assume everyone has had unless they actively state otherwise, only for someone to immediately respond "have you considered the position most people have, though?" Like, what do you think I've been doing every second except for right now, when I decided to voice something different 😭
I can't tell if I'm being too vague at this point so I'll give some examples (based on real life interactions, but not quite word for word because my memory isn't good enough for that)(also post is over so if you don't care about examples you can leave lol):
Person A: It really hurts me how much my friends disappear from my life when they have a child, and I feel like, as the only childless person in the friend group, I'm not valued as much.
Person B: Yes, but you have to remember that raising a child is hard. Your friends are probably really busy and stressed out.
Person A: I wish life were more viable as a single person.
Person B: Many people are happy in their relationships, and lots of people who are single want to find a partner at some point. There's nothing wrong with dating.
Person A: I wish I saw more examples of polyamorous relationships in media.
Person B: Not every relationship needs to be polyamorous. Many of us are content with one person.
