Theoku

Generally you unbutton and re-button a suit coat when you sit down and stand up.

You’re supposed to hold wine or champagne glasses by the stem to avoid warming up the liquid inside. A character out of their depth might hold the glass around the sides instead.

When rich/important people forget your name and they’re drunk, they usually just tell you that they don’t remember or completely skip over any opportunity to use your name so they don’t look silly.

A good way to indicate you don’t want to shake someone’s hand at an event is to hold a drink in your right hand (and if you’re a woman, a purse in the other so you definitely can’t shift the glass to another hand and then shake)

Americans who still kiss cheeks as a welcome generally don’t press lips to cheeks, it’s more of a touch of cheek to cheek or even a hover (these days, mostly to avoid smudging a woman’s makeup)

The distinctions between dress codes (black tie, cocktail, etc) are very intricate but obvious to those who know how to look. If you wear a short skirt to a black tie event for example, people would clock that instantly even if the dress itself was very formal. Same thing goes for certain articles of men’s clothing.

Open bars / cash bars at events usually carry limited options. They’re meant to serve lots of people very quickly, so nobody is getting a cosmo or a Manhattan etc.

These events are almost always open bar. They're not trying to make their money back on alcohol. They want you to drink and eat and donate generously.

If there are cocktails, there will be at most two on offer, pre-made in large tubs. You cannot order a different version, it is what it is.

There are two types of events: cocktail style or seated. The first includes roaming hors d'oeuvres or a fancy buffet with tiny plates called a grazing station. For a long night, the roaming food will get a little bigger throughout the evening and have a 'main' at some point based around a protein.

A seated event will usually be more structured and may include multiple courses. Silver service is not in vogue anymore. You are likely to get either alternating meals brought to you like at a wedding, or served banquet style. A good caterer can get a plate to everyone in a 300 person event in about three minutes.

Drunk people are the same no matter how expensive their suits. They still laugh too loud, spill their drinks and slip on the dance floor. They are usually less embarrassed about doing coke in the bathrooms.

A full scale event that starts at 6pm will have staff arriving at noon to begin setup. Earlier if there's a light show or pyrotechnics. Typically venues don't just have 30 tables and three hundred chairs lying around, let alone table cloths, chair covers, etc. It's all rented and brought in on the day. Bands and DJs will be running audio tests in the background throughout.

Most heritage buildings that host these things, like museums and manor houses, aren't really designed for them. They might put down mats so you're not walking in stilettos over two hundred year old wooden floors, the kitchens are weirdly far away, and there are not enough taps. There is never anywhere for staff to sit, so if you open the wrong door you might find half a dozen waiters sitting on upturned milk crates in a room full of million dollar paintings, eating the left over bread.

Really old buildings don't have enough bathrooms, which means the staff will be sharing with the guests.

Clean up starts the second the event ends, if not sooner. Unattended glasses will start to disappear first, then table decorations. When the timer ticks over, the lights come back on and exhausted staff strip the tables, pack up dirty glasses and unopened wine bottles and have to Tetris it all into the back of a van. The venue is booked for that day only, so everything has to be gone before anyone can go home. A large event that finishes at midnight might take until 3am to be cleared away.

The autism in movies and shows is so often centered on how autism is ALLOWED to manifest in specifically white men who are of a certain culture and upbringing. And so is the autism depicted in the DSM.

But the autism in the tags above is also a privileged autism that is from a certain upbringing and demographic, and has a certain level of social function that not all autistic people have, and it's important to note that.

Autism has many different aspects. None of them are palatable by the allistic society of any culture. That's kind of the whole THING about autism. Even the mildest form of it you are still stuck in a minefield. Some people have the ability to learn enough to feel their way through it more or less without blowing up. Some people cannot stop running no matter how many mines they step on.

Some people aren't even aware it's a minefield at all, and always blame the other person. That's where that "unshakeable confidence" comes from. Those features mentioned in the screenshot outlined as the media depiction are not entirely wrong; I have met people like that! They were all white men. There's a reason for that. It's because society LETS white men break a LOT more social rules than anyone else is allowed to break. So they don't ever learn the mines are there, because whenever one blows up they think someone else stepped on it, and are never ever corrected.

Do you feel this way often?

- Yes, no matter who it is

- Yes, except for people I feel Very close with

- No, only under certain circumstances**

- No, I don't or rarely do this

- N/A (Results)

* 'out' can pretty much mean whenever you're somewhere that isn't home. You could be running errands, at work or school, going for a walk, out at a restaurant or other Fun Establishment, sitting outside your front door, anything really!

** you'd only do this if, say, you're in a hurry, tired/not in a good mood, some other special circumstance etc, but if you're feeling good and have time you'd say hi

I'm always doing this and there's a part of me that feels bad about it, but socializing takes up a Lot of energy and effort for me, especially when it's unplanned... and usually when this happens I'm focused on doing something, even if I'm just shopping, and I don't wanna be pulled away from my Thing That I'm Doing. Just curious how many can relate

yes I am AuDHD why do you ask

* 'out' can pretty much mean whenever you're somewhere that isn't home. You could be running errands, at work or school, going for a walk, out at a restaurant or other Fun Establishment, sitting outside your front door, anything really!