If they could control it, I believe they would choose to shit on people. This makes me feel safer due to random chance.

Oh Jack T. Chick will never stop, even after death. I wonder if they still sell the AIDS and homosexual ones from the 80s.

Anyone looking for more of this, check out Boolean Union

I found this site years ago, but I haven’t visited it in forever. They dissect Chick Tracts, and the site is a great way to read the full source material. From a cursory look, it seems they’re still going strong to this day, up to Tract #285 now (there are still new ones being published). It’s not just Chick Tracts, they’ve covered a lot of other evangelical fundamentalist pieces.

EDIT: I was a bit wrong, they just have every tract CATALOGUED on their site. By no means have they dissected them all, though they have quite a bit to dissect. The page I linked is a list of tracts that, when clicked, redirect to the Jack Chick website, where you can read them in full. Anyone looking for in-depth dissections can find them elsewhere on the Boolean Union site.

Perhaps

It’s gotten worse over the years, don’t worry ;)

My top recommended movie right now is Freddy Got Fingered

It was the end of 9th grade, so I was 15 or 16. I read it immediately after To Kill a Mockingbird, which did not make it look good in comparison 😂

Asking questions is how most people show interest. That doesn’t mean it’s disingenuous. Conversations are not events where people take turns talking at each other, they’re back-and-forths.

On the flip side, have you thought about how disingenuous it can seem when someone says nothing while you talk, and then immediately afterward starts talking about themselves and their life at length? Most people don’t just automatically update everyone around them on everything in their lives, that’s why people ask questions and show interest.

This is probably the most concise and practical answer in this thread.

I just use the golden rule: treat others the way you want to be treated. I’m autistic, diagnosed in 2016. One thing I’ve noticed when hanging out with other autistics: they all want to talk about their special interest, and will go on for hours unhindered, but you can try to make conversation about something they don’t care about for 5 minutes and they don’t even pay attention. I’m definitely guilty of this, to a degree. I think that’s part of having autism. But the next time someone is telling you about something and you find you don’t care, consider what it would feel like if you were discussing your special interest with someone and they just acted disinterested the whole time. Doesn’t feel good, does it?

It’s important to realize that in conversations, most people don’t care about topics, they care about the person to whom they’re speaking. When you speak to someone, you’re signing up to have a conversation with them, not necessarily about something. For example, my fiancee is really into musical theatre, and I’m not. I don’t understand any of the terminology, or what even goes into a stage show. But I love her, and if she wants to talk about it, you bet your ass I’m sitting and asking questions because I know I’m going to end up telling her about Black Ops II Zombies lore for like 2 hours straight later. It’s not necessarily transactional, it just would be a terrible relationship if I only talked to her about my interests.

There is no social game. Well, probably to some psychopaths somewhere there is. But people ask you questions about things in your life because that is one of the ways people show interest in others. It’s nothing to do with gaming the social system - they are interested in talking to you, so they give you opportunities to talk about yourself, your interests, and what you’ve been doing. Sure, they probably don’t “care” about what they’re asking about the same way you do, but they’re not asking out of some cold, machine like formula that lets them climb up the social ladder - it’s just how being social works.

I’ll leave you with this thought: being able to listen to and understand the feelings of someone else in a situation you have no attachment to is empathy. Studies on empathy have shown that it is a skill that can be improved, not a static thing that’s rationed out to you in a certain amount at birth. One good way to work on empathy is to imagine yourself as the other person. So, the next time someone’s telling you about something you don’t care about, you could imagine being in their shoes. You may realize that they have something worth caring about after all, and though you may not care as much as they do, you may appreciate what they have to say just a bit more.

EDIT: I’ve seen the double empathy problem elsewhere in this thread. I would like to point out that empathy is literally all about trying to understand someone in spite of what differences you have. So don’t read that and assume there can’t be allistic-autistic empathy. Read that and acknowledge that it’s harder to empathize with allistics, and try to learn how anyway because that is empathy. Or don’t, idk. I’ve found the double empathy problem to be true in my life, and I’ve also found that building empathy toward allistics and all the things I don’t understand about them has done me a world of good and made it easier for them to empathize with me.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve read it, so this may not be a fair assessment. But, I fucking hated The Catcher in the Rye. I wasn’t even required to read it for school or anything, I just did. Perhaps I just found Holden to be insufferable. I think that was the point, but it did not make it a particularly enjoyable or insightful read at all, save for the overwhelming supertext of DO NOT BE LIKE THIS GUY. The part where he hires a prostitute and just cries in front of her really stuck in my mind. That was when it really sunk in for me that someone read this book and decided that Holden’s views were so accurate that he had to go shoot John Lennon with a gun for being phony. Almost unbelievable.

Tattooing yourself for the bit is next-level.

It felt that way, too. Never really looked into it, but that’s the feeling I had at the time. I should also clarify that all that I said verbatim was, “The Cosmic Joke,” with no elaboration. It was quite humorous at the time.

I was tripping shrooms with someone, and at one point I just looked at her and said, “The Cosmic Joke,” which was an entirely new term to me but we somehow both got it immediately and laughed about that all night. I have no idea what exactly The Joke is, perhaps the tumultuousness of life. I do know that The Joke is on us, and we have the choice to laugh along with it.

I’d believe that. I tried Prime once and it tastes like the fumes from spray paint.

Giving compliments is fun, but I feel sometimes people think I’m complimenting them for one in return!

Maybe they view it that way, and it does vary from person to person, but if you’re being genuine you probably aren’t giving off that vibe at all! Now, if you are actually just complimenting them for transactional purposes then yeah, they’re probably going to pick up on that. But if you’re using a compliment as a segue into a conversation, it’s obvious you’re not fishing for compliments because you’re asking questions about what you just complimented.

The best advice on socialization that I can give you is don’t be afraid to express genuine positivity, for any reason. If you think someone’s shoes are cool, go tell them, and ask them about that. If they think you’re weird for saying so, that is 100% a them problem and there are plenty of awesome peeps out there that will take your positivity and interest in them and send it back your way tenfold.

EDIT: To add to this, because you clarified that your issues lie in maintaining conversations rather than starting them, try to balance giving/gaining information in a conversation, see if that helps. Conversations are a back-and-forth that can go almost anywhere, not an event where people take turns saying their thing at the other person. So if you’re in the middle of a conversation and you think you’re starting to be a chatterbox, go like “ah but I’m going off again,” and ask them something about what they last said. Not only does it show you’re listening, it also allows them to circle back to a topic in which they obviously show interest. If you try to ask (noninvasive) questions and prod the other person into giving information, the conversation can’t stagnate because you’re engaging them on a subject.

Also, sometimes conversations just die. Or have awkward endings. That’s not necessarily an autism thing, just a life thing. Most of the time when I think I made a conversation awkward, going back and asking for clarification if I made it awkward is what actually makes it awkward. If you can be fine with maybe coming across as a little odd sometimes, it will take a MASSIVE amount of pressure off of social situations for you.

If you want to discover new things, just push yourself to try one thing per week you’ve never tried before, no matter what that is. It can be scary, but you will find as many new things you enjoy as there are things you don’t enjoy. For music, I like to listen to different genres because that lets me explore many new artists with an overarching musical theme that I know I enjoy. So like I know I love grunge, probably not gonna be a hard experience to get into Mother Love Bone. Or I’ll pick an all new genre and get a feel for it.

Relatability is a tough concept, because in my experience that’s one of the gaps that’s super hard to bridge between NT/ND communication. It’s not really possible to make yourself more relatable, because others have to relate to you, and that’s subjective from person to person because that’s something they have to do in their own head. But, I have found the more you try to relate to other people, the more they try to relate to you. So take that how you will.

I don’t know how obscure this is because it was on the Skate 3 soundtrack. However, I’ve never met a person that knew the song, and it’s not on any music streaming services, so I think it’s a little obscure.

Gunfight by The Mighty Underdogs ft. MF DOOM

I see you picked up on the subtext, don’t forget the hand Mario World had in that too (and don’t forget to mention the chicken piccata, that’s the important part) 😉

The best way is to ask questions about something that the person obviously puts thought into.

“Those shoes are sweet, where did you get them?”

“Gnarly hair dude, who’s your stylist?”

“Yo this chicken piccata you made is tubular man.”

Be engaged and ask follow up questions, people love talking about themselves. Soon enough you’ve gotten to know them, and you just say hey and be friendly every interaction after.

You know how you can see pinned restaurants with their name and a fork and knife icon? Businesses can pay to show their full logo and get priority in search results/what shows first on the map as you zoom in.