People easily mistake neurodivergent speech patterns and communication styles for run-of-the-mill pretentiousness.
I don’t want to get too specific right now, but a lot of people who are neurodivergent (namely autistic, but there’s lots of overlap) struggle with communication. To them, writing/typing may be far easier and more natural than speaking aloud, but it can still come off as unusually formal, overly precise, or more awkwardly structured than usual. Sometimes it’s interpreted as “pretentiousness” because it doesn’t have the same casual cadence many neurotypical writers may use.
This.
wait people consider this offensive?
Not offensive so much as irritating, I guess. It’s low-hanging fruit and easy to mock whenever people pick up on something “off” about you.
Other times, people assume that you employ formal language or “advanced” vocabulary because you’re trying too hard to sound intelligent or superior. What you intend to be clear and specific may be interpreted as condescension.
I’m autistic. I’ve been mocked for sounding “anal”, accused of being a “snob”, and called plain old “cringey” for being overly formal. Oddly enough, I don’t really have this stiltedness while speaking and I’m much more casual in person. That’s learned from years of interacting a lot in a wide variety of situations. For whatever reason, though, I can’t get that to carry over to the Internet for the life of me unless I’m talking 1:1 with someone I’ve had time to get to know. If you’re not in my inner circle/we’re not DMing, you either get this formality you’re seeing here, or my over-the-top “shitposting” tone.
So, yeah, please try not to assume anything about people based on their written communication. It doesn’t always have anything to do with their personality/character or how they feel about you. We can’t all type like neurotypicals.
I think one big intersection here is when male autistics (am female, but oldest offspring is male) are easily mistaken for “mansplaining” when talking about special interests. Many men explain things women already know to them because they either intentionally or carelessly assume that the woman doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Autistic men will have a very hard time understanding why telling a woman something she already knows in exhaustive detail would bother her because we’re both very interested in quantum mechanics or trains or whatever, right?
how could mansplaining and infodumping get confused i don’t get it
“Mansplaining” is when a man (typically) explains something to a woman (typically) “a manner regarded as condescending or patronizing”. Sometimes condescension is obvious and hostile (Man: “Oh, miss, let me fix that for you! You probably don’t know how an engine works. Wouldn’t want you to chip a nail!” Woman: “I literally own my own autorepair shop.”) but other times it’s ambiguous, and certain people are more sensitive to feeling like they are being talked down to than others.
Infodumping is “I enjoy explaining this thing that I find interesting, and my enthusiasm for talking about it can make me oblivious to the feelings and level of interest of my listener”. So if a man – especially one who might not be great at reading subtle social cues – begins infodumping about his special interest to a woman, she might interpret his tedious over-explanation of everything he knows about it as a sexist assumption that she must not understand the topic herself. His thought process might be, “Oh, I love this thing, I want to express that by sharing details about it!” while her thought process might be, “Jesus, I know all about this, he must think I’m stupid and uneducated, and he’s ignoring my eyeball-rolling!”
