Mastodawn

WARNING: Long post and NO point, but a very real example of what it's like to try to have a conversation with me...

To start, I have autism and ADHD (AuDHD) and I just had a conversation with a stranger that's a pretty typical conversation I have where I start talking about something I care a LOT about but then get ten words in and uncontrollably switch to a different topic and keep repeating that pattern until the other person manages to escape.

Here's a near transcription of my last conversation that started earlier this evening at a show for a band I like called The Beths where I was wearing a t-shirt for an adjacent band called ALVVAYS and saw another person wearing a different ALVVAYS shirt:

Me: I like your ALVVAYS shirt! Did you see The Beths open for ALVVAYS the last time they were in California?

Them: Yeah! I saw both at The Greek in Berkeley!

Me: Cool! I saw them both in Oakland!

Them: Neat! I went for ALVVAYS and The Beths opened and I really liked them!

Me: Me too! I've been listening to ALVVAYS for years, but didn't know about The Beths until they opened and I really liked them which is why I’m here now!

(This is where AuDHD Alice kicks in)

Me (continuing): I was JUST thinking about the chain of events that lead to me being here, so it was that ALVVAYS show where The Beths opened and I wouldn't have even known about ALVVAYS if my coworker hadn't introduced me to them about ten years ago.

The reason my coworker mentioned them is because I was wearing a Jawbreaker shirt so he realized we liked similar music and thought I might like ALVVAYS and he was totally right!

The reason I was wearing a Jawbreaker shirt is because we worked for a scrappy startup in the Bay Area where nobody cared about anything and you could wear whatever you wanted as long as you got your job done.

I got that job because I used to work for Yelp because my former Yelp coworker started working for that startup and referred me.

I got the job at Yelp because my mom had stage 4 cancer and was DYING so I moved from Chicago to Phoenix to take care of her and Yelp had a location in Arizona so I interviewed and I got that job.

I'm pretty sure I got the job because my resume used Avenir as the font and the hiring manager liked it.

We also talked about The Neverending Story which is one of my favorite movies and apparently one of his, so we bonded because I mentioned job interviews making me feel like Atreyu trying to run through those laser shooting sculptures and he said he totally got it and somehow I still got the job.

That job eventually lead me to the startup which brought me to the coworker who introduced me to ALVVAYS which introduced me to The Beths and that's why I’m here now.

How did you find out about The Beths?

Them: Oh. Uh. Just that ALVVAYS show where The Beths opened, as I previously mentioned.

Me: Oh okay good talk have a nice night.

I forgot that I took some photos at the show! Terrible quality because I was off to the side and had a nice view of a pole, but here you go!

Steve Gisselbrecht Nov 13

Can't believe you posted pole on main!

Joshua Neds-Fox Nov 13

@Alice and how were the Beths? power poppy as hell?

@jnonfiction Absolutely perfect!

Ravensrod 🫖 🍰Nov 13

Ganbatte Nov 13

what is it called when most of the tangent only plays in your head and you maybe say a few words in between out loud or only the end that doesn't fit cause of all the silent stuff?

@ganbatte I assure you. The nonsense I say is audible.

Ganbatte Nov 13

i don't doubt you. just reminded me of situations i was in, just with the difference 1. start conversation. 2. things go haywire in my head. 3. say something as a result of silent onpy playing in my head conversation. 4. confused other person. 5. unable to get the conversation back on track and i feel sad

i didn't want to highjack your thread it was just very eery all of a sudden

and also i don't know when to stop a written conversation and i always feel i get on the other's nerve

@ganbatte @Alice I can assure you there are people reading this and going: "ooh nice, I'm not alone", or just have a friendly chuckle or something.

If you get on someone's nerves with this they can solve their problem by reading something else, right?

Thanks for sharing.

@iwein @ganbatte @Alice

Absolutely this!

For both of these posts, both gambatte and alice, I chuckled because I saw myself in them.

Bård H. (lvl 49 🇳🇴)Nov 13

@iwein @ganbatte @Alice

Bård H. (lvl 49 🇳🇴)Nov 13

(Ouch... that turned out way larger than what I first imagined)

Ganbatte Nov 13

it's great!!!
(and big but big is beautiful 😃)

@baardhaveland I love the gigantic anthropomorphic checkmark!

Dilman Dila Nov 13

@ganbatte @Alice Sounds like my daily life. Only that I start to say something and perhaps my brain tricks me into thinking I've said it all so I mumble a few words then stop. Like once I was learning French and the teacher was impressed at how quickly I got it, so he asked, "Have you learned French before?" And I said "No, but I play the guitar."

What I wanted to say in full was; "No, but I'm in a guitar club with lots of Congolese French speaking people so I pick words here and there...."

@dilmandila @ganbatte I love this!

ʙᴇɴ ᴄᴏᴛᴛᴇяɪʟʟ Nov 13

@Alice Had a friend who was a regular in the pub I worked at. I think he had undiagnosed ADHD. All the customers developed a system. Everyone would sit down and individually talk to them for the length of a pint. Then go off to the loo, meet someone and describe the current conversation. At this point the new person would jump in and my mate could carry on talking about whatever was in their head for an unbroken chat for hours.

ʙᴇɴ ᴄᴏᴛᴛᴇяɪʟʟ Nov 13

@Alice Amazing bloke. Was a marine biologist who co authored a paper when they rediscovered coelacanths.

@BenCotterill I used to be very obsessed with playing Animal Crossing and one of my most proud accomplishments was catching a coelacanth.

ʙᴇɴ ᴄᴏᴛᴛᴇяɪʟʟ Nov 13

@Alice You would have loved his kitchen. It was full of those science pickle jars with the skeletons of deep sea creatures.

ʙᴇɴ ᴄᴏᴛᴛᴇяɪʟʟ Nov 13

@Alice Just to keep him going for a bit longer. Here are some songs he did. https://soundcloud.com/user-164982907

Julian Badcock

I see myself as a singer who sometimes writes a song. I've been writing, though, since the early 1970s and so there are a fair few. Occasionally people have asked if I have any albums - no, is the ans

SoundCloud

Lee Hauser Nov 13

@Alice @BenCotterill I’ve been playing for a few month and can hardly wait to catch one!

Wendroid 🇺🇦Nov 13

@BenCotterill @Alice Aww, I kind of love this.

@Alice I want to understand but I feel like I’m missing some key information.

@Dennis Don't worry. The next time I see you, I'll catch you up—with ten disconnected words at a time.

(I seriously feel like the last time I saw you we had a conversation just like this and by we I mean me because I don’t know when to shut up)

@Alice the best! 🤗

@Dennis Love ya, bud!

Ben & ten thousand pigs Nov 13

Oh my god

Firstly - I love you. Secondly - this is so unbelievably relatable I did a big lol.

@TheBreadmonkey 😂❣️🙌

Advanced Persistent Teapot Nov 13

@TheBreadmonkey @Alice heh, it's not the same as how conversations with me go but I definitely relate to the sense that conversations are weird. For me it's much more noticeable in groups because waiting for a turn means my mind starts spinning in a different direction to everyone else. e.g.

Me: and then I hid the tub of neon yellow goo in Steve's new computer case so he'd only find it when he got home and started to assemble it
Them: ha good one! [Steve's new girlfriend > her beer preferences > that new microbrewery > birthday party plans ... ]

Me (inside head, not taking part in the discussion for 15 minutes): [tub of goo > non Newtonian fluids > neat tricks with custard > consistency of imaginary life forms] maybe instead of Jesus walking on water he was actually walking over a transparent ooze

Them: what the fuck?

Cool hot dog avatar.

🍿

Biggles 20X6!Nov 13

@Alice This is my entire family. ❤️
We do this concurrently in the same room with 4 different conversations going at once and we hot-swap between all of them.

All our partners and friends sit there in stunned silence until it is time to go home.

Chipotle Axolotl (aka Julian)Nov 13

@Alice jealous, I would love to see The Beths!

I realise that's not really the point of the post.

@julianlawson They are so good live! Maybe even better than the recordings. And they have that adorable New Zealand sense of humor so their between-song banter is super funny. I love them!

lonely extrovert Nov 13

@Alice @julianlawson yeah, i really dig them too 👍🏻

the gripe ibis Nov 13

@Alice okay but that's a rad story

@Alice This is every conversation I have that gets past the awkward intro-niceties stage. 😬👍

Ben & ten thousand pigs Nov 13

Hello how are you I hear you're talking about shoes let me tell you about Venus

@TheBreadmonkey @Alice Also, I might be low-key interested in that Venus conversation. It’s a favourite planet of mine. 🧐

Ben & ten thousand pigs Nov 13

IT IS BY FAR THE MOST INTERESTING PLANET

Venus Bros 👊
I am designing our matching tattoo

@TheBreadmonkey @Alice This is precisely the energy I was looking for!👏 Are you going for the radar topography image Venus or the enigmatic cloud enshrouded Venus? I down for either or both tbh. Venus Bros! 👊😎

Ben & ten thousand pigs Nov 13

How about a full vista - surface scape

Steve's Place Nov 13

@Alice Alice, you're adorable. You're also the last person I'd want involved in my big heist at the Louvre.

Cop: "So..."

Alice: "You wouldn't believe it! The guards were easy to bribe. Is that eclair for me? Thanks. We bought all of our gear from this guy at 87 Front Street. He said he's a second story guy. I've got a t-shirt with that band name on it! Second Story! Which reminds me of a story I wrote, but it didn't have burglary tools in it like the ones we got from the pawn shop on 23rd. Are you gonna finish your eclair? Steve cased the joint, and has a really cool map of the Louvre on his laptop. He went on one of those tours, you know? His desktop has your face on it, but with Snidely Whiplash's mustache. The cop behind you is a jerk. He wanted $100 to look the other way. Everybody else took $50. Hey! Check out my new sneakers! They've got this stuff on them that lets you climb up walls."

Cop: "...your name is Alice?"

Alice: "Oh. Yeah. Alice."

@Alice
I'm sorry, don't hate me, but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yujF8AumiQo

😀

Grandpa Simpson Onion Story

YouTube

@Alice This is exactly like a conversation with my mother, except that she tells you about how two people she knows have a complex shared history, introducing more people who connect them, and more people who connect those people.

Ralf Stubner Nov 13

@Alice Great story! And great taste in music now that I have looked up ALVVAYS and The Beths. Guess I should learn more about more current indie music. Especially if they are capable of typographic puns like W -> VV.

@rstub Fun? Fact! They started out as ALWAYS but learned it was already taken and took the most low effort route by being like ehhhhh two Vs looks close enough to a W so let's just roll with that.

Ralf Stubner Nov 13

@Alice This is great. They basically reverted history (cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W), especially in the all caps spelling. Fonts like Bembo show this history quite directly.

W - Wikipedia

Queen Of Coffee Nov 13

@Alice That sounds like alot of my conversations when I'm in a good mood. You're making me feel undiagnosed.

@QueenOfCoffee 😂❣️

@Alice after reading this 1.) we would totally be friends, and 2.) I’m 100% sure we must know at least 1-2 of the same people and would actually be shocked if we didn’t.

@scrambledmegs I love this! I actually had a fairly similar conversation with a group of people I met at Best Friends Forever fest in Vegas last month and they said they were from Milwaukee and I was like "I know ONE other person from Milwaukee and I only know him from the Internet, but do you know @rasterweb?"

AND THEY DID!

@Alice @rasterweb honestly though, it’s such a small world! I grew up in the bay area and only moved away a little over 4 years ago, but also had a good number of friends who worked for Yelp in the mid-late 00s. A bunch of them leap frogged through app startups like that for years. And I learned all about their jobs at these companies on the back patio at Bottom of the Hill or outside Gilman 😅

Pete Prodoehl 🍕Nov 13

@scrambledmegs @Alice … outside Gilman, of course! 😉

@rasterweb @scrambledmegs Many years ago, I had a weird job relocation to Reno and my husband at the time was like "I think Reno is kind of close to the Bay Area?" (I mean, I guess it's closer to the Bay Area than Detroit, but still not THAT close).

Anyway, we decided we'd start driving west to go check out 924 Gilman and, after over four hours of driving, we found ourselves parked out front.

It wasn't even open so we just stared at the building and were like "did that" and then turned around and drove home.

Years later, I ended up living in Oakland and spending a lot of time around 924 Gilman and every time I'd walk past I'd think about that dumb little drive.

@Alice @rasterweb What a cute story, that’s hilarious! I have a similar experience with the Mona Lisa. I was able to couch surf in Paris at 21. A friend I stayed with for awhile had a class at the Louvre so I went with her one day and sort of explored the museum. When I got into the room with the Mona Lisa and saw the crowd of people, and how SMALL of a painting it is, I blinked a couple times, turned on my heels, and exclaimed “saw it!” And walked out of that whole room. Good enough for me!!

I’m from the Tri-valley in the East bay originally and a lot of my friends and family ended up moving out to Reno over the years. I would take weekend trips to Sacramento, or Santa Cruz, or Monterey. And we had a family cabin in South Lake Tahoe. A lot of those places are Bay Area sports fans. It’s weird, because in other parts of the country, these places could likely be whole separate states.

My exposure to Gilman, in fact, was through my longest friend’s older brother who worked there when we were in middle school/high school. It was an all ages club, so as soon as we were spending time with people who could drive, we would go to shows. I think I still have a stash of all my old membership cards somewhere. Anyway, that friend’s family moved out to Sparks, NV (outside Reno) right after she graduated high school. She tried to stay in the Bay Area for years, but had some medical issues and moved to Reno for support and stability. We’re still friends. And have been following her brother and his partner on social media for over a decade now. They’re still very cool people.

@scrambledmegs @rasterweb Yesss! I felt the same way when I saw the Mona Lisa. Like "is that it?!?"

Pete Prodoehl 🍕Nov 13

@Alice @scrambledmegs Well my friend Rachel worked for Yelp in Milwaukee and we’re friends because I convinced her to come to BarCamp Milwaukee and have Yelp sponsor so that’s how I met her but also I think I’ve heard of The Beth’s but I’m definitely going to look them up today and have a listen. Love ya, Slice!

@rasterweb @scrambledmegs I hope you like them!

Raven667 Nov 13

@Alice oh I have a friend who is like that, we all have an agreement that we can just rudely interrupt him and stop the deluge if we want, he is self aware enough to not take offense. I do remember one night where Jon was in fine form, we all went out to a pub after work but he doesn't drink much, so he was drinking pints of coca-cola at the rate we were drinking beer, so as we loosened up and had dinner, he was just getting high on sugar and caffeine, lolololololol everything was Amazing!