There's this stock puzzle in video games where you have to do some things in order. Like light up torches or flip switches.

And if you flip the wrong one, they all reset and you have to start from scratch. But you know the sequence of however many you got right.

So eventually you'll get the whole sequence. Makes sense, right?

Now imagine having to solve these puzzles every day, except each puzzle is different, with each you only get one or two attempts (rarely three or four) before you're locked out of the puzzle, and also sometimes you get it wrong and the puzzle does not reset so you merrily keep switching switches only to be told LATER (or worse, figure it out retrospectively) that you fucked up. And you'll be told which switch was wrong, if you're lucky.

Worse, you can't say you're bad at any particular puzzle or ask for a hint directly, because you're supposed to pretend there's no puzzle. Like, there's nothing that puts most people off further interaction more than saying explicitly that you don't know which switch to flip next.

So saying "I don't understand this switch puzzle" makes people angry or weirded out.

This post is not about video games. It's about interacting with people socially. Especially when #actuallyautistic . Or having rejection issues. Or just being socially awkward. Or having few opportunities to socialise.

EDIT: oh, and sometimes you have to solve ten puzzles at once, while keeping track of all the moves you've made, and failing one puzzle can randomly lock you out of one or more of the others, sometimes with no notification.

This optional puzzle challenge is usually known as "going to a party", but there's variants like "working at an office".

This is an occasional reminder that there is most of a century of wizard-school stories written by authors who are not horrible people.

From Le Guin's "Earthsea" through to Novik's "Scholomance Trilogy".

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