I read a thread on some kind of strategic game forum over the weekend – I sometimes read all kind of random stuff – the thread contained description of how various archetypes behave. It’s in Polish so I won’t be linking it. But it was interesting; you know, what witch does and how priest behaves. It was quite complex and I found it interesting.

I keep thinking about it since that time, wondering, how this could be used to improve our social imagination. I believe I am good at understanding archetypes, I am not sure that applies to every autistic person but it may; archetypes are simplified personalities, aren’t they? Maybe we should talk more about them. Let’s take a bully archetype for example. Would bully stop bullying you because you have diagnosis? No. Would he stop if you’re nice to him and do what he wants? Possibly, but only till the next time he wants something.

But I was also wondering how understanding archetypal behaviour could help us to deal with people who block us on social level. You know, those who interupt when we speak and who try to draw all the attention towards themselves.

In the past I used to take small items away from those people (if it was possible) without their permission. With time I realised that wasn’t the right thing to do so I stopped but then it felt as if I couldn’t get my little revenge.

And just today I had this idea that if those people block us on social level, we need to block them on information level. We can be quite good at that, don’t we? It’s only that we try to control this behaviour because we know that people don’t like it.

How would that look? An example from not so long ago. A lady who was trying to get all the attention at a recent social event, asked me if my boyfriend works.

I felt upset by the assumption that he doesn’t work only because he’s autistic, but I just said yes, he is an engineer.

She then asked what kind of engineer. I was a bit confused whether she was actually asking for information or trying to assess my social status but again I tried to be calm.

A safety engineer – I said, also stating the field that he specialises in (John asked me not to reveal that on the blog).

Now I’m really thinking I should have blocked her on information level.

‘Why are you asking? You wouldn’t understand what he really does anyway’.

That would have probably kept her in check. It wouldn’t be overly polite, but then I’m autistic so I sometimes sound impolite without meaning to.