i've always had trouble with people giving me complicated sequences of verbal instructions. early on, i started carrying paper & pen so i could write it down & refer to it (for, the way my mind works, either the later part of the instructions will erase the earlier part, or some new thought of my own will cause me to forget part or all of it), and now, even though i seldom have the same need, i still write a lot of things down that i think most NTs would count on being able to remember.
there has never been a job i've worked at, that did not favor verbal instructions over written. (sometimes they even associate having to read something written down, as punitive.)
--this is just a tiny example--
i won't even go into the massive inequality experienced in school where socialization is mostly not given via explicit instruction, at a time when acceptance is compulsively withheld for infinitesimal departures from the norm. what's weird is how little this situation gets described here in terms of privilege, instead of as a "struggle to fit in" (skin-lightening potions, anyone?). privilege is political, it's politics you can't change the channel from. it's barbed wire & attack dogs.
being naturally adept at lying & negotiating a swarm of variously-sincere statements is like being born with a swimming instinct; then some kid who doesn't know how (doesn't even guess that he doesn't know how) is thrown into the pool to sink or swim--a pool he will remain in for the rest of his life. the seeming adaptation of learning to conceal one's true feelings & opinions is at best a stricture, & at worst a kind of self-deception (they can see right through you, nine times out of ten).
--but the cruellest form of NT privilege is political theater. they use the language of ideas as if they mean something; it's all about tribes & belonging & rivalry, & anyone who wants to actually examine cause & effect in public affairs (look at Dennis Kucinich's presidental bid) is ridiculed & ignored by the media--just like the treatment in junior high.
