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I see autistic masking discourse going around again. Neurotypical social norms *are* understandable. Acting neurotypical is doable if high effort (my mom is like this). You can get a long way by being a kind of weird that doesn't rub people the wrong way, which is much easier. But it hinges on this:

With that as your lens, think about norms like leading with praise if you have bad news, asking how they're doing, giving a white lie answer to that question, even eye contact. And if you can't hit all the notes perfectly, you can at least be or act *sincere* in your caring.

Good actors don't perform by mimicking facial expressions blindly, they generally think of something that brings up the right emotions for the character and scene and then that shows through. I find ways to be curious about people, and to care about them as people, at least a bit.

Gosh I am so grateful to hear you say this aloud because this is critical to why social norms exist in any society. Neurotypicals adapt to them more easily but they exist for society as a whole.

I once found an old book of etiquette and I was like, wait this actually sounds like a guide book for non-typcials... the whole thing was just telling you what to do with your hands and little scripts for different situations.

Yep, and the scripts help, but you gotta understand and feel the intent or you end up in the uncanny valley of social performance.

Totally! And I guess that was why the book was wild, because it actually tried to explain the function of those norms, instead of "thats just the way it is". Which for me if I understand the 'why' its easier (or sometimes necessary?) to get the what and how.