#also consider: sports. harry potter (post-whatsername-coming-out-as-a-massive-TERF)

[bluehawkdustorm]

I think I just realised what it is I dislike about dogs.

And it's not the creature itself. Dogs themselves are great! There's something very wholesome and joyful about saying hi to a dog and giving it a good pat and telling it what a good dog it is. I don't even mind spending an hour or three with a dog, I just wouldn't want the commitment of owning one (and for all their good qualities, cats beat them on every count that matters to me).

But no, what really disturbs me about dogs is the intensity with which people like them.

I know exactly what you're thinking when you first read that, and you're wrong. I'm AuDHD. I have both special interests and hyperfixations. Most of my friends are confirmed to have at least *either* autism or ADHD, and the ones who don't at least have clear traits of the other are the exception, not the rule. I have literally one friend who is neurotypical. We think. (You can never be 100% certain.) In life I am SURROUNDED by special interests and hyperfixations at various degrees of repression and masking.

One (1) of my friends is into dogs, insofar as he is a Dog Person who, at any given time, Has A Dog. His dog may or may not be one of his special interests, but he's super chill about it (some of his other special interests, he's not nearly so Chill about, and we love him for it).

Neurotypicals, on the other hand ...

There are very few things that neurotypicals get intense about, but the WAY they get intense about things is disturbing to me. It's never individual -- it always has to be Group-Approved and Socially-Affirming. And once it is, they start getting weirdly Superior about the value of the thing they like and how it's just a sign that you're a better person than someone who chooses differently. They learn to be subtle about it, but it's always there.

"Dog culture" has all of those things baked in. Cat people are like "dogs are fine, I just like cats more". Even when Dog Culture isn't outright saying "cats are HORRIBLE and one killed my niece!!", they'll still loudly say things like "cat people are introverted (derogatory)" and "cats are stuck up" (because having boundaries and sensory needs is about ego and hierarchy, apparently). But dogs are SO PURE, apparently, and if you ever dare say "actually I was scared of dogs as a kid", that's treated as a red flag.

(I'm not scared of them *now*, but I survived past the age of 4 because I got lucky. Ever heard of a cat - even a horribly abused cat with the world's worst owner - killing a person?)

You know who else is all about intense group affirmation, us-and-them-ism, and a complete lack of boundaries?

Cults. Those things feature heavily in cults.

Allistic people aren't known for Liking Things Intensely or very specifically. But just as it's possible for AuDHDers to have interests that aren't Special Interests(tm) or Hyperfixations(tm), there's this weird, allistic mirror of Special Interests. And the way allistics do Liking Things Intensely, ultimately, creeps me the fuck out in a unique way that the cringiest expressions of a special interest never could. It always has. And it's taken me literal decades to articulate this because the assumptions are so baked-in.

The assumptions that dogs are *better*, that cats are standoffish and uncaring, and that it's always NDs who are intense and weird.

Special interests and hyperfixations aren't immune to any of this, but for some reason it's *intrinsic* to allistic culture.

When autistic or ADHD people like things, we might get psyched - we might get fully into the halo-effect and into the virtues and importance of our Thing - but even when those interests are social, they still become defined by individual expression and unique positions, because the point of a special interest is not affirmation or cohesion. When neurotypicals Really Like Things, they form cults.

And they're always really cringe about it.