#im also irrationally worried that the barista who drew mothman smoking a joint on my cup is going to doxx me or something lol

[thepringlesofblood]

How often do you apologize to/talk to inanimate objects, and are you autistic?

Examples of this phenomenon*:

accidentally kicking a table leg and saying "sorry" to the table leg,

seeing a box fall off a shelf and saying "oh no! are you ok?"

squeezing a water bottle tighter than you meant to and going "oh sorry water bottle I didn't mean to do that"

apologizing to a broken mug for throwing it away

putting a stuffed animal in your backpack and apologizing for the tight quarters/uncomfortable position/claustrophobia

seeing a lone onion at the grocery store and putting it with its brethren so it's less lonely and saying "there you go buddy" or "let's get you back to your friends"

feeling bad for clothes you don't wear anymore and apologizing to them for donating them/repurposing the fabric

apologizing to a plant for not watering it enough

apologizing to a sculpture/art piece for letting it get dusty

apologizing to an easily fixable thing for not fixing it for a while because you keep forgetting

clarifications:

non-professional/non-official autism diagnoses are valid. a lot of professionals out there suck.

"I apologize to inanimate objects but only if I mistake them for people/animals" - this doesn't count, bc from your POV you're apologizing to a person/animal, not an inanimate object.

e.g. if you kick a table leg, think it's a dog, apologize to the dog, then realize it's a table leg, that's different from kicking a table leg and apologizing to the table leg.

I wanted to make "sometimes" and "only for certain things" separate options bc if you only do this with certain things but have a lot of that thing you probably do it all the time but then i'd have to either get rid of the "other"/"see results" options or get rid of the "neurodivergent, but not autistic" options and I didn't want to do either of those things.

i'm not really talking about like. rubber duck coding style talking to an object like it's a person for a specific reason or with a specific purpose. im mostly talking about random little sayings. but also if you feel like that applies go for it. maybe you apologize to your rubber duck for talking its ear [do ducks have ears?] off.

*[all of these are things either me or my mom have done, there is no shame in feeling strong emotions about inanimate objects. there is a disposable plastic coffee cup i've kept for 4 years bc the barista drew mothman smoking a joint on it and i'd feel extremely guilty throwing it out.]