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Comment by devmor | Hacker News Reader

Throughout my life, what colleagues/friends are unwilling to remark plainly on has been the most telling factor of someone’s character to me.

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This can be true I suppose, but equally I have a few friends who practically play characters as if they've resigned themselves to a role in a sitcom. For instance: one of my friends is late to just about everything and treats everyone as if we are on-call. We plainly note this repeatedly, the friend is, I hope, equally frustrated and embarrassed by it, and in spite of this nothing changes. This is obviously a critical element to their broader character.

Perhaps you mean to distinguish social groups without much intimacy? To which I'm sure we could provide some convincing cases, but this seems like a silly heuristic generally.

I have been in or next to a number of social circles with such missing stairs, where for various reasons people in the groups have decided to not directly acknowledge certain Facts that are known about some members, because it would involve them confronting their hypocrisy.

Someone cheating regularly on their partner, flagrant substance use problems, controlling people who ostracize anyone who doesn't agree with their sometimes insane perspectives...

People will go along with quite a lot to avoid friction, especially as they get older and picking up new social circles becomes higher cost.

It's possibly the most telling thing, when you see what people say is a hard line versus how they actually respond to it.

Maybe they have ADHD because the symptoms fit, if they really do acknowledge the problem yet cannot fix it.

To be clear, I am ADHD (executive-type) and am empathetic to my friend. All considered I am quite fond of my time spent with them. But in regards to developing a model for ones character I don't think it is very helpful to allow disabilities to shape them. It is simply impossible to share the individual essence related and is better understood through the manifestation which is ultimately shared. And regardless I would hope they would seek this diagnosis as a function of their own introspection according to my account of the phenomenon, not some extrapolation. [0]

To engage with your curiosity of their situation though, they spend a lot of time at poker tables, sitting for 8+ hours. I would assume this is not a common enjoyment for most ADHD minds. From my experience as soon as I'm out the action for a string of hands I'm completely checked out of any rigid strategy. Now sit me at a blackjack table and I can crank hands until the morning! But here I am being fed action and drinks basically on demand.

[0] I'm just thinking out loud here, not accusing you of making any claim related

that's not ADHD. People with ADHD would improve - it may take a LOT of time, but it will happen. Quite often they will go to the extreme and come in way too early. My bet would be on Cluster B personality trait e.g. lack of empathy and constant need for attention and validation.

ADHD frequently co-occurs with other conditions.

That is not always true and not always with everyone. Many people who have ADHD have unsolvable time blindness. They don't mean to do it but their brain chemistry literally disallows them from not doing so in many cases.

Correct. It's been a lifelong struggle for me. I have found outside ways to address it, but even in my 30's I will forget to eat meals or do chores if I don't set disruptive alarms to do so.

That's exactly my point! you do set alarms, you seek the solution. You feel bad when running late so you mask or compensate. If you lack empathy or seek attention, you wouldn't do those things.

I would say I didn't mean the statement that generally - it was contextual to the topic.

i.e. If your friends wont remark on your penmanship, who cares? If they wont remark on how you treat service workers at a restaurant, that's probably concerning.

I should've edited my comment, on reflection my example doesn't fit! I think rincebrain had a nice way of wording what I now believe to be your intent!

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