My own mother's decision to have a nose job, breast implants, and tummy tuck when I was a girl didn't imprint pro-perfection attitudes in me. However, that might be because a hemorrhage almost killed her, then she got systemic lupus (controversial theory points to the implants). The actual body-image harm was done to me by her frequently voicing the dysfunctional attitude that had driven her to seek surgery, since they eventually became my reactions to my own body.

First, I highly recommend that anybody with the spare time take a basic business law course at their local community college. I did so about twelve years ago, and learned an amazing amount of information relevant to everyday life, including the facts about laws & cases that are commonly misunderstood or misrepresented in discussions of safety regulations.

The man's behavior might actually fit one of our own two categories of "causing harm" to others. Everybody is aware (one would hope) that the action of causing direct physical harm to others isn't legal. Under the law, that is referred to as "battery" when the damage is done by a physical attack. While "assault" has the same meaning in everyday English, it's used in our justice system to refer to words or actions that would cause most rational people to have a reasonable expectation that they're going to be harmed.

Considering most people hearing about the staring man in Italy seem to conclude promptly that staring for an extended period twice implied an intent to attack her, it might meet our legal definition of "assault" as well. It's not a matter of violating social norms, it's that facing somebody and staring steadily for a prolonged time are universal nonverbal signals for aggression & sexual interest. (Considering the legal outcome, I am guessing that his expression wasn't particularly charming, either.)

The suggestion that somebody that violates (harmless) social norms in general is potentially violent was quite disturbing, however. There are countless people that play with norms deliberately to bring certain problems to the public's attention, or simply for their own reasons, yet are as harmless as human beings get. There's also a significant part of the population that has neurological wiring, whether it's Tourette's Syndrome or Autism, that makes appearing even partway "normal" a difficult, exhausting task at best. (Try writing with your non-dominant hand for a page or two and make it look like it's natural; you'll get a tiny inkling of what their task is like.) Statistically, they're far more likely to be the victim of violent attacks than to attempt anything themselves; depicting it the other way around is both inaccurate and adds to the problem.

Tina is referring to autistic children, who are often extremely intelligent but can have trouble learning in traditional classrooms, in part because their brain's wiring processes information differently. They *are* the same kids you're thinking of, though -- they used to be misdiagnosed as having profound intellectual impairments because they behaved in ways that most adults couldn't make sense of, had delayed/impaired speech development, and were often locked away in institutions to (mentally) rot.

(Not all autie kids play with feces, though. I never did; my parents directed me towards fingerpaints, mud, and other things that gave a similar sensory experience. A non-autistic cousin of mine, on the other hand, did paint her bedroom walls with poop when she was little.)

This article struck me as being both bizarre and sad. Part of being a friend is knowing their attitudes & feelings about many parts of life, as well as other things that let us judge the person as a multi-faceted human being, not based on a single interest (provided it's at least marginally acceptable by society). For example, I have a good friend who, like all of my friends, knows among other things that I enjoy a few young adult 'fantasy' novel authors and a few other things more associated with the underage set. Last weekend, he amused me with his animated description of an extremely immature 19-year-old girl that was reading a kids' fantasy book. I don't need to worry that he looks down on me as "childish" because of a few interests, though -- he knows my personality, history, and who I am too well for that.

In the case of showing who you are to a potential friend, I think that being misjudged suggests that you aren't offering enough of a way to tell what you're really like, whether that means you need to show more of your personality or do some autobiographical storytelling through words or photos. The lists are supposed to be in addition to other information, not a replacement for it. As an example, one of my English profs at Cal was bright, funny, a talented teacher, and also a fan of soap operas that often made comparisons between the current lit reading and a recent episode. The students could have applied negative stereotypes to him, as the author clearly fears; instead, everybody questioned their assumptions about the shows, wanted to learn what he got out of them, and thought he was "cool" for being so daringly honest.

I feel sorry for the author, as it sounds like she lacks real friends or is too anxious to fully trust & appreciate the ones she has, and that she is stuck carefully acting a part at all times around others. I hope she isn't so busy trying to evaluate others based on their preferences that she fails to notice when somebody with a 'taboo' interest is truly worthwhile.