IQ EQ AQ BBQ

Once again, had five hours sleep, so it's hazelnut flavoured coffee for breakfast by the gallon this morning so I can get myself through a day's work. Been having fun conversations with guys online about Intelligence, Emotional and Autistic Quotient scores and what possible merit there is in knowing stuff like this. I score 165-185, 0 and 6 respectively. Scoring zero on emotional intelligence but not being autistic probably just means I'm a bad person, but hey, I can live with that. I'm laughing, though, at people who are self-diagnosing as autistic as though it's kinda cool. I used to work with young autistic deaf people in Leeds (a quadruple challenge!) and being a bit obsessed with trains ain't the same as slamming your support worker (me!) against a wall and trying to strangle him because the door to the classroom is locked thirty seconds after the class should have started. Luckily, I knew that person well enough to know that if you spoke to them they always did the same thing and said they were deaf by putting their hands over their ears, and that tic was more powerful than the urge to strangle (or try to kiss, according to other people nearby) someone. Geeky's cool, but it doesn't quite need so much management as beserker autists.

This EQ test is about as much use as this EQ test and I think I'd give more credence to the latter than the former. I mean, any quiz that says, "What do you do when someone tells a racist joke?" and doesn't include, "Laugh," is making huge assumptions about their readership. I'm not saying I always laugh at racist jokes but it does depend on the intent behind them really, as with gay jokes and such like? "Why can't gay men box?" makes us laugh because it's based on truth!

Of course, I think we could all do with a few more autistic traits in society because so few people seem to have hobbies (newsflash to the gays: ketamine is not a hobby). However, that doesn't mean mental illness is cool (newsflash to young bloggers and livejournaleers: you are not bipolar, you're just bored). Seems like every kid these days either has ADHD or is autistic if you listen to the TV (er, or watch the radio, mr. Synaesthesia, have you red the newspaper, too?). Labels might provide convenient excuses but every lazy person self-diagnosing as depressed isn't really going to help our social understanding of clinical depression, is it?

Um. Ooh, gloomy post. Should I post pictures of puppies instead? NSFW.

Oh, sod it, I should go to work. Slave to money, people! Still, Malmö next weekend, yay.

This post was brought to you by these random words: zombiecoterie, thepirateking, IQ, EQ, AQ, intelligence, empathy, autism, aspiring to mental illness, ketamine, newsflash, puppycock, malmö, avenue q, good morning everyone