Parallel play and neurodivergent joy

I have a constant push and pull between wanting to be with others and wanting to be alone, and I’ve realized that it’s because I highly value and need parallel play. I love sitting with someone in silence, each doing our own thing. Once I realized this, I realized that I can actually have much more entwined relationships and spend a lot more time with people I love. I really like spending a lot of time with people, and if we could sit together in silence, I’d love to do it every day. This was a big breakthrough for me about why I want to spend so much time with people but I also can’t.

Parallel play is something that has to be done intentionally. It doesn’t happen by default. Most people assume that you want to socialize when you spend time together—that spending time with them means you want to talk and engage with them and focus on them. We’re often socialized to feel uncomfortable when there’s silence between people. The silence feels like a gap that needs to be filled. I’ve found that many people feel awkward around me because I don’t feel obligated to engage them. But they interpret this as me being awkward.

I experience two different kinds of silence in social settings: silence when I want to be silent, and silence when I want to say something but can’t get myself to say it. The latter is social anxiety; it’s awkwardness. The former is not. Because silence isn’t inherently awkward. The awkwardness comes from an unmet expectation of wanting to socialize. Being quiet around others when you want to be quiet isn’t awkward; it’s comfortable. To me, there’s nothing more comfortable than having the serenity and confidence to say something when you want to say something and only when you want to say something. This is a goal I’d like to be able to reach: knowing when I want to be quiet, knowing when I want to talk, and talking when I want to. This requires a lot of mindfulness, confidence, and self-control. It requires letting go of trying to read other people’s minds—are they expecting me to talk?—and being centred within myself.

You might ask what the point of parallel play is. If you want to be quiet, why not be by yourself? However, the way I see it is that this is a loaded question rooted in neuronormativity. It assumes that the default form of socialization is to talk, and any other form of socialization has to be justified to be able to exist.

Parallel play exists because neurodivergent people also have social needs. Being quiet, wanting to hyperfocus on something, wanting to be productive, wanting to be stimulated by something—these factors don’t preclude wanting to socialize. Parallel play allows neurodivergent minds to connect with each other. It’s a form of relating with each other. It allows us to share space with each other and see that there are others who engage with the world the way we engage with it. Parallel play creates space for neurodivergent joy, for neurodivergent ways of relating.

It’s often thought that neurodivergent people aren’t social, but we are. We appear not to be social in a neuronormative world because neuronormative environments are draining to us. Not only are we expected to constantly talk and engage with others, but we’re expected to do so in often crowded, noisy environments. This means that we can only exist in social spaces in small periods of time, thus giving the impression that we don’t like to be social. We might even interpret our own behaviour as a lack of interest in socialization, because we might not be aware that there are other ways to socialize.

We’re also expected to focus on others when socializing, pulling us away from our special interests and passions. This creates a conflict between our desire to socialize and our desire to lose ourselves in our interests. This, again, gives the impression that we don’t like to be social. If we have to choose between being social in neuronormative settings and focusing on our special interests, we’re likely to choose the latter. But this is a false dilemma. Socialization can look however you want it to look. It’s up to the people involved to shape the social setting.

So the question is, how do we create an environment of parallel play?

I think the most important thing is to be intentional about it. Because we’re socialized to believe that being around others means that we have to engage with them, we have to counter that by setting out to intentionally create an environment where we can exist around others without having to engage with them. We can create parallel play as an expectation. For example, you can get together with a group of friends at a particular time and say that you’re not going to engage with each other, but rather that you’re each going to focus on your own special interest or project—you’re simply going to exist around each other.

I also think it would help if the setting is quiet and uncrowded, and in general more accessible to neurodivergent minds, and conducive to being able to hyperfocus. This might mean choosing a space that has little to no background noise. This can help maximize the amount of time you can spend in this environment. For example, a library might be a better setting than a coffee shop.

It might also be helpful to create a timeframe for talking. For example, you can set the first few minutes of a session as talking time. If there’s anyone new in the group, this can be the time to make introductions. This can help create an environment where people can feel comfortable being quiet with each other. Because we’re socialized to have to engage with others when we’re around them, some people might not feel comfortable unmasking and being their neurodivergent selves until they have a certain level of familiarity with the people around them. However, I think it’s also important to emphasize that talking is always optional. Whether it’s because you’re too shy to talk, or you simply don’t want to talk, you can choose not to talk. Talking should never be expected; the expectation should be to allow a person to be quiet if they choose to be.

I really wish—and hope—that we can deconstruct neuronormativity and make our societies more accommodating to neurodivergent people; I really wish we can make public spaces more accommodating to neurodivergences and different ways of playing and socializing. However, in the meantime, I strongly believe in creating intentional spaces for parallel play where neurodivergent people can unmask and experience social settings that allow us to be our true neurodivergent selves—experience social settings that give us joy.