Your friend is at least partially misinforming you. It's fine to write k instead of ok in almost all situations. But either of them can be rude if the other person would expect more emotive words. For example here's when k is fine:

Them: Bring my pen when you come into the other room

You: k

And here's where k is not fine:

Them: Wanna go grab some drinks tonight at 8?

You: k

That's rude. They would want to hear you actually be interested in their invitation. Like saying "great" or "I'm in" or whatever.

K can give the impression that you don’t care and don’t want to be bothered with it. The effort in your response is expected to be proportional to the effort it took to write the message to you.

If someone write a long personal message to you, and all you responds is K, then it gives the impression that you might not even read the message. Why even bother next time?

Proper grammar in informal settings is a difficult one, but this is my theory:

It might give the impression of mismatch in vibes. There’s a difference in informal speak and formal speak, and participants in a conversation are expected to be in the same wavelength. An extreme example, but it’s like when everybody is dressed casually at a social gathering, but you decide to show up in a three piece suit.

Saying "k" probably seems dismissive to most people

Alright. That’s bullshit. Not entirely. But it’s riddled with it. The “k” part, I understand. This can be considered rude and to be honest, it’s my way of saying “whatever dude”.

BUT that’s how I use it. I have met people who use it as a lazy but friendly way of “alright, got it”. So it depends on who uses it and what its intention is supposed to be. You either have to be incredibly nuanced or have to know the person who is using it to properly interpret it. Which your friend kinda doesn’t. I’m not blaming her. I fail at it way too often myself.

The “ending a sentence with a period” on the other hand? My answer would have been “Are you high?!” Seriously, it doesn’t make any sense and it sounds made up.

Edit: Thinking about this makes me even angry ffs.

I'm not sure how helpful this will be, but I think it is misleading for you to think of these things as "rules". Calling them rules implies that people know what they are, and try to abide by them. But I don't think thats whats happening.

Since written communication conveys so much less emotion than verbal communication, people tend to read more into the textual form to infer things like emotion or intent. There aren't specific rules for this, people just pick up on patterns. For example angry or excited people tend to use capitals to "sound louder". People talking casually tend to leave out some grammar. Friendly conversations tend to have more long rambling sentences, as opposed to someone trying to prove a point with concise, well punctuated sentences.

So I think what NTs are doing is just subconsciously figuring out these patterns to determine a likely emotion/intent behind messages.

To me, "K" isn't rude for the reasons your friend tried to list, but it does sound "colder" to me, probably because my brain sees a pattern where the people who are not interested in talking to me will tend to use short succinct responses, while people happy to talk will use longer form.

But a huge part of communication, especially online, is just getting used to the people you talk to. It's happened many times that someone who seemed grumpy to me at first turned out to be very friendly, etc.

I agree with so many folks on this thread- your friend is pushing one set of social queues that they abide by, but that isn't everyone.

I think this has more to do with communication over text, as there are NO physical cues to help gauge tone. I'm not autistic, however when texting I've learned to practice mirroring for each person I chat with. If I notice they end their sentences without punctuation, I'll adopt that. If I notice more emojis, I'll have fun with that, or hold off if it seems that they don't use them.

A big one for me is using "!". I usually will use "!" to signal excitement/ friendly tone, however I've learned some people see it as an angry tone and thought I was freaking out about what they said.

When I talked to my therapist, he noted with his clients that 90% of disputes start over social media/ texting. I almost lost a friend when they sent me a lecture from a professor talking about the Israeli/ Palestine conflict. A few days later I saw a funny music composition video titled "old MacDonald had a lobotomy". I thought I was just sending a funny video, but she thought it was in response to her video, and I got a stern text that I had to clear up.

Communication is a two way street. It's both about the message the sender is trying to convey, but also the way the receiver interprets it. As a (mostly) neurotypical thinker, this is even hard for many of us to get right.

An example for clarity is the response your getting in the comments to your friends comments. Various people are disagreeing and agreeing to different levels. Conversation is navigating the complicated dynamics to as the sender, sending your message in a way the receiver will get the impression you are trying to give, and as a receiver, trying to understand the intent of the message the sender is trying to show.

There aren't many hard or fast rules. In different online communities, different styles and patterns can conotate different things. There are patterns and styles I use here on Lemmy for example, I would never use in a sports online community because they would be interpreted differently there.

My advice is don't beat yourself up about it. If you're not getting the type of interactions you're expecting in a particular community, that might be the time to ask for feedback or see if your communication style is different than the local group there. But the ephemeral nature of these online conversations make it the perfect place to experiment and find a communication style that works for you and gets the response from others you are looking for.

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I'm no expert on neurotypicals, but I've observed them for a long time as an ADHD neurodivergent. "K" seems to give them the impression of disinterest, like saying "K, can we move on?" Kind of thing, like what was said wasn't interesting, or important; but context is important for them. If you're taking direction eg: "hey, OP. Push that button, would you?"; in that case it's fine to use "K" as a reply, just to confirm you heard the instruction, while you go to do the thing. In contexts where they're telling you something that seems important to them, whether the information is actually important or it is important to the speaker, and you reply with "K" then that's where they get offended by it.

It's nuanced and neurotypicals don't understand themselves well enough to adequately explain these nuances, because they go on feeling more than logic. There is a sort of logic to it, but they don't understand what it is.

k.

K

K

You already have a bunch of discussion on how "k" can seem dismissive as it's the lowest effort affirmative reply possible, but I'd add that "K." can seem worse, because it's the same message with more effort - if everyone has understood/assumed that "k" is the lowest effort/energy communication, capitalizing and punctuating it indicates that you do have the extra energy, you just choose to spend that energy on emphasizing the dismissive response, rather than on using a different one. It has the same connotations, but more emphatically and more intentionally (or, that's how it comes across).

I also think in general taking the effort to use correct punctuation and grammar seems more formal, less natural, and hence more emotionally distant. It can also seem more emphatic or assertive, like by using more correct grammar/punctuation than everyone else, you're positioning yourself as generally more "correct" than they are. The combination of emotional distance and implicit high ground can come across as a bit hostile, or at least standoffish.

The reverse could also be true - if you were in a culture or context where everyone else was using correct grammar and punctuation and you weren't, it could come across as implying that they're not worth caring about. For example, in work communications, or maybe when talking to members of an older generation or people from a country that uses more formal language.

In general, probably the smoothest approach would be to observe how others in a given circle communicate, and try to match their level of formality. I guess this is basically masking. If you'd rather not change how you communicate to fit in, you could explicitly discuss this with people - essentially say, "hey, I'm aware that my natural style is different from yours, and I want to be clear that this isn't indicative of my emotional state, or attitude to you, or any intended tone, this is just my natural baseline".

At the end of the day the options will always be a) mask, b) be awkwardly explicit, or c) get used to being misunderstood.

... this was really meant to be a quick addition about the difference between "k" and "K." but sometimes my comments turn into essays for no good reason. Hope something in here was useful anyway.

I'm with you on the punctuation. The k bit I think is about showing you are putting effort in to understand and care, so something slightly longer like "k... I understand" or some extra acknowledgement that shows you understand and have taken the time to take it in helps. Personally, I have a big thing about miscommunication, so knowing people have understood me and listened actively is huge to me. "K." does not express much of anything other than "I saw there was a message", so I'd want to push to check that I've actually been heard.

Hope that makes sense.

I can relate. I often say "sure" as an affirmative. To me it sounds nice. People always think I'm being sarcastic. I mean, I am often sarcastic but not in the mean or mocking way that people take this.

"Would you like to do go to the concert with me?"
"Sure!"
crying "why don't you want to go to the concert with me???"

As far as I know, I am neurotypical, so mind that when reading my comment.

Regarding the title of your question:
Because neurotypicals are the majority of people. As usual, majorities set norms and actively or passively decide upon common concepts like ethical or societal rules.

Regarding the issue you described:
Even though it might seem exhausting, I think it's important to see people – regardless whether neurotypical or not – not as a homogeneous mass but as a highly variable mixture.

Sure, even then there are common rules like don't punch people. But those are the broad and general ground rules.

Then, there are the nuances, which can be highly individual.

In your example, regarding the punctuation, use of grammar as well as verbosity of replies, I would react completely different than your friend. I wouldn't mind any of those things, which seemed rude to her. Okay, maybe I would feel like I weren't given the attention I hoped for if, after pouring my heart out, I just get a simple "K." as response. That would make me sad, because I was hoping for compassion and a dialouge dealing with the issue.
But apart from such things, that would probably be totally fine for me.

One behaviour and two very different reactions due to two different people.
As such nuances are often individual, it's probably best to explore what kind of behaviour the other person would feel comfortable with and with which behaviour they don't. Repeat that process with everyone in your life, who you would also like to keep relations to.

That's also related to a thing known as role-behaviour in psychology, which also applies to neurotypicals. When I talk to my superior at work, I behave differently than when I am at home with my wife. Then, I also behave differently with my friends. And among the friends, I learned enough about some, to know what and how I can say something to them and from which topics or phrasings it's probably best to steer away.

The punctuation is total bullshit. 100% ignore them. Typing just K definitely is a bit informal for all but the most casual conversations with close relationships. I will 100% drop an👌👍 online when I encounter someone who just wants to argue or be mean to piss them off. Nothing enrages a gen z troll like 👌👍.

If it's any consolation, my just-barely-maybe neurotypical ass uses proper punctuation and I've never had any issues. If anyone asks I just say it's a thing I do.

I have pretty much the same comment as anyone else here (punctuation is fine, "K" is less fine) so I won't repeat it but it reminds me of this sketch. People can't read your inflection over texts...especially when it's a one letter answer.

Imagine a parent saying "clean your room" and a passive aggressive teenager saying "K." - that's how it can be interpreted in some contexts.