Anyone else do this?

I discovered this year that there was an unspoken rule to get on the bus in the order you arrived at the bus stop at. I had never paid attention to this and just got on in order of proximity to the door when it stopped until I got yelled at. I thought the guy was just being weird but I’ve paid attention since and it is absolutely true, people will move away from the door to let people who have waited longer board first.

Not sure how universal this is, I’m in the UK.

This has to be a UK thing. Elsewhere I've only ever seen people with accessibility needs prioritized.
UK, home of the queue! Although we Americans inherited the tradition of the queue from you and skipping the line is very much frowned upon here, I don't recall anyone caring about who gets onto public transportation first. I know I've never thought about it. Who's paying attention to what order people arrive at a bus stop, anyway??
Yet, in other parts of the UK it’s mostly based on who is the most skilful at standing where the bus doors will stop.
Don’t wanna get on last? Git gud.
It's a courtesy thing that some people will do and some people won't, in my city people tend to do ladies first then by arrival time.
Not at all how it happens in Brazil, it's free for all, especially as sometimes the bus might already be so fucking packed it won't fit everyone trying to get in. I've had that happen to me several times and I also had the "pleasure" of being the last person to find a way to squeeze in more than once.
Some 10 to 7-ish years ago, it was also very common to have attention seeking idiots who'd put their phones on max volume and play their shitty music so everyone else had to listen, sometimes ending in a fight. This shit apparently died out, thank fuck
I'm in the UK and tend to do this. I don't notice it done by most people though.
We do seem to have a learned behaviour to queue here, so it makes sense to me that some people maintain a virtual queue in their head.

I was like "I'm pretty sure that's autism" and then I saw where I was.

I was relating a little too much and got excited finding something so niche but relatable, expecting this was in a meme community and then facepalmed on the inside when I saw the community 🫠

As a kid I didn't know you need to press the stop button and just assumed the bus stops at all stops every time. Somehow I got through 2 years of regular use without missing a stop until I learned about the button.

If there is no buttons you are supposed to yell "next stop please."
- Guess I’m just stuck on the bus forever at that point
- I've never been on one without a button or wire to pull to indicate stopping.

One of the rules I find interesting is that when you ride an elevator you should turn around and face the door.

Not saying there is a wrong direction to face while riding an elevator (without further context), but it always just made sense to me to face the door you expect to open when the elevator gets to the floor you're traveling to. Like, nothing stops you from facing sideways on a moving sidewalk, but facing the direction you intend to go when the ride is over is more convenient.
- Yeah the door face is where the buttons and floor indicator are typically. Plus, other people might join the elevator before you get to your floor. Assuming you would rather be facing them then showing them your back it makes sense to turn around right away.
  There are some social conformity experiments on youtube about getting people to face the "wrong" way though.
How are you supposed to know when it's your floor if you're not facing the door?
- I commonly see people spread out and stand with their backs to each wall, facing the center. You can still see the floor indicator easily when standing to one side like that. Of course, if there's only a couple floors, you may not need to look.
an elevator with two doors appears
- Vordt.mp4 begins to play in the background.
- Ahh, rape jokes, never goes out of fashion.

Whenever you're in new situations, it's ok to not know how to behave, you never did that before and, unless someone walked you thru, you won't know about hidden rules. Like the first time doing a job interview, or the first time going out on a romantic date. The difference is that in some settings, everyone is so used to everyone "knowing" that they really can't fathom someone not knowing

Funny bit, I recall a piece on the local TV showing a tourist (I think he was German or French) who visited Brazil for the first time. He went to a self service restaurant, but just sat there, waiting for someone to give him a menu, for like 15 minutes until a woman approached him and asked if everything was ok. "Everyone" knows you're supposed to pick a plate and serve your own plate with the available food in these restaurants.

I went through this learning the same example: bus. But other situations, too.

Enjoy your autism mate

Yes, this is normal. It's how being. Part of a society works. Everybody learns the conventions at some point and often just by mimicking.

It's not a fear, it's real. Rules like you aren't allowed to do better than your paygrade.

Some stupid diploma is more important. If you try to learn and improve, people will DESPISE you.

I'm bad about watching others in a not very graceful way. I end up staring for to long and it gets weird.

Is that not just “trying to fit in”?

I've had this for the most time, social fear with exactly that thinking. I did overcome it in the last years though. I can't really explain how but I internalized that other people can be like that too, so you're not alone, and that when there are no rules, you can behave how it's comfortable to you and that's 100% fine.

That is the normal human experience, I think.

Phew. Good. For a moment I thought I might be on the spectrum.
This. Almost everyone I know has said, "Fake it 'til you make it" and "When in Rome..."
- Yeah but at what point is one supposed to have "made it"? I've been faking it for years, still waiting.
Yep. You can find some research about it in sociology/psychology. I think sociology calls these unspoken rules mores, if you want to look it up. The most famous example is when an entire group of people is in a new setting, like the first class of the first day as freshmen in high school, 6th graders in middle school (or whenever your local school board decides middle school starts), and college freshmen. The entire group usually sits quietly and nervously until they start taking cues from the teacher. Once they learn the basics expectations and test the boundaries, behavior falls somewhere between how they used to act and what they think is expected from the entire group. We are hugely social animals, and there's a reason that exile used to be a major punishment.
People don't seem to really grasp how much of our behavior is 'scripted' like a movie or play, and, amusingly enough, how much we follow the scripts of said movies/plays/other-observed-scenes when we're in a new or stressful situation. Remember your first time in an amorous situation with a date, say in a car or closet or back yard at a party? If you hadn't been listening to your friends and what they did (or told you they did / what to do), you might find yourself awkwardly stumbling through the actions of some movie's clip, whether that's casablanca, sixteen candles, or easy a. Hopefully it won't be anything from when harry met sally.
Yes the hard part is when you either struggle too much to do that social mimicking.
Or In my case it's anxiety, and it's overwhelming dread about failing to mimick.
Please don't make me tell you about the first time I had fondue....
No, it is not normal, at all. From what I gathered reading hundreds of thousands of reddit and lemmy posts, it's a young person thing.
We GenX kids had zero problems discussing our deepest fears among each other. Can't think of a single instance of anyone worrying about how to act in simple public situations.
I'm probably biased as old reddit and lemmy aren't representative of society in whole. I have several friends I've known since their late teens, early 20s now, and none of them talk about social anxiety.

This peaks when the police drives by.

Am I actually allowed to sit on this park bench?

Am I actually allowed to sit on this park bench?
Police are bad. Bouncers absolutely unhinged. I've been turned away for not having nice enough shoes. I've had them think I was intoxicated after one drink. I've gotten verbal warnings for standing on things, while they let the people around me literally dance on them. They've knocked back student admission because my student ID card expired months ago. I recently got told off for drinking a beer while standing up.
And they act like if you dismiss these ridiculous things, they will immediately resort to violence.

Very relatable. Being afraid of doing anything new because I'm so sure I'll mess it up and do it wrong or get asked something I'm not prepared for. Same reason I want to try and research things as much as possible beforehand. It's not as bad as it used to be for me but I definitely still relate.

Worst case is when there are some written rules, but there's a spoken agreement (which you don't know about) to ignore some of those rules

And only some people are allowed to not follow those rules but you don't know that they're not following the rules when you copy them, and you eventually get iced out and get yelled at.
And it's never explained why some people can not follow the rules and still be treated respectfully and some people can't and get yelled at.
- It always confused me as to why everyone else are allowed to behave badly and constantly scream, and I have to be mindful and respect them, but they never have to show even the smallest respect back and I can't even raise my voice ones without being in trouble.

I found a secret. Normal people also feel like this, they are just better at reading the ambient rules.

It turns out, if you project your own mindset with enough confidence, they will sync to your rules. No need to figure out the rules, when you've already redefined them to suit yourself.

Or just be me, ADHD as hell, and be oblivious that there are rules that I'm unaware of until like age 30 :D
You say that but when I took my pants off on the airplane, they arrested me when we landed.
- Agreed, it has its limits. Trying to get a library karaoke session going, to reduce exam stress also ends poorly.

Ughhhhh, this drudged up a painful old memory.

When I was in elementary school, I went to a sleepover. One of the girls was Jewish and brought out a dreidel. I didn't know much about dreidels, but I did know I have a tendency to miss important cues and could easily offend somebody by accident. She offered me to play, but all I could think about was "this is an important object to her and her religion. If I fuck up, I'll definitely be offending her."

I was terrified of doing something wrong, so I declined to play.

Turns out, that was the biggest fuck-up of all. She immediately started accusing me of being anti-Jewish. I was overwhelmed and confused, and no amount of explaining my reasoning could push away that accusation.

Anxiety strikes again.

When I was working at a day care decades ago I didn't want to read a kid's book that was partially in Spanish, because I didn't want to fuck up the pronunciation in front of actual Spanish speaking kids.
I'll never live that racist reputation down.
- I’m sorry that happened to you, but it helps to know I’m not the only one that had such a misunderstanding.

Holy shit. Went to a Japanese restaurant. In Japan. Despite close to a decade of martial arts training and dojo etiquette, I stuffed up and placed ONE foot on the tatami surface while wearing shoes for 2 seconds. The other patrons gasped.

My sensei would yell at everyone who ever did it.

I cannot overestimate how much you need to prepare for being in public.

To be fair, Japan has designed a whole culture around the exact fear that you and OP described (also, don't do that. Shoes don't go beyond the shoe area at the entrance.)
I know it's autocorrect but I got a giggle out of 'marital arts'
- I manual-uncorrected it. Even though I've been practising marital arts even longer.

Someone once remarked to me that I'm "good on the train". That's because I used to get near panic attacks on where I should be standing, sitting, where to stack my bike, and if someone else needed a seat.

Even now I'm constantly adjusting my position at every stop like a slowly neurotic madman to give people space and walk access because I'm terrified of blocking anyone

Nah. I fear uncertainty. I am 100% certain there's going to be some social norm I don't know and that everyone around me just groks.

Yes. So very yes. I'm over 40 now and have most social situations set as templates or template variations, but as a teenager and young adult it was hard to get the unspokenly expected responses and reactions right.

These days I got it all covered so well that I have anyone and everyone so convinced that I am an extrovert that they actually laugh when I suggest I'm in truth an introvert and more.

I still am overly self conscious too much, especially AFTER any interactions, reflecting way too much on how I might have come over, seemed, what was too much, not enough, etc.

It's a mask I can no longer turn off as it's automated and its very exhausting.

But it works... Based on my observations.

I use social templates too, to varying degrees of success. Older people at the supermarket are easy, younger people at work are hard. Useless on teens, useful on LEO. As far as reflecting too much, I used to too, until I got a kitten. I tell him my thoughts out loud and he listens...I think. Anyway it works, you'll feel more at ease and less anxious discussing you existential crisis to a furry friend 😺
Is this template thing not... Just how life works?
Like, I've taken enough sociology and anthropology classes to know that humans these systems of behavior into our societies. We go into church and there is a set of behaviors expected, we go to the grocery and there is a set of behaviors expected when speaking with the clerk, et cetera, et cetera.
But, like, is this a ND thing to need to memorize the templates for these interactions? Because that's my whole life. Stand back, try to remain unseen, observe, memorize, then I can interact. Is that not just what everyone does?
Y'all, I'm having a little bit of a crisis here
- I feel that for many people it simply comes more naturally.
  It's a seamless scale and I just presume I'm missing some receptors others have socially so I have to compensate with templates.
  Yes, people all have to learn what is what in which society and what situation or environment. I think it's a major difference in constant self reflection others dont have that much and how raw data arrives. For me its like I perceive things slighty differently than most and I have to first convert it to a alternative viewport to make it fit properly.
  Small differences can have a big impact on if something is awkward or normal.
This is me. I could have written every word of this (if not so succinctly). I often wonder how much of my fatigue is due to wearing the mask all the time.

Not autism but ADHD and social anxiety and I struggle with this so much 🥲

I've gotten a lot better with it though :)

I feel like everyone struggles with that. Maybe some very self-confident people don't.
- I get the impression it's much less of a thing for neurotypical folks

Went to a Korean barbecue place last night. First time I've ever been there, first time I've ever been to that part of town, it was the end of the night so we were the only people there trying to figure things out. We apparently managed to do everything right, but we were really unsure if we were the entire time until the check came. We did however manage to accidentally upgrade to the premium meat options but it was totally worth it.

Haven't seen conventions mentioned in this thread. Big or small, cons give me the "i don't belong here" feels

Literally everyone in the world does this.

Neurotypical people do this far, far less; and if someone feels like they have to point out that it happens to them all the time, they're definitely not neurotypical.
- Neurotypicals are always doing this, it's just not as stressful for them. They call it reading the room, or vibe checks or call it nothing at all except being polite. Trying to follow set etiquette in a new situation is a completely "normal" thing to do.
Also NTs aren't feeling so much anxious in such situations as NDs do
- Hard agree

I was always terrified to take the bus for this reason. I never did in grade school (always was picked up) so the few times I had to take the bus was pretty bad - none of the teachers or bus drivers ever told us how to do it, it was just assumed that everyone knew where all the stops were. This was exacerbated by the fact that since I was not a regular, the driver forgot my stop. So the second and maybe last time I took the bus, little 10yo me got off 1 stop early out of fear and walked the rest of the way.

This caused a deep seated trauma around buses and public transit that was only mitigated when I moved somewhere with excellent (by US standards) transit, though I still feel like a fish out of water if I don't know the route or the stops - so trains are a lot less stressful.

One other approach would be to do it your way. Being accepted is nice, being yourself is too. For me it is some point in between.

No one has all the answers. Some might think they do and some might get close, but there's always something there to throw a wrench in what we know.

That's why the best answer is to simply not give a fuck. Learn what you can, take failures as lessons but try not to fuck up too bad. If you do fuck up, fuck up with glee knowing you can always be the one to throw the wrench and that no one else really knows what they're doing.