From Performance to Presence: Reducing Identity Distance Through Social Architecture
There is a particular exhaustion that accumulates when the self you present to the world does not match the self you experience internally. For many neurodivergent people, this gap is a constant companion. It is the distance between the spontaneous hand flap and the still hand resting on the table. It is the distance between the need for direct communication and the performance of reading between the lines. It is the distance between the sensory overwhelm you feel and the neutral expression you wear. This distance has a name. In sociological terms, it is called identity distance. And while the term was not coined with neurodivergence specifically in mind, it describes with precision the daily experience of masking.
Herbert Blumer, a sociologist and architect of symbolic interactionism, offered a framework that can help us understand why this distance exists and how we might begin to close it. Blumer’s theory rests on three simple propositions. We act toward things based on the meanings those things hold for us. Those meanings arise from our social interactions with others. And those meanings are handled and modified through an interpretive process we use when encountering the world. In essence, we are all constantly negotiating what things mean together. Meaning is not fixed. It is made and remade in relationship.
For neurodivergent individuals, the problem is not a lack of social skill. The problem is that the shared meaning making process has historically been dominated by neurotypical norms. The meaning of eye contact, of small talk, of enthusiasm expressed through a still body, these meanings were established without input from those who experience them differently. The neurodivergent person enters a social environment that already has a fixed set of meanings and is expected to conform to them. To do otherwise invites misunderstanding or rejection. So the gap widens. The inner self remains hidden. The presented self performs fluency.
Blumer’s insight offers a way out. If meaning is negotiated, it can be renegotiated. If meaning arises from interaction, then new interactions can generate new meanings. This is not about teaching neurodivergent people to mask more effectively. It is about empowering them to become active participants in the creation of the social environments they inhabit. It is about reducing identity distance not by changing the inner self but by changing the conditions under which the self is expressed.
The first step in this process is designing physical and relational spaces where neurodivergent ways of being are not merely tolerated but assumed as valid. This might mean arranging a living room with specific accommodations for sensory needs without apology. It might mean choosing to communicate with a partner primarily through text during certain hours because verbal processing is fatiguing. It might mean joining a professional setting where direct feedback is the norm rather than the exception. Each of these choices is an act of renegotiating meaning. The flapping hands no longer mean childishness. They mean regulation. The request for written instructions no longer means incompetence. It means clarity. The refusal to engage in small talk no longer means coldness. It means efficiency or sensory conservation.
When a neurodivergent person designs their environment in this way, they are not withdrawing from the social world. They are asserting that their way of being is a legitimate foundation for shared meaning. This is not isolation. This is social architecture.
Blumer’s theory also illuminates a critical warning sign. When a neurodivergent person is working twice as hard to be understandable, they are engaged in a kind of interpretive labor that is rarely visible. They are constantly translating their internal experience into a neurotypical framework. They are monitoring their own body language while simultaneously attempting to decipher the subtext of others. They are suppressing authentic responses in favor of expected responses. This effort is not neutral. It draws from a finite pool of cognitive and emotional resources. Over time, the accumulation of this labor contributes directly to burnout, sensory dysregulation, depression, and a profound sense of alienation.
The goal of reducing identity distance is not to eliminate all social friction. Some degree of adaptation is part of any human relationship. The goal is to ensure that the burden of adaptation does not fall disproportionately on one party. When a neurodivergent person can enter a room and trust that their way of communicating will be met with curiosity rather than correction, the gap begins to close. When they can stim without first scanning for judgment, the distance shortens. When they can say I need this to be written down without anticipating a sigh, the self becomes more integrated.
Blumer reminds us that we are always in the process of constructing reality together. For too long, neurodivergent people have been expected to construct a reality that does not include them. The work of reducing identity distance is the work of insisting that the shared world be built by all of us. It is not a request for accommodation. It is an invitation to participate in the creation of meaning. And that invitation, extended fully and genuinely, benefits everyone.
