All My Homies Are Autists

I find it easier to develop deep, vulnerable, loving friendships with people who have a touch of autism.

Psychiatry has rebranded autism (and a lot of other diagnoses) from disorders to neurodivergences. This reframes autism not as a problem to fix or work around, but instead as one among many ways that normal, healthy brains work. I’m in favor of this.

Three common explanations for why autists seem maladjusted when in fact they are not, each of which I ignore in this essay:

1. Person-environment mismatch. You might claim that I have autism because I hate cocktail parties. But the human mind did not evolve under circumstances in which we were meeting strangers every week. Maybe you’re the weird one for liking cocktail parties.
2. Compensation. Autists don’t, for example, read facial expressions as well as the average person. But that’s forced them to learn another special skill to get by in social situations, like being radically honest or interpreting word choice precisely.
3. Unrelated other talents. All the brain that isn’t being used for socializing has found another purpose, like coding or plant identification.

My claim is stronger than (1) “autists would be fine in a different environment” or (2) “autists compensate and thus have some strengths in social situations that others lack” or (3) “autists are good at other things you’re bad at.” I claim that some amount of autism makes you a better friend, in the modern world, whether or not you compensate.

The reason for this is that non-autists have superpowers that are net bad for building friendships. Autists use these superpowers poorly or not at all. Specifically:

1. Autists can’t lie.
2. Autists can’t tell when you’re lying.
3. Autists can’t hide their emotions.
4. Autists can’t tell when they (or others) don’t fit in.

You saw this coming, but: I eke my way onto the autistic spectrum. When I take online autism tests they usually tell me something like “we’re not sure, you should check with a psychiatrist” or “you’re just really awkward bro.” My siblings call me Robotie (instead of Robbie) because of how shy and nerdy I was as a child. In my teens I read a fascinating book about the universality of human facial expressions, but unfortunately it was called “Emotions Revealed,” which gave my sisters years of comedic ammunition. When I asked my therapist if she thinks I’m autistic she gave me a legalese answer of the form “I’m not allowed to diagnose that.”

Don’t let the previous paragraph make you believe this essay does not apply to you. To give myself a shred of credibility: people who know me at arm’s length think I’m anything but autistic, and 90% of the time assume I’m an extrovert. This was not true before the age of 16. I was painfully awkward and shy as a freshman and sophomore in high school. But since then I’ve been very successful at inserting myself within the most ‘popular’ social circles — popular in the vain sense of the word. Popular in the way that gets you invitations to parties and bids to fraternities and followers on Instagram. I’m not claiming lots of people actually liked me or that I had close friendships. You understand the difference, dear reader.

I followed a tried and true recipe for popularity:

1. Be a tall and attractive white person born into wealth.
2. Go to large social gatherings frequently and make yourself the center of attention a large but not distasteful amount, in whatever positive way you can. For me that was winning beer games and performatively displaying my athleticism by, for example, climbing light poles.
3. Don’t say anything too controversial.

I say this not to brag about being popular, but to contend that I did and do have my choice between popular and unpopular, autist and non-autist friends.⁠^[1] For many years I chose not to be close with people who exhibited autistic tendencies, for no other reason than that they generally weren’t popular and I was so enamored with my newfound popularity.

But for the last three years or so, I’ve learned to stop caring as much about being popular.⁠^[2] In doing so I’ve realized the treasures of friendships with people like me — people who are a little autistic. They aren’t diagnosed as autistic, and most wouldn’t self-identify as autistic either. But their behavior puts them just barely onto the spectrum from my admittedly unscientific perspective.

Some of my friends wouldn’t want to see their name in this essay as someone I think is slightly autistic. So I’m instead going to use real stories, but always with placeholder names: Austin, for a slightly autistic person; and Norbert, for a ‘normal,’ not-on-the-autism-spectrum person. Austin and Norbert each represent several different people. These stories have been modified only enough to give me plausible deniability regarding each story’s true subjects.

I: Autists Can Be Trusted #

It’s easy to trust my autistic friends, because it’s obvious when they’re lying to me.

Once Austin tried to get me to sit on chocolate cake and stain my butt brown as a practical joke. But he started laughing as soon as I entered the room.

Another time while playing Catan I knew Austin had brick in his hand based on the previous roll, and threatened to steal it. He promised he didn’t twice. Even though lying is part of the game, it was clear to me that Austin wouldn’t be able to lie this well, and that he’d genuinely broken the rules by accident and taken the wrong card.

II: Autists Believe You #

Austin knows that I’m borderline incapable of tricking or deceiving him, and vice versa. So we never have exchanges like:

“Do I look fat in this dress?”

“No.”

“You don’t really mean that.”

When I give Austin a compliment he doesn’t ask whether I’m trying to butter him up. He smiles and wears it fully.

When I tell Austin some surprising fact about myself, he doesn’t read into it. I recently quit my job as a quant, and I’m not sure what’s next, but my best guess is teacher. Norbert always responds to this information with “I’m so sorry, you must’ve really hated being a quant.” or “There are other corporate jobs out there that are less intense, you know.” But I didn’t hate being a quant that much, and I don’t want a different corporate job. Austin doesn’t try to assume how I’m feeling: he’ll ask “why did you quit?” or even “what type of teacher?”

III: Autists Are Vulnerable #

Not necessarily in a “I’m self-aware of my feelings and will intentionally talk about them in the abstract” way. More often in a “I couldn’t hide my emotions if I tried” way.

Recently my girlfriend visited me for a weekend, and I knew that I had to start a hard conversation with her but was hoping to enjoy our first evening together before bringing it up. But as soon as she got off the plane she could tell I was anxious based on my texts. So we had the conversation immediately, and were better off for it.

Once Austin and I were coworkers. The first day on the job, our boss asked us to share about our lives. My monologue was canned. Austin started talking, and within thirty seconds was crying because his childhood had been so hard.

In college, when Norbert would end a situationship, I could never tell how affected he was. The suave thing to do is act like you never cared anyway, so Norbert would sometimes do this even if he was broken up on the inside. I would find out how sad he truly was only days or weeks later. Austin would sometimes try to obfuscate his sadness too, but it never worked. I could tell instantly and would know to comfort him.

I once overheard Austin get asked at a formal cocktail party “what do you do for work?” Based on the length and emotional honesty of his response, you’d have thought it was his therapist that asked him. He was oblivious to the convention of answering this question in about three words and waiting for a follow-up.

IV: Autists Are Weird #

I’ve been a barefoot runner for the past six years. For all but the first week the most painful part hasn’t been my feet, it’s been the dirty looks. The looks that say “how dare you sully my pavement with your germ-ridden toes” or “I can’t believe his wolf-mother lets him out of the den like that” or “I’m going to have to wash my dog now that he’s played with it.”⁠^[3] I credit myself with a lot of self-confidence and gumption for going around barefoot and stomaching others’ stares. And when I asked myself why other people don’t go barefoot like me despite how amazing it feels, my unique gumption was the answer.

But on a walk recently with Norbert in Manhattan, I learned that I have another strength: obliviousness. Every couple minutes he would say something like “did you notice that group of tourists pointing at you back there?” and I would shrug. I thought I noticed most of the stares I got, but I was wrong. Norbert noticed more people judging him for walking next to a barefoot person than I noticed judging me for being the barefoot person. No wonder no one ever wants to go on a jog with me.

It’s hard to talk about Austin’s weird habits while simultaneously obfuscating his identities, but I’ll try. He hugs you like you’re his grandma. He sees so much emotion, intentionality, and wisdom in animals and trees. He’ll talk your ear off about whatever he’s thinking about right now, so if you’re on a long car ride and don’t feel like talking you can sit back and listen to him rattle off a podcast-worthy monologue. He treats kids, boomers, bosses, and employees as if they are his peers and equals.

Inner Children #

As I write this, I realize these four traits describe another set of people: children. Children can’t lie, they are trusting, they’re vulnerable without realizing what they’re doing, and they do weird stuff by accident. Maybe the people I’m claiming are ‘a little autistic’ aren’t autistic at all, they just had childhoods full of loving caretakers and never learned to be guarded or cynical. Whatever the truth is, I will continue to treasure the many Austins in my life, and will keep looking for more.