It’s not fair that we have to conform to NT social standards. It’s really not. It sucks and it’s hard work.
In most situations, I will nod my head and say that NTs just need to be more accepting and get over it.
The big exception I have, however, is when autistic men accidentally act in a threatening manner towards women.
Look, I’m an autistic woman and even I, knowing full well what’s going on, still get terrified sometimes. So I’ve just put together the three things autistic men do that immediately set off the red alert in my brain, with some quick tips for avoiding appearing threatening in ways that shouldn’t upset your autism.
(Side note: To be honest, a lot of this is applicable across all genders and interactions, but women get more leeway before their behaviour is seen as threatening. When other women do these things, I shrug them off, or tell them to knock it off. When men do them, I freeze up and panic. There is a cultural bias to see men as more threatening.
And, to be honest, that red alert in my brain is essential to my survival, and that’s true for a lot of women. In the past, when I haven’t listened to the red alert, and have tried to give the benefit of the doubt, I have ended up in some very bad situations. It’s unfortunate that ND behaviours get tied up in red flag behaviours, but it doesn’t make them any less red flag behaviours and women reacting as such is important to them as a survival skill.)
If You Find Out Personal Contact Information By Accident, You’re Not Allowed to Use it
Say you’re on a work night out and you and a co-worker share a taxi home. She gets out and walks to her house before the taxi pulls away to take you home. You now know where she lives.
She hasn’t given you that information. She hasn’t extended an invitation for you to call around. So don’t. In anything short of an emergency situation (e.g. she doesn’t show up for work and no one can contact her), you act as if you don’t have that information.
Similarly, if you happen to come across her phone number or personal email, without her having given it to you, don’t use it. Or start using it sparingly, and open with “Hey, it’s [your name]. I got your number from [X] because I needed to ask you [Y]. If you’d rather I contact you in another way, or just would have preferred it if I had I waited until we saw each other in person, please let me know.”
If she doesn’t respond, don’t send another message. Just let it go.
Showing up uninvited to someone’s house (when they haven’t given you an open invitation to call around whenever) or using personal contact information they haven’t given you makes you seem like a stalker. And showing up at her house especially violates her feeling of safety.
Step Back and Don’t Block Exits
Look, we all get excited when we infodump. We all get stimmy and have trouble regulating the volume of our voices.
Similarly, we all start frantically stimming when we get frustrated.
Both of these can be terrifying to be on the other end of, but it’s very simple to reduce the risk of the person you’re talking to feeling afraid.
Take a good step back. I mean it. A decent one. If you’re too far away for them to hear, they will step closer to you. Give them breathing room.
Don’t stand in doorways. Seriously, just try to be mindful of doorways. This happens all of the time and nothing makes me feel more trapped.
In fact, be mindful of any exit and avoid standing between her and it. She probably won’t run away, but cutting off the possibility will make her more likely to panic.
Be Upfront With Your Romantic Intentions or Lack Thereof
Look, the majority of autistic people cannot flirt. I know I can’t. So it can be difficult for women to realise that you’re trying to flirt with them if you’re not just upfront about it. And, to be honest, not being upfront can put you squarely in the “friend-zone zone”, where a woman gets anxious because she thinks that you think that you’re in the friend-zone and she has no clue how to approach that, or reject you concretely when you’re not being upfront about your intentions.
Yes, getting hurt sucks. But if you’re trying to get with a girl, for the love of Gandalf, just tell her. Do it casually and respect her right to say no, but tell her.
“Hey, so, I kind of like you and was wondering if you wanted to go on a date. But if not, that’s cool, I just thought I’d ask.”
If she says no, just keep it casual. Even if you feel like your heart just got stomped into tiny pieces, smile and say “Alright, that’s cool. I just thought I’d ask.”
Now, if you have no romantic interest in her, you should also try to make that clear. When autistic people get overenthusiastic about things, we can often accidentally send flirting signals. This can quickly bring about the problem of the friend-zone zone.
I actually don’t have a good suggestion for that one. Unless you’re not into girls and feel comfortable enough to tell her. But you should be aware that it can be a problem.
Okay, these were just the ones off the top of my head. Followers, feel free to add others.
I do get that this feels shitty. And I have gone back and forth about whether or not to make a post like this, because I get just how awful being told to stop ND traits can be. But I’m not telling you to stop, I’m giving you work arounds, because I cannot count the number of times my male autistic friends have terrified me accidentally.
I’m bringing this post back because I’ve been recently contacted by an autistic guy through my author FB page who I’m sure didn’t mean to give off stalker vibes but DID.
Half of me feels bad for blocking him, but the other half of me is in a panic, trying to think over every piece of public information I have ever shared and wondering if tHIS IS HOW I DIE.
This is some solid advice. Especially the one about personal space and blocking doorways.
Like seriously, that one thing, above all else, if people remember that it would be awesome.
Make it part of your routine for info dumping. Check your surroundings, step away, clear a path, and infodump away.
It will go a long, long, way to eliminating the creep vibe that so many of us accidentally give off.
Also, texting/messaging/emailing a lot of times in a row is bad. Especially if you don’t get a response. I’ve had a few autistic guys do this to me and I know it’s probably just lack of social skills but at the same time a lot of non-autistic guys do this and it is scary to get 20+ messages because normally that’s a major red flag for the guy being a stalker/wanting to hurt you. So if you’re just saying “hey” one message works. Anything more than like five is starting to teeter on creepy.
Also: if you ask someone if she (or he, or they) are interested in you, and they never quite say no but they don’t reply to your messages, or only do things with you if you come up with them or ask over and over, that does not mean “keep trying.”
That means no.
There *may* be some corner cases where it means “I want to do things with you, but want you to initiate.” But most of the time, that’s not the case, so you should assume it isn’t unless you ask and they say “yes, I am terrible at initiating hangouts.”
It sucks, but one thing NTs do is say “maybe” when they mean “hell no,” thinking that if they seem politely indecisive you will eventually lose interest.
It makes very little sense if you need people to be literal, but it is ABSOLUTELY A THING.
It also probably helps to be like, extra polite. Like there was a guy I was talking to awhile ago who was Very DD of some kind. He probably wouldn’t have gone over well with a lot of like, aggressive feminist types, but he made efforts for example to ask if he could sit next to me before the loudly talking about how much he loved pokemon go started lol.
Also on the flip side, NT women, you have to keep this possibility in your head at least. Because I was very easily able to pick this out as someone trying very hard but failing, but if I was also NT idk if I could have. Socializing is two ways, and accommodations help. Not saying give them a pass, just keep in mind that you should look for signs someone is basically speaking another language and doesn’t have the best words yet.
Like part of bad social skills is, if no one will social with you but the other awkward people, you will only absorb more awkward. Enough years of frustration and confusion after endless failure and no growth is probably a major risk of being influenced into an intentional misogynist. Obviously it’s not anyone’s job to educate random men but I’d rather it be harder to turn the poor guy into the next PUA guy stereotype.
Also (in response to someone above – this is a tangent, not a response to the OP) it’s completely possible to both be autistic and genuinely creepy/stalkery. I’ve had two major encounters with autistic stalkers. One had malevolent motives and a loooooong history of stalking, harassing, threatening, and slandering other autistic people. One had motives that while not malicious, were still exploitative and dangerous – that one reminded me of something I read where stalkers of celebrities genuinely feel they have more of a relationship with their targets than they do. I’m not a celebrity, but for awhile I was a big fish in a small pond and appeared on TV a few times, so (also from what they did and said) I’m pretty sure that’s a similar situation.
Note: These two were not just making social gaffes, they were doing seriously fucked-up shit – the first one clearly planned out strategies for messing up my life for at least months in advance. The second wasn’t… evil… like the first person, but they were self-centered to the point of doing loads of harm to me and others and lying and manipulating people into doing what they wanted.
And I’ve heard of other autistic stalkers.
So yeah sometimes it’s a misunderstanding, sometimes it’s actually that the behavior is stalkery for real. Sometimes both.
Yeah, that was why I originally wrote this post. If ND abusers/stalkers/assaulters didn’t exist, this wouldn’t be a problem, but they do and I’ve had problems where I’ve given the benefit of the doubt and gotten into some serious trouble.
I don’t want to cut out of my life the men who do this accidentally, but I don’t want to end up in those situations again, so this post was supposed to be my first attempt at finding a middle road.
One rule that I always follow is “If they tell you to stop doing something that involves them, stop. Do not try to figure out if they’re kidding. Do not complain. Do not expect a reason.”
If they’re actually kidding, usually the worst that happens is that you stop, they say that they’re kidding, you go right back to what you were doing.
A Quick Note on Social Skills for Autistic Men, From an Autistic Woman
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