Rudeness towards autistic people!

Post Reply New Topic

Most people are rude when someone intrudes on them or doesn't take a hint and not reading social cues so the person thinks you are the one being rude so they act rude back. Like if someone didn't take no for an answer, I would get bitchy and not care if I am rude. So when an autistic person doesn't know personal space, doesn't read social cues, etc. people think they are rude and treat them as such. They don't even know you're autistic so if you look normal and seem normal, no one is going to know.

And some people are just jerks so it's not always you with the problem.

I've faced this since I was a kid and it sucks. Being autistic we tend to take communication directly and analytically and can easily miss non-verbal cues and nuances from NTs such as when a person asks a question not in order to get an answer but as a way to get support (e.g. "honey, am I getting grey hair?"). If they're actually asking for support and get a direct answer instead, it can hurt their feelings, especially if they think we deliberately snubbed their indirect request. And people communicate personal boundaries and social or professional status in non-direct ways or they can hint they'd like us to change some behavior and we can miss those too. When we miss such hints, we seem to be insensitive or uncaring or to be challenging their boundaries or status. There are many, many variations of this. If they're good-natured and easy-going, a lot of NT people will just think us to be a bit odd or socially slow or somewhat aloof. However if they associate our missing of cues or non-direct communication (seen as ignoring them or being deliberately mean) with bad treatment they've received in the past, either when growing up or in other conflicts they've had, they can escalate their communication or react in a hostile way. Not understanding autism, they see us and treat us as NTs who are being creepy to them and they can retaliate with rudeness. There's no easy solution for an autistic. I've observed this over the years and I try to default to being understanding and expressing agreement, caring and positivity (because people's negative reactions tend to devastate me), but that comes at the cost of losing who I am in the conversation or relationship - it is pretending to be a nice NT, like a mask, and it still doesn't always work.

They percieve you as edgy and or a jerk. Especially if you don't know what to say or do in certain situations or just shut everyone out.
I'd also like to add it's human nature to shun the indifferent. Even, People do it on this forum.

I think NTs are rude to us because they feel they can get away with it. Most of us Autistics and Aspies would simply rather the confrontation just be over than say anything back to the rude NT and I think many NTs know this. This phenomenon is just classic bullying mentality. Also, many bully NTs know that we're quite emotional and disabled persons and are simply looking for a reaction to amuse them. It's a pretty sick mindset.

Time Magazine attempted to explain this phenomenon further:
http://healthland.time.com/2012/09/05/w ... l-bullies/

10 years ago people didn't seem so nasty.

I blame it on technology

Disagree.