Focus on yourself

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This will sound hypocritical, but -

If you only know somebody online, you know very little about them. Same as the vast majority of people you know irl (probably more if you're autistic tbh).

Take a hypothetical:
You are arguing with someone online about whether the colour blue would look better on a book cover than the colour pink. They are online a lot.
From that, are they -
(a) lfa
(b) physically disabled NT
(c) hfa with a mental illness
(d) a carer who's NT
(e) skiving off from work from the office
(f) unemployed & talking to you in between looking for work
(g) a bored home maker
(h) retired
(i) a procrastinating student
(j) working from home because they're high risk for covid

You can't tell, can you?

This is just one eg. If they tell you, they struggled to find work, it limits how many options of those are included but it still includes multiple options.

Essentially, unless someone is from your home town, your age, your level of autistic, lacks disabilities/shares disabilities you have at the same level, has your level of education, has your same interests and dislikes & lives with the same kinds of people you live with - you can't just assume your advice will be useful to them cos it's useful to you.

If you know someone well, you can base a pattern based on what helped them in the past or what you know of them.

If the advice applies to everyone, you can advise. But honestly? Very little advice applies to everyone. Even if I just say 'it's a good idea to take a walk every day' (because that helps my own mental and physical health) someone could think 'I can't walk/the environment around my home depresses me/I don't have time/I'm shielding/my brother is in a coma he can't do that'.

Now, I think that autistic people struggle with TOM, yes. But I think to an extent, NTs do as well. A lot of NT advice about 'just break out of your shell' doesn't apply if you're autistic. They're making the mistake of 'well it works for me' and because they're in the majority, it also works for a lot of other NTs so they think it applies to 'everyone'.

So my 'advice' is - stop giving unsolicited advice. (Yes, I know I'm being a hypocrite).

If someone asks for advice, listen to their entire situation that they provide & base it on that. If they're too different for you to be able to help, leave it for someone else.

Don't form judgements on people you don't know irl or people you know irl but not well. Especially autistic people. If an autistic person gives you information about themselves, all you know is what they provided. Don't extrapolate more than that. Take them at their word instead of trying to 'fix' them.

Just talk about yourself if someone asks something like (for eg) 'do you think autistic people like rockets?' say 'well I don't' or 'well I do but I don't think it's autism related' or 'well I do and it's a specialist interest of mine. It requires a lot of logic and study, so it's probably due to my autism that I like it'. Don't say 'yes, it's a real issue with some autistic people, they should focus on watching Big Brother instead like I do then they'd pass as normal'.

I deliberately picked silly examples when it came to the topics of conversation tbh. So that it could be things I don't think anyone's asked on here, or that I can't remember them asking, at least.

Everything *I* say is gold.
It behoves people to listen.

I struggle with it when it comes to reading magazines too. If they keep using the 'you' and it doesn't apply to me, I either read it as if it does (and maybe become stressed at how it doesn't) or stop reading it.

It's like I have a problem filtering in my brain between useful/useless, relevant/irrelevant, good/bad.

I like when they use first person, or even third person, to tell life stories, or third person to talk objectively about something.

I struggle when a text is biased. I take to heart whatever the words are and give them my entire focus. Which makes it hard for me to do 'critical reading' - where you read something but don't believe it at first and pick the facts out of it instead (I think that's what 'critical reading' means?).

I've helped my mental health a lot lately by who I mix with online. If people are overly judgey of things I can't help or things other people can't help, I avoid them.

I think advice needs to come with a caveat- some idea of your reasons for giving it and context for how seriously to take it. "This worked for me, may or may not work for you," say, or "this worked for a friend of mine, or so she claims." Or: "I read here that.... This article might help, though it has some issues." The worst "advice" is the kind where someone has clearly thought for all of two seconds about something they don't care about, and "solved" your problem on the spot with a glib piece of nonsense.

I do refrain from giving people the clichéd advice, and I also try to read between the lines. For example, if an Aspie on WP is self-conscious about the way they look and expresses to us that they worry people are staring at them, I wouldn't ask, "well do you stim like flap your hands? Do you talk to yourself? Do you dress weird?" because usually if an Aspie with social anxiety posts about being self-conscious and feeling that people are staring at them, then chances are they are more likely to have self-awareness (in fact too much self-awareness) and so probably know full well that they DON'T stim visibly in public or dress weirdly or do anything else to stand out. Also it is best not to say to a person with social anxiety "you probably THINK you're not stimming or anything but you probably ARE", because that can emotionally offend that person and could even result in that person becoming agoraphobic. So when giving advice you need to think first, and understand that not every Aspie is completely unaware of what they are doing, and if they are aware of other people around them and feeling self-conscious then they probably are very aware and can mask pretty well. Also if the poster sounds frustrated or confused as to why they feel they are being judged, that could be another clue that they are self-aware.

Or say if I am explaining common autism behaviours that I DIDN'T do as a toddler, and I wrote "I didn't stack my toys..." someone would still probably say, "but did you line your toys up?" instead of just assuming that you mean that you didn't stack OR line your toys. So I feel I have to add every piece of information to avoid being asked obvious questions.

It's a bit like if your TV isn't working and you want to ask why on a forum, you still feel like you have to mention that your TV is plugged in, because there's no doubt that someone will ask, "are you sure your TV is plugged in?" Ugh..