Comment by otherme123

12 days ago

> Autism plays a lot into this. You'll get people who can seem condescending or unaware of different social norms

Recently "autism" is a scapegoat for everything, both claiming to be autist to get a free pass to be a jerk, or calling someone autist because they do something unexpected.

I have been called autist after a meeting just because I said something could not be done in the timeframe proposed. Acording to social norms, the correct thing to do was to lie, say it could be easily done, and deal with expected missed deadlines with even more lies.

Another "autism" trait I have is to say a dry "no" to invitations I don't want to attend, apparently the social norm is to say "yes" and then fake an excuse a couple of hours ahead, or even worse, just don't go.

The point is the word "autism" (or even jerk) is being used as a synonym of "direct", "sincere" or "no bullshit" too often. And I am not talking about calling people fat or ugly out of the blue (that's a real jerk), but saying "no" when it is enough.