The Legendary Dragon Alephwyr, named Alephwyr, BA

autism is not identical with social awkwardness the social awkwardness stems from autists trying to integrate their preferred interaction strategies with those operating to satisfy a different nash equilibrium the social awkwardness is a symptom of lack of social assimilation

this is compounded by the fact that 1) lack of social assimilation makes one a target for anti-social activity, and 2) the help offered by neurotypicals is based on false theories of how/why social behavior works, which the autists attempt to utilize to their own detriment

expanding on 2, when neurotypicals see autists trying and failing to assimilate by implementing their explicit instructions, they see this as further proof of the autist's own lack of social skills, rather than their own poor instructions which the autist is following closely

an example might be when a neurotypical instructs an autist that one always needs to be cooperative, without providing the important caveat that one should not cooperate with someone trying to hurt them - which only helps to make many autists "easy targets"

in many important ways, the failure of autists to thrive and assimilate *with neurotypicals* is due to the failure of neurotypicals to understand and abide by their own understanding of sociality - in fact, studies show autists assimilate better among other autists

iow, if autists were the majority and thus had the ability to enforce consensus on how social behavior should be regulated in the group, *neurotypicals* would be the odd ones out, failing to assimilate trying to use their preferred strategies for interaction