On emotional authenticity and masking as an autistic person
I can relate to the frustration but this whole article is in poor-me mode.<p>The author expresses his&#x2F;her frustration with developing connections - I understand. The most important thing to realize is, no one wants to be around complainers.<p>Except other complainers, they get together and complain, and theorize about why the world is not the way they want it to be.<p>Being able to emotionally relate is honestly a false flag - there are plenty of people who are socially oblivious and they&#x27;re doing just fine.<p>If the author was a super athlete and couldn&#x27;t relate to people, he would simply be a &#x27;jerk&#x27;. I bet he wouldn&#x27;t have written that article :)<p>So really, it&#x27;s not that you can&#x27;t relate to people - it&#x27;s that you haven&#x27;t found a way to win despite having a bit of a setback and you are spending your energy on complaining.<p>Here&#x27;s the solution: go and become really good at something, that other people value, and they&#x27;ll forgive your social strangeness, in fact, they&#x27;ll find it exotic and interesting.<p>Just go be really really good. At social dancing, at sports, at music, at dragon boating, beach volleyball, etc. Something social that takes skill and persistence that regular people don&#x27;t have.<p>Autistic people have the gift of not being burdened by the same social programming most people are living in. The ones who take advantage of it live  a great life. I mean, look at Elon Musk...