The lack of considerate behaviour I’ve seen in apparently neurotypical people (given their sheer majority, I’m making the assumption that everyone I see exhibiting these behaviours are NT) when dealing with people they don’t know is astounding. Whereas I will often go out of the may to make sure I’m not, or won’t be impinging upon anyone else around me.
When Suzanne parks her car she often makes sure that she isn’t taking up too much on either side so if someone parks near her there’s enough door room (though usually she parks away from other cars). But I’ve noticed that other drivers usually don’t give a shit about blocking others’ access to their cars, leaving almost no room between their car and another not allowing the doors to open.
I’ve seen NTs push in lines, shove people aside, get into stupid arguments or fights simply to prove some sort of superiority. Every autistic I know is courteous, follows established social rules like queues, and generally doesn’t get into “dick measuring contests”.
Some NTs hunt animals, or abuse/kill animals for their amusements or because they don’t care. I can’t think of a single autistic who would ever do anything like that.
And yet there are NTs who will display a stark lack of empathy for their own kin, like parents of autistic, or disabled/sick children that exploit them for attention or money. Or those that abused their children. I simply can not fathom an autistic parent ever being capable of such immoral behaviour.
Almost all of my difficult interactions with NTs over the years always came down to their lack of empathy toward me. They refused to even try to understand where I was coming from, why I was the way I was, or even entertain the idea of trying to understand me. I didn’t fit their expectations therefore I was wrong and needed to be punished in some way.
And yet if there’s been one consistent driver in my desire to learn social skills, it was to understand Neurotypicals. I wanted to understand where they were coming from, why they were the way they were. I wanted to know why I didn’t fit their expectations, and what those expectations were. *I* was willing to step up, I had enough empathy to want to understand them.
I even, know, understand that those that bullied me also got a raw deal by not being punished for their bullying. If they were taught that that was ok and went in to the world thinking they could bully people…They’re would’ve grown up to be shitty people. And I have enough empathy for them to feel sorry for that outcome knowing it could’ve been averted. But my bullies never had any empathy for me, mercilessly torturing me everyday.
So when I read stuff that suggest that autistics lack empathy I can only laugh bitterly and derisively. It’s the Neurotypicals who actually lack empathy, specifically for out-group people.
And autistics are about as out-group as you can get, that “Neurotypical Peers are Less Willing to Interact with Those with Autism based on Thin Slice Judgments” study certainly showed that NTs barely even see as a human, possibly inducing some sort of uncanny valley effect in them when they see us. If that’s their reaction, how could they ever know what level of empathy we possess?