I think the reason autistic people struggle with unwritten social “rules” is that those “rules” are never universally applied. 

Because they are not actually rules, they’re more like standards that most people seem to align with... but not all... never all.

There are also different levels of how egregious a “rule transgression” is deemed to be socially. 

And different people have different tolerance levels for dealing with social ramifications of a “transgression.”

Some people simply don’t care if there are social consequences and will choose to ignore a “rule” completely.

There are also different sets of social “rules” for all sorts of different contexts. 

Work environments, school environments, social events, government spaces, religious spaces, and a million different cultural contexts (related to race, class, ethnicity)... the list is literally endless.

So, when an autistic person sees people following unwritten social “rules” inconsistently...

Or doesn’t even know a “rule” exists because they’re in a social context they’ve never been in before...

There’s simply no way for the autistic person to learn the rules to begin with... or understand them well enough to learn them... unless the rules are explicitly and thoroughly explained. 

And I must say, as an autistic person who has experienced this MANY times throughout my life... being told you “should have known” something you literally didn’t know is one of the most exasperating and defeating things to hear. 

And when you hear it enough times, it actually traumatizes you. This is not an overstatement.

Which is part of the reason autistic people have such deeply rooted and intense social anxiety.

And the lack of awareness around this, and the resulting social attacks we receive in these situations, is exactly why autism needs to be understood as a social disability.

Not because we are inherently socially disabled. But because society is incapable of accepting this reality about us.

So, a significant number of us are unable to exist in social spaces without mistreatment... or outright abuse. Hence, we’re disabled in those spaces. 

It should absolutely not be this way. But it very much is. And I firmly believe this needs to change.

Because autistic people are not the problem here. Society is.

And I will fight to my last breath to change this misunderstanding about us.

I hope some of you will join me. ❤️