With all the talk of "autism acceptance" and how we as a society need to accept those who are neurodivergent as social equals, I can say that large portions of the movement are extremely hypocritical from my perspective.

Most NT people will never empathize with autistic people to the point where they even understand a few fundamental things about them despite endlessly virtue signaling about "autism acceptance."

It has been observed in a study that "high-functioning" autistic people are perceived as awkward and less approachable by IQ-comparable NTs within seconds, presumably long before the NTs can ascertain the validity of such judgments.

I will now relate a personal experience, but this experience is apparently common for people with autism.

I was always told that I should empathize with other people more and engage in honest conversation, but it usually backfired because very few people would try to empathize with me even a little bit. In fact, most who told me I needed to be more empathetic would not try to understand the most basic aspects about my worldview.

But it has actually been observed in another study that people with autism do not lack empathetic ability compared to NTs.

So what's the problem? Apparently, we are disliked simply because of our lack of affective facial expressions (i.e., fake smiles, etc.).

All of the above observations are based on data compiled in 2018 and 2019, well after "autism acceptance" was culturally ingrained in the US.

It honestly makes me laugh (and not a fake laugh either; I was never good at those) that the main reason we're shunned in social interactions and told that we need to have "more empathy" is because of our unwillingness or inability to contort our faces in certain ways in response to certain cues. Meanwhile, most of those normies who tell us this BS will never try to empathize with us even under the guise of "autism acceptance." But this is why many of us have no friends and why the majority of us will go from the beginning to the end of our lives without a partner, not because of our "personalities," Chris Chan and his ilk excluded.

In fact, 98.5% of autistic adolescent males do not have sex, but 69% want to. 46% of autistic women are in relationships, but only 16% of autistic men are. Both are lower than the national average, but the percentage of autistic men in relationships is especially low.

I will grant that despite all of these observations, "autism acceptance" may truly have far-reaching positive implications for autistic people. But for now, it seems to be "autism acceptance" largely for the autistic people who are "normal" enough.

Note: Since links to studies apparently aren't allowed in OP, I'll provide sources if requested.

This post is largely not directly related to dating, but since autism is a common topic here, I might as well post about some of the ways it can affect a person who engages in interpersonal interactions.