To think these people don’t have autism

[Mylovemine]

Yesterday I joined a small community online for other people with autism. It’s not about autism specifically, it’s essentially a befriending group.
They were accepting of me at first.
I noticed they spoke about people behind their back as soon as they left which I called them out on and they were also really into watching morbidly obese people online and mocking them. They made mean jokes which I couldn’t recognise which caused issues as I “couldn’t take a joke”. They were nasty to each other and would fight and then go back to normal. There were a few other things but to summarise it they had a way of speaking with eachother that I couldn’t relate to/recognise . They would exclude me in the conversation by only talking to each other as if I wasnt there. They were also very over bearing by trying to provoke me for calling them out on what they were doing.

I have left and it’s behind me, but can autistic people be like this?

Yes, this is true. I notice that on FB mostly. Also the whole ND vs NT thing. You see someone ND proclaim they hate NT people because of various reasons which is nothing to do with being ND or NT and is just someone's personality.

We (autistic people) can be just as horrid, or manipulative, or racist, otherwise bigoted, or awful as NTs.

We can gossip, judge, whatever.

We are still humans, we just have psychoneurological differences

I have a lovely ND son and a daughter currently being assessed. Both are good kind young people. However as is the case with all humans, you get horrible ND people too. I can think of a few who I would avoid like the plague. You just happen to have found a congregation of idiots, autistic or not. Find yourself another group if you can.

Of course autistic people can be nasty. What sort of a question is that?

They're people, like any others.

Your AIBU has been comprehensively answered at least.

I would bear in mind that groups have identities.

People like you who don’t backstab and bitch don’t stay in the groups who do, so that behaviour is perpetuated in that group.

It may well be that individually they are lovely, but the ‘rule’ for the group is to snipe and mock - so they do. Perhaps exaggerated by a desire to fit in to that group.

I’ve noticed that when I tried to fit in as a teen, I would often be called out for being mean. Somehow I was missing what was and what wasn’t acceptable humour/mockery. I’m now a bit po-faced and find lots of humour offensive 🤣.

I had a whole thread about my ex that went on for a long time. She was categorically the worst person I've ever encountered 🤣

I'm not saying thus is because she was autistic of course, however she was autistic and also happened to be a selfish ignorant oik.

She did use her ASD as an excuse for a lot of things however. 'Well I don't think like that' or 'I didn't mean to do (awful thing) I just can't help it because I have autism so I didn't realise it was awful'....or 'sorry I left you to deal with (awful situation she caused) by yourself, I have autism so I couldn't handle it'.

As others have said, being autisic doesn't mean you can't also be an asshole.

Elon Musk isn’t exactly a walk in the park.

I hate being told that if I struggle to meet people and make friends then I just need to go to an autism focused group. It is like it is assumed we will all just get along because we share a diagnosis. That is totally untrue.
I have friends that are NT and have had awful fall outs with ND people.

Yes, you can get nasty autistic people, they are not dissimilar to neurological people.

Why couldn't autistic people be like that?