My friend wasn’t nice to my other friend who has a form of autism

[Octobertreesandleaves123]

This has upset me and made me sad much more than I thot it would. Basically my friend A who has a form of autism, myself and friend B were going for lunch. My 2 friends hadn’t meant before. I had said beforehand to friend B that friend A has this and is very open about it.
When we sat at lunch friend B would look annoyed and fed up when friend A spoke and it was blatantly obvious to me.
Luckily friend A did not pick this up but it’s made me feel really sad and changed my view of B. I wasn’t hugely close with B anyway but it’s just made me feel pretty upset and made me view them differently.
Thoughts on if I’m overreacting but, as above, I feel it’s made me so sad about it that I’d struggle to meet up with B again.

I'm starting to see why you have such unpleasant friends if you're so condescending yourself....

Nobody mistook the meaning of that very commonly used phrase, and I'm confused as to why you thought they possibly could have, as there weren't any replies to your post that suggested anyone was actually envisioning people craning their necks to literally look down their noses?

Making it obvious to someone you are conversing with that you are unhappy with their company, to the extent it is 'blatantly obvious' to a third party is rude no matter how you convey it.

Yes exactly this so what if the person is open why would you need to say something?

But what was A like during the lunch? Was she welcoming and polite with B? Did A do nothing to make B react with annoyance?

Given how Op has clearly completely mishandled (and no doubt misread) this situation, and we haven’t given her the responses she expected…. she won’t be back!

What makes you think friend B was being rude because of your other friend being autistic, rather than some other reason?

Friend B does not have to like friend A, and you don't have to like friend B. If you no longer want to spend time with her because she's rude that's your choice, just as it's her choice to get on with/not get on with anyone else.

Unless there's extra information that makes friend A particularly vulnerable, be careful that you're not being patronising by acting as though she deserves special accommodations or needs your protection.

Also maybe be aware in future that some people do behave strangely with autistic people - no matter how open someone is about their diagnosis, there's a risk of people operating out of assumptions rather than forming their own opinions if you talk about this beforehand. Even the nicest people can be difficult if they've got some basic stereotypes about 'autistic people' in mind (I'm saying this as an autistic person who learned the hard way from having some friend's behaviour and attitudes suddenly switch when they found out - I didn't suddenly become difficult to handle overnight, but they certainly did!)

Regardless of all of this, though - if friend B was rude it's entirely reasonable for this to change how you feel about her.

I think OP is getting an unnecessarily hard time here. Maybe friend A would present as quite unusual if you were not aware of her diagnosis. Or maybe it came up in conversation in a different way.
At the very least OP is a decent person who did not like a friend being unpleasant to another friend and will judge her on that unkind behaviour. ^^

☝️☝️☝️

I was going to write a very similar thing.

Maybe she didn’t want to share you? She would have liked a proper catch up without A? Personally I’d give her the benefit of the doubt but be watchful

This post make me realise how happy I am to have got rid of all the twats in my life. I only spend significant time with tolerant, easygoing open minded people.
Just went for a week away with 14 women friends of mine for a big birthday. Not one single disagreement was had, even though all quite different in many ways with little in common. All have open minds and a lovely so bonded.

My SIL is deaf and yes I do prep people if they will be meeting her one on one. Just so they are aware and dont act like some idiots do and assume that she’s got a mental impairment because her speech is affected. I do it coming entirely from a kind place as I’m sure the OP did. And you’d think it would make friend B act a bit more sensitively to have that knowledge.

Thanks and agree
Sounds like this group of “friends” are all perfectly suited

I'm starting to see why you have such unpleasant friends if you're so condescending yourself....

Whereas you are the very soul of charm .

that poster is of the view that

Making it obvious to someone you are conversing with that you are unhappy with their company, to the extent it is 'blatantly obvious' to a third party is rude no matter how you convey it.

An approach that doesn’t seem to lack any “charm” to me 🤷

all these people justifying Friend B's behaviour on this basis! If she didn't want to share that's OK, but her way of expressing it is absolutely not OK.

My SIL is deaf and yes I do prep people if they will be meeting her one on one. Just so they are aware and dont act like some idiots do and assume that she’s got a mental impairment because her speech is affected. I do it coming entirely from a kind place as I’m sure the OP did. And you’d think it would make friend B act a bit more sensitively to have that knowledge.

Unfortunately, disclosing that you are/a friend is autistic can have the exact opposite effect - it can cause people to assume mental impairment.
While I don't doubt that disclosure comes from a place of kindness, and I wish that this did lead to people being more sensitive, it doesn't always work like that.

I'm high masking, so people usually don't see me as an autistic person. I'm also highly educated, so people don't assume mental impairment.
However, I do disclose on occasion when I feel it's necessary (if I'll be around people for a long time and don't want them to think I'm upset with them/don't like them if I need to spend breaks by myself rather than socialising constantly, for example).

Most people continue to treat me the same afterwards. Some immediately switch to acting as though I am mentally impaired - talking more slowly, explaining things like jokes or turns of phrase ("you see, 'looking down your nose at someone' doesn't mean literally looking down your nose..."), suddenly my qualifications in a specialist field aren't an impressive achievement/interesting to others - it's a "special interest", as though I'm adorably collecting buttons rather than contributing to academic discourse.

I am aware that it comes from a place of kindness, and I'm grateful that there are kind people like this.
But, as part of wanting to be kind, it's worth being aware that for autistic people that kindness has the potential to backfire, leading to the person you care about having a negative experience they wouldn't have had if their autism hadn't been brought up.

It’s a bit infantilising. And also a bit ableist, that they ceased viewing you as you and instead began viewing you through the lens of their ideas of what autistic people are like.

@SquirrelSoShiny

'Basically my friend A who has a form of autism, myself and friend B were going for lunch. My 2 friends hadn’t meant before. I had said beforehand to friend B that friend A has this and is very open about it.
When we sat at lunch friend B would look annoyed and fed up when friend A spoke and it was blatantly obvious to me.'

These are the OP's own words. That's where I got it from
But you've interpreted the records in a very peculiar way.

She said friend A, she herself and friend B were going to lunch. The two friends hadn't met before.

Where is this do you take it that friend B had wanted it planned a lunch alone with the OP? It doesn't even allude to that.

I offered this as an alternative to the OP's hints that it was somehow because A is autistic. I've been in a similar situation (minus the autism) where I was looking forward to catching up with a friend and then an extra person was there as friend had unexpected visitors. It was a totally different dynamic and the visitor wasn't my cup of tea. Happily I'm not the eye rolling type and was perfectly pleasant and civil! But the visitor was OK whereas for all we know A spent two hours talking about loving Trump nonstop or something, or generally not letting B get a word in. Or B might just be a bit sulky and childish or might have been desperate to share a piece of personal news with OP without a total stranger there.

There's just not really enough information to make a judgement. In general I avoid bringing an extra person along - A - unless I've checked with the friend B first. Some people are quite chill and the more the merrier but others aren't.

You sound like a brilliant friend.

I was referring to the quote I attached, which you have chosen to overlook.

This is why I dont tell people of my diagnosis because it bizarely can make people uncomfortabe and I do not know why. I was in a group of women recently and they were all super friendly at the start and once I mentioned my diagnosis (it came up I didnt just blurt it out, Im autistic not vegan lol) they almost backed away from me. Grown women.

Ah good. So otherwise you accept that having two groups of friends who judge, look down upon people and make that clear in their behaviour with each other… is indicative of pretty unpleasant “friends”

So we’re on the same page!

@SquirrelSoShiny you are still assuming the ride friend had expected it was an outing between just herself and the OP. That the autistic friend was unexpected. That's not the case. As you say 'in her own words' she mentioned that the friend was autistic ahead of time so rude friends 100% aware that it was an outing for 3. There was no unexpected person.

@SquirrelSoShiny

In general I avoid bringing an extra person along - A - unless I've checked with the friend B first. Some people are quite chill and the more the merrier but others aren't.
Person A was not an 'extra person' that should have been ok'd by friend B. There was not some pre-arranged outing with friend B that the OP suddenly brought friend A along to. Friend B is not the king pin that everyone else checks in with. The OP arranged for the 3 of them to go out together. No one was the extra person.