I have thought for a while that a friend of mine has some sort of autistic spectrum condition, albeit a high-functioning one.
She is repeatedly alienating people with her increasingly inappropriate reactions to things. In the past the biggest dilemma for our group of friends was what to wear on Saturday night or whether the hot guy from the gym was going to call, and her outbursts and tantrums did not cause such a stir back then. Nowadays we're dealing with and trying to support each other (sadly ) through divorces, bereavements, miscarriages and other serious issues, and her behaviour is akin to that of a spoilt demanding two year old.
She displays no empathy or natural response to anything, will never admit she is wrong or apologise, never acts appropriately in new situations (in fact often calling up others to ask what would be the right thing to say/do), and most of her behaviour is robotic and seems rehearsed or overthought. She will fly off the handle and say horrible things, and awful things have been said back to her by many, but the following day she is back to normal and it's all forgotten - while everyone else is left reeling in shock. She can never take any kind of criticism or blame although she's happy to dish it out, and she never ever seems to think of consequences before she acts. She finds it very difficult to share anything, from food to friends.
On the other hand she displays lots of intelligence with heaps of talent for other non-social skills, including a freakily accurate memory and an incredible ability to learn new subjects very quickly. She is eager to help with anything (mainly I think for brownie points ) and can be fun and nice company on occasion (usually in shallow situations like during a chat about shopping), but it all seems overshadowed by the bad points.
Sadly, because of her behaviour and the upset she has caused, the majority of our mutual friends are shying away from her without any explanation, they are just totally sick of her behaviour and want to concentrate their energies on less draining friendships, writing her off as a spoilt brat.
I've thought for a long time that she may be autistic to some level, I'm not an expert on this kind of thing but it makes sense from what I do know. Would a diagnosis help her if this were the case? I really feel that she has little control over her natural instincts and I think it's sad that she may be left with no-one when it might not be her fault, IYSWIM.
Or maybe she is just a spoilt brat and I'm just a soft sap