I am referring to difference kinds of friction or high effort/low utility states in social settings.

NT Experience: No Friction

Typically NT people experience low friction because of their active Theory of Mind – they are able to simulate and predict the thoughts and feelings of people around them. Promoting emotional equilibrium and group cohesion is a primary tenet of their ethical system.

Autism Experience: High Friction

Autistic people experience friction from having non-automatic prediction of others. They have to use manual Theory-Theory to predict and experience lag and social fatigue. Additionally, they may employ Masking to present as neurotypical, another high effort mechanism.

My Internal Experience: No Friction

Internally I don’t experience any friction. I don’t sense social signal, I don’t feel shame, I don’t care about social positioning. To be clear: I don’t feel these things, but people around me, especially my loved ones, may some friction on my behalf because of e.g. social gaffes.

My Social Experience: Some Friction

Socially I do sometimes experience friction and it is something I try to avoid for efficiency reasons or unintended harm that I could avoid.

• Unintended Harm: I shouldn’t tell somebody that they are fat. I have some heuristics – topics to avoid or phrasing to avoid because it causes hurt feeling.
  • These are not things that would upset me (see Hard Truths) but do upset others (as I have been told). I Care about others, but not in a way that NT people would probably recognize – this is still an efficiency rule.
  • This is a failure to account for the person’s (Black Box) constraints or failure to know them
• Resource Waste: Avoid conversation stalls. Effort must be diverted from the “Task” to “Explanation/Repair.”
  • Sometimes truth disrupts:  ”This data in row 4 is incorrect; it invalidates the conclusion.”
  • I may need to explain I am not angry, not judging, not challenging social status (I don’t care!)
  • Sometimes I need to be careful in my wording. I may need to present it as a question or use softening words like “I think”.
• Input Rejection: The recipient becomes defensive. The other person’s “Receiver” closes (typically from my words or actions), rendering further factual transmission impossible.
  • Don’t argue a point or correct someone in a meeting if you can do so afterward in a 1:1 setting.
  • If you must do it in the meeting use softening words (I think, maybe) and state why it is important to bring up now to reduce friction.

Note: my use of softening words is “literal functional English” (see softening). I am indicating something less than absolute certainty (or am willing to present as such). This is not politeness or social/affective positioning, though I have discovered recently that NT people might perceive it as such – an accidental overlap that matches NT social graces.

These techniques are applied manually and with varying degrees of effectiveness. Some friction can’t be avoided – the way I think and the way I value value truth combined with no Social Salience to navigate tricky waters means I will ruffle feathers. It doesn’t bother me. I don’t want this friction because it is inefficient, but I don’t have any feeling about it.