14. Yet multiple people in my life have told me they thought I was autistic at first. One person particularly close to me said that at first they thought I was very social and normal. Then when they got to know me they "realised" I was actually autistic. Then when they knew me longer "your values are just so different to everyone else's you seem autistic". There's also an intelligence factor. I scored very highly on a formal IQ test once (top 0.5% range), I have an excellent memory and eye for detail and I work in the field of software design. People are simplistic and think in terms of stereotypes. If you're intelligent and precise, some people will think that means you're autistic. Some also interpret your low opinion of them and lack of interest in them, as introversion or social inhibition. When in fact they're just someone that probably shouldn't have been born. Not being nice isn't the same as not being unaware that someone is offended.
The test has indicators for autism on it, but those indicators are not solely indicators for autism. They can be (in extreme cases) indicators for abuse, indicators for narcissism, indicators for high intelligence. Maybe you remember birthdays because you're weirdly obsessed with numbers. Maybe because you have a good memory and feel you shouldn't have to depend on Facebook to remember important details about your friends. Maybe you struggle socially because you lack the wiring to read social cues, maybe because you were abused as a child; or maybe just because you find most people banal.
I wouldn't be surprised if some online tests could give good indication of whether you have the condition. You might find some autistic people are rather protective of their diagnosis after it became almost trendy to talk about mental health etc.. in the past few years.
Parents also. Secretly proud about their child being "special". Rather than just, you know, unpopular.
I've seen people with autism do standup comedy.
I recall one that used to perform with his eyes closed. Not sure if he was autistic or just very nervous. Funny, though. You can learn to work around low-level autism. You consciously work out the queues and at some point it starts to become instinctive. It's possible I
am autistic despite my very low score just because I taught myself how to read people manually. Though that raises the question of does it then actually matter? So you get off to a slightly slower start socially than other children? So what? You can make it up later.
Re: your spellchecker question, the forum has one built in, I've just logged in using firefox and the word "pritty" above is underlined in red.
It's not built into the forum, but the browser. The browser recognises certain form elements (such as a text area) and performs spellchecking on it itself.
Yeah make software for a living
I've come to quite despise the IT / nerd / autistic stereotype. I've worked in the software industry on and off for nearly 20 years and obviously have met a few like that, but most people are just normal regular people. They care about details and doing things the right way, but that's just... normal? Programming is one of those fields that is somewhat open to people who lack social skills. It's still a hindrance - it's a hindrance anywhere. But you can be bad at social interaction and still understand how a database works. You can't be bad at social interaction and be a great salesperson. So we get a few people coming into the field because others are close to them. Same way you got a lot of female computer programmers back in the day because the fields of law and medicine were closed to women. But when they opened up and you could be a female doctor or barrister, the number of women in computer science fell. But I've never been convinced autism in computer science is an asset or intrinsic overlap. Smart people who are obsessive over numbers and patterns maybe they go into computer science. Dumb people who are these things - they're out there trainspotting and collecting bus numbers. The autistic savant stereotype that can perform amazing arithmetical stunts in their head? You can learn that too. Just get a book and learn the techniques and practice them.
At least this is my take on it all.