why dont people understand autism?

A lot of my friends have autism or asp. One member on my HVZ strike team in particular springs to mind. He has no concept of an inside voice, tends to be an egomaniac (We overlook this as well), and doesn't always handle himself well as a team player. He's a good individual player, mind you, and when he's a zombie, we really have to watch our backs, because he IS one of those zombie players who will wait in one spot for six hours just to turn one human, and he will always prioritize former team mates. Can't complain, it makes the game more fun. But sometimes, when the team is split off from larger groups of humans, and searching a back alley for a dossier with the horde just around the corner, we do have to kinda get on his ass and remind him we're trying to be stealthy. He of course can do stealth, as long as he doesn't start talking. Like he may talk quietly if he's alerting us about something, but eventually in prolonged conversation, he's going to forget. In D&D, he can also be a test of patience, since he tends to talk over the DM when the DM is trying to explain something important to the players. I can tell we get on him enough times about it that it starts to wear down his patience as well. But thats just all there is. He gets on our nerves at times, even when we understand he has autism, but otherwise, he's an irreplaceable friend, who's company I do in fact enjoy whenever I find myself down in southern Ohio. And I'll take him just how he is.

https://media.giphy.com/media/n6Gk6pAMeP9NS/giphy.gif Darkmagus...

The only real thing that separates autistics from normies is the recognition of societal norms. The majority of the things you see them do, big egos, trouble in groups, acting "weird", is all due to them not being able to recognize the normalcy of society. It can be CLUMSILY summed up as not knowing what is appropriate and not appropriate at the time. Of course it's much more than that, but this is in relation to an autistic being treated differently. Some recognize they can't figure out societal norms, and pity them. Others don't recognize that and simply think they're weird. I try not to, but I know I'm guilty of giving autistics weird looks when they say something out of place. More of a, "Wait, what the fuck?" reaction than anything though and just moved on with the conversation.

They have a problem with understanding social cues and to normal people it translates to rude and not giving a fuck or just being inappropriate.

Autism has many maaany different forms though. Sometimes it might be a curse....sometimes a blessing. People are usually ignorant and associate it with stuff like being "mentally challenged" or just plain stupid. However there are certain autists...that when you punch a tree in the autumn....they can immediately tell you how many leaves have fallen from there in less that a few mere seconds. Or maybe if they decide to play poker, they can outplay you 100% of the time because they instantly calculated the probability of your cards based on the deck that has been mixed. So watch out before you use autism as an insult, and making it an excuse to feel superior to somebody. :P