At times, it becomes easy for those of us on the autism spectrum, as well as non-autistic people, to fall into the pattern of thinking in black and white terms about neurotypical people (or non-autistic people). Some people think of themselves as the “problem” (as in a problem that needs to be fixed or is inherently broken) and they view their autism as a burden upon themselves and others. Other people think of neurotypical people as the “problem”, and this makes it easier for them to view autism as a positive thing. This is a binary system with only two bits, so to speak. The first bit is representing neurotypical people and the second is representing autistic people, and their values can only be either 0 or 1 as in binary code. A bit set to 0 would represent that group being the “problem”, and a bit set to 1 would represent that group being the “solution” (or at least not the “problem”). The people's views I described would be represented by “01” and “10”, so that one group is always the “problem” and the other is always the “solution” or not the “problem”. However, there are other views that other people have that could be represented by “11” or “00”, which means that either both groups are the “problem” or neither group is the “problem”. I've been putting “problem” and “solution” in quotes because I think that thinking of a particular group of people as a problem or a solution, or even “not the problem”, is an oversimplified way of thinking about different types of people. The differences are more complex than can be described by this sort of binary, two bit system. So how would I describe the nature of the relationship between neurotypical people and autistic people? Well, there's a lot to say about both groups of people that I'm not going to be able to say here, so if you find that you don't know a whole lot about the common motivations and tendencies of either group, then feel free to research that on your own so that you'll understand that group better (that's usually always a good thing). Regardless, there are two things that can be said about this situation. One is that there is a very high likelihood that autistic people will be treated badly by multiple neurotypical people in their lifetime, and that more than likely this will have already happened to an autistic person before they reach adulthood. The second is that neurotypical people are not very likely to be treated badly by autistic people during their lifetime. Now I'll explain what I think are the reasons why these two facts exist. Firstly, one of the reasons that people often fall into the binary, two bit system of thinking about neurotypical people and autistic people is that many autistic people are bullied and forced to conform to certain standards that are difficult to impossible for them to function healthily with. Another reason is that most neurotypicals lack a proper understanding of an autistic person and their behaviors and tendencies. It isn't that there is anything inherently terrible about autistic people or neurotypical people. It's more complex than that. There are many factors that lead to autistic people becoming victims of bullying, social exclusion, and being forced to conform to standards that are unhealthy for them. One fact that cannot be overlooked here is that there are far more neurotypical people than there are autistic people. The statistic is that there are about 44 neurotypical people for every single autistic person. The numbers vary a bit depending on location, ethnicity, and age, but the fact remains. Autistic people are greatly outnumbered by neurotypical people. There's a pattern throughout history where those who were outnumbered often suffered in ways that the majority of people didn't. For those of us on the spectrum, this can make it feel like a war between autistic people and the rest of the world. But I don’t think it’s truly a war. I think it’s a painful struggle that is much worse for autistic people as a whole than it is for neurotypicals. Most neurotypicals haven’t even gotten to know an autistic person or spent enough time with them to understand them. This isn't because neurotypicals hate autistic people. It's because the rarity of the autistic person makes it unlikely that a neurotypical will befriend an autistic person, and the lacking social skills of the autistic person make the friendship even more unlikely. So maybe you can see how some of these factors result in the dynamic between autistic people and neurotypical people, but all of this leaves me wondering, “But what actually causes neurotypical people to treat people badly? For that matter, what causes an autistic person to treat a neurotypical person badly?” Again, I’ve come to a question that is impossible to answer fully in this blog post, but I’ll do my best to provide my thoughts and feelings on some of the reasons for these types of mistreatment. I’ve already talked a lot about things that could lead to a neurotypical person not understanding an autistic person, but I haven’t talked about why the neurotypical might treat them badly. The thoughts I have about this are very simple. My only answer for this question is that there are certain people who, in certain situations, will treat someone else badly because they don’t understand their behaviors, tendencies, or just how their mind works in general. There are other people who, when they don’t understand someone very well, will treat them kindly and graciously. There are also people who do both in different situations. I think that this point remains true whether you’re talking about neurotypical people or autistic people. So really, if you want to solve the problem of mistreatment between neurotypicals and autistic people, don’t assume that either group is to blame for all or even most of it. Instead, try to make a distinction between whether a person is autistic or not and whether or not they are the kind of person who (in whatever specific situation) will treat someone they don’t understand fully in a kind and accepting way. This makes it much easier to get along with different kinds of people, and if you ever encounter the kind of person that treats people they don’t understand badly, my go-to tactic is to just ignore them. This seems to work when people are misbehaving most of the time. It doesn’t make them stop necessarily, but it does prevent them from getting any human interaction when they are being nasty, and since we all need human interaction (yes, even us autistic people need some of it), the point should come across to that person eventually.