What’s the difference between being austistic and just being socially awkward?
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Social awkwardness is largely contextual. It’s not that some people are social and others not so much as people specialize in different social settings in much the same way that some people speak French and some people speak German.
If you send a mathematician to a Fashion Show, they’re almost certainly going to come off as ‘socially awkward’. But if you sent the average attendee at a Fashion Show to a mathematics conference, they’d feel equally out-of-place.
In contrast, autism is a developmental disorder that impedes your ability to deal with social cues of any kind. A convention of mathematicians, a convention of fashion designers or a convention of football enthusiasts are all social settings. A convention of autistic people? They can’t relate to one another appreciably better than they relate to anyone else. They’re not speaking a different language so much as having difficulty processing any language.
It depends on what you mean by socially awkward. Autistic brains tend to develop differently from allistic (non autistic/neurotypical) brains. Among other things autistic people process sensory information differentlh, and a lot of typical social conventions don’t make intuitive sense to neurodivergent people . That doesn’t mean autistic people are socially awkward, (and in fact, are very much *not* socially awkward with other autistic people.) but it is often more difficult to fit in socially (edit to clarify, socially *with neurotypicals*) , and many autistic people are very bullied from a young age, for being socially different. Some people may respond to that by learning how to fit in better. That’s called masking. But other people might double down and not let being bullied change who they are
But there are lots of types of socially awkward behavior that may have nothing to do with different neurology, or not a significantly different, I mean all brains are different from each other. But if somebody is socially awkward because of social anxiety, or if somebody just doesn’t care about what other people think, or is very competitive, or tends to dominate conversations, or make inappropriate jokes, that can be a caused by a number of things thay may just be personality differences. May be a matter of choice. Where that comes from is going to be a mix of nature and nurture.
I am autistic and not socially awkward at all.
Autism is having a brain that works differently than non-autistic people.
It makes me love routines, hyper-fixate on things I find interesting, gives me an amazing memory, makes me care very little about maintaining friendships.
It also makes me hyper-empathy to the point I can’t shut out other peoples emotions and cry easily.
Also I get very overwhelmed by sensory stimuli because I cannot shut things out, hearing two conversations at once are always processed together, lights can seem way too bright, etc.
I also excel at pattern recognition and see threads linking things together than non-autistic people never seem to be aware of.
I also do not gesture or alter my tone of voice much at all. I speak very seriously and I never really move my face or my hands while speaking.
There are many aspects and everyone is different with it.
Autism is a way of being, social anxiety is a condition brought about by trauma or a chemical imbalance in the brain, which can be treated with medication or therapy.
Autism cannot be “treated” in the same way because it is who we are.
But we can learn something called “masking”, which is basically where we learn to act like non-autistic people to seem less “different”.
Not all autistic people are socially awkward. Autism is a catchall term for folks whose brains think a little differently than what’s average and this can become apparent in social settings. Folks with autism often have different ways of perceiving the world, their train of thought might flow differently, and sometimes they don’t pick up on subtle/abstract social cues as easily. So among many other experiences that can go along with autism, one thing can be social awkwardness – but not always. Some people are just socially awkward because it’s a skill like any other, and some people don’t have practice. Some people also have social anxiety which leads to avoidance of social situations and, again, reduces practice and skill.
Disclaimer that I am not autistic so please feel free to correct me if I misspoke about anything.
Autism could be boiled down to someone’s brain not processing inputs or outputs in the typical manner. It’s extremely broad as it can affect any function, and it can range from an imperceptible impairment to absolutely crippling. It can come with social awkwardness or anxiety…but the two are often unrelated.
That can look like many different things depending on the person; normal sensations can be completely overwhelming or muted, emotions may not process properly, resistance to adapt, extreme penchant for patterns or habits, and a few others. And each of those can range from nonexistent to extreme.
Sometimes that leads to general social anxiety simply because an autistic person experiences the world differently, not because autism causes one to be socially awkward. It’s hard to be “normal” when normal things are overwhelming. Imagine being “normal” when music does nothing for you, or the texture of cotton is like ‘nails on a chalkboard’ for you, or if every perfume is disgustingly pungent, or a grocery store is so loud that it makes you sick. Growing up with any of those drastically different quirks can lead to you being the weird kid, and therefore socially awkward. But the awkwardness comes from the society not accepting different experiences rather than the autism itself.
In other cases, autism can affect key social behaviors like communication or emotional processing. In those cases, yeah, autism is the thing causing social awkwardness.
It annoys me when articles or other media describe/portray autism as social-awkwardness, because that is only a common noticeable result rather than a symptom of the disease itself. Kinda like if someone were to describe diabetics as being fat, even though diabetes can happen to anyone and most obese people don’t have diabetes.
Take me for example. I’m sensitive to sounds and some textures. I cannot ignore sounds; I am forced to hear everything. Normally, it’s no big deal because one dominates, or they’re all really quiet. I wear earbuds to the grocery store because the cacophony of loud sounds can get overwhelming, twice to the point of me wanting to throw up. And I cannot stand my skin being sticky. If my hands are sticky, I quickly become so flustered that I can’t concentrate on anything except for feeling my sticky hands. Those aren’t normal ways of processing those senses. Talking with autistic people, they all have stuff like that, except mine are sitting at like a 0.5 out of 10.
Effectively, that kind of inability to process properly is what autism is. It often comes with social awkwardness, but they are two very separate things.
Autism isn’t necessarily socially awkward. Autism is neurodivergence – that is, people *think* differently to most others.
Most people’s brains are wired to perceive and react to things a certain way. For example, a normal person will walk down the street and focus on where they are going. Someone who is autistic respond different to stimuli such as sight and sound, so they often will become hyper-focused on small details such as a sign, a particular noise, etc. When interacting with people, most people are wired to recognise that looking at each other’s faces is normal social communication, but an autistic person may feel more threatened and uncomfortable when looking at another face and will avert their gaze.
A lot of these quirks will manifest as socially awkward, especially when the individual hasn’t learned how to navigate through social situations. But autistic individuals are not inherently socially awkward – quite the opposite, many who are high functioning will be very good in social situations when they know what works. What makes it difficult is that they have to know what works, and that doesn’t come so easily when you overanalyse everything and social situations don’t follow sense and logic.
Someone who is socially awkward is likewise not necessarily autistic. They may have anxiety issues, come from a different social and cultural background, or have an underlying fear or trauma. What’s different is that these people will generally think the same way as most others, but there is something inhibiting how they behave, whereas autistic people tend to be in a whole different world – because in their minds, they are.
These ELI5 makes me angry, but not at OP.
There’s this fcking massive disconnect between what autism is and what society ***perceives*** it to be. When I was diagnosed I didn’t believe the doctors because I thought autism = insanity, I’m not insane therefore I’m not autistic.
The comments here go a long way to actually explain but it’s weird to me that in a world where every LGBT-A-to-Z is accepted and celebrated in every way, neurodivergency is still something that’s stigmatised. I mean I understand it, it’s very hard to place yourself in the position of an autistic person as your brain works differently. It’s still frustrating as it makes me closeted to most people.
Seriously though? Ya see, there’s this thing called google
Because being socially awkward is often (but not always) a symptom of autism. Symptoms and function are very different on our world. Your brain functions a certain way and that can effect how to appear (symptom) to the outside world. Tho they are connected, they are not the same thing. Being socially awkward “can” be a symptom of autism but it can also a symptom of many other things (eg. depression, anxiety, PTSD, LD….). You’re comparing apples (root cause) and oranges (symptoms). To expand, if that example doesn’t work, when you have the flu (root cause) you “can” have a cough (symptom). But having a cough doesn’t mean you have the flu, you could also be smoking or have an allergy.
Being autistic comes with other symptoms (like sensory issues. I get those bad). It’s because the autistic brain processes information differently. The allistic “socially awkward” brain doesn’t necessarily do this and comes without other symptoms.
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