Below is a parody, with ideas taken from a reddit article. It is not meant to make any neurotypical people feel bad or inferior, it's to highlight that autistic thinking & behaviour is defined mostly by deficits, but NT thinking & behaviour can also be seen in terms of deficits.
(By the way, I know some very kind, caring neurotypical people, who I value highly)
If you compare the list below to the list of autistic Diagnostic criteria, it illustrates the real differences between the two types of minds. Autistic people find it difficult to understand the NT behaviour listed below, and NT people often find it hard to understand (due to masking) that autistic people are not thinking like this:
Diagnostic Criteria for Neurotypical Disorder (NTD)
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obsession with social banter, interpersonal drama and politics, “playing the game,” fitting in with a specific social group, and/or social hierarchy.
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Tendency to be easily influenced by their peers and to conform unquestioningly to societal expectations. Subsequent deficits in the cultivation of special interests and/or exploration of innovative, novel thoughts and feelings.
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Difficulty engaging with, or seeing meaning in activities, thought-processes, or forms of interpersonal engagement that reflect individuality and personal creativity, unless they are widely adopted by one’s peers.
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Inflexible adherence to social norms, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior prescribed by society (e.g. greeting rituals, gestures and phrases
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Tendency to use language to say one thing but mean something else (e.g. asking a question such as “how are you doing?” but not wanting an honest answer)
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Highly predictable, restricted interests (e.g., career, normative activities, social rules, gossip, prescriptive banter)
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Immediate and rigid opinions on various topics and subjects, without observable curiosity or motivation for in-depth research.
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Inability to be aware of all aspects of one’s sensory environment simultaneously, with subsequent tendency to, for example, socialize in loud places with numerous competing sensory inputs (see A.2).
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Diminished attention to detail (e.g. lack of awareness of such things as landscape, sky/lighting, background noises, ambient smells, personal space, or subtle changes in the environment).
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Inability to get absorbed in a task or activity fully; deficits in depth of experience.
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Diminished capacity for arranging information, systemizing, and seeing patterns and relations.
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Deficits in “outside the box,” creative problem solving.
