These are some observations I have after 25 years on this planet.
Most non-Autistic people indeed seem to naturally understand the world through a social filter, rather than in more concrete, logical way. This is confusing, but it helps to bear this in mind when interacting with others.
In other words I'm coming to terms with the fact that social motivations play a bigger role than logic for most in how and what they think and act. I don't think I realised until recently just how deep this goes. In group loyalty, social taboos, people pleasing and the simple fact of not wanting to feel left out, has as bigger role on people's behaviour as facts do. Even if two people state the same factually correct statement, others are more likely to accept it when the person with whom we have a close relationship with and has a track record of trustworthiness says it. For many, tone and situation matters as much as being right. All of this is important to take into account if we ever perceive others as not following consistent principles. I remember for example being enormously frustrated that I wasn't allowed a 15 rated game even when I was 16 1/2 by my parents. I'm just following the law, so what could possible be wrong with this? Looking back I realise that a big factor was the unspoken embarrassment would cause my parents in our church community, and the fact it would call their parenting into question. And asked me to contact the youth leader at church on the matter (as from their perspective he was a trusted figure and thus what he said would carry more weight than what BBFC stated)
Certainly, up until recently I too had always tended to take everything I see at face value (why infer a possible bad motive, when the situation taken on its own terms doesn't demand it?) In secondary school my internal logic was always if someone shows an interest in me or initially appears to want to be my friend, then it follows that everything they say or get me to do cannot be done out of a an alterior motive. This led to keeping up friendships which actually weren't friendships at all, they were just there to take advantage of me. These included one of the boys pretending to be a girl on MSN who was romantically interested in me (which of course believed, why wouldn't I, if they were my friends and they were just trying to help me?), and uploading a video of me kissing a park bench onto YouTube (which I thought was just schoolboy banter and I was making others laugh). More recently, I had always tended to take documentaries showing casing people's experiences of poverty (for example so called poverty porn shows like Rich House, Poor House) at face value, getting angry when the 'poor family' are shown to have Sky TV, tattoos and three dogs, without realising that there's an agenda here to make the poor family look more humane .
Because non-Autistic people do seem to have an spoken internal monologue, this naturally spills out into casual chit-chat/small talk. Because Autistic people tend to think in a more abstract way: in pictures, visions, and patterns (i.e: non-verbally), this can't easily spill out to others and as a result our social interactions are a bit uncomfortable for others
Autistic people are lacking the standard social chit-chats, and I'm no exception. If I'm being honest I do think this does come across as a little creepy/unusual/uncomfortable for others who know me in real life. Whilst I understand intellectually that social communication is supposed to be a two way street (i.e: how we appear to others such as our eye contact and body language needs to appear open to others matters, matters as much as how others interact with us) its another thing implementing it in practice. I find that I lack innate motivation to do this especially because it relates to a uncertain outcome. For non-Autistics, the shared experience of the social dance is the reward in itself (as Tony Attwood says). I find that groupwork as part of your job is a good way of getting to know people because the motivation is getting the job done, not socialising. Something my counsellor told me is that everyday chit-chats can become more natural over time the more you do them. A bit like cleaning your teeth - you don't have to consciously think about it, but there was a time where you didn't know how to and was at one point a learned behaviour.
