Stop Repelling People with Your Uncharitable Assumptions

People often make uncharitable assumptions about each other. But when you do this, and tell the other person, you tear your relationship with him or her to shreds.

A few years back I wrote an article about the trouble autistic men have in dating. In it I also talked about my experience as a coach trying to work with autistic men and how fiendishly difficult it is.

(autistic reader trigger warning: I was very blunt in that article, because in my experience dealing with autistic men this is the only way to communicate effectively. Delicacy leads to large and frustrating misunderstandings. Some autistic readers found that blunt article enlightening; others found it depressing. If you’re sensitive, you’ll likely be better off reading my forum thread on practical tips & success stories from autistic men)

One of the things I mentioned in that article was the frequency with which I have found autistic men make ‘uncharitable assumptions’ in conversations with me. I’ve seen it with so many different autistic men that I assume this is probably a normal behavior for them, which they’re likely doing with other people too.

In fact, I think this behavior alone is probably the cause of a large number of autistic men’s falling outs with people. While it’s a small behavior, it’s really, really aggravating.

Autistic men aren’t the only ones who are guilty of this, either. ADHD men do this often too. Any guy who speaks before he empathizes, really, can be guilty of this.

In this article, I’m going to introduce you to this concept, which I am certainly not the first to identify (indeed, there are proverbs around this going back to antiquity), but I’m going to highlight it in ways you probably haven’t thought about before – and hopefully save you from burning some bridges and melting down some relationships with inadvertent rudeness.