9 weird autistic traits that you probably don't know about. If you've been looking into autism for any length of time, you've probably come across the most talked about traits. Things like not making eye contact, stimming, and sensory sensitivities.
Lack of social reciprocity, obsessive interests, attention to detail, that kind of thing. In this video I'll share my list of 9 strange, quirky, very seldom talked about traits that are actually surprisingly common in the autistic community. So this list of 9 weird autistic traits has been compiled from my own personal observation of spending time in autistic-only groups.
There are things that you would absolutely never notice one-on-one, but suddenly when you put all of us in a room together, you start to notice some really interesting patterns. Hi everyone, Paul Micallef here from Autism From The Inside. I make weekly videos sharing the human side of autism, so make sure you hit subscribe to get the latest content.
So one of the top ways that I recommend to learn about autism, especially if you're on your own self-discovery journey, is to spend time around other autistic people. It's quite a magical experience, actually, to have all these different people who previously felt like they were the odd one out, all coming together and discovering firsthand what they have in common. So this list of 9 weird autistic traits has been compiled from my own personal observation of spending time in autistic-only groups.
There are things that you would absolutely never notice one-on-one, but suddenly when you put all of us in a room together, you start to notice some really interesting patterns. So let's get stuck into it. In no particular order, number one is forgetting to say hello or goodbye.
So this is a bit of a weird one, but once you notice it, you'll start to see it everywhere. This phenomenon was first pointed out to me by a neurotypical friend just making an observation. We were an almost exclusively autistic group, we were at a pub, and we decided, I think, to move on to a new venue or something like that.
And in a few seconds, just everyone dispersed, went to their own cars, and he just made this remark to me like, you know, that would never happen in a neurotypical group. Everyone just left, and they didn't say goodbye. They're like, okay, well, we know what we're doing.
Zoop, gone. And ever since then, I've noticed my own tendency to do this as well, especially forgetting to say hello. I remember a particular experience at an autism conference.
I was trying to read the schedule for the day, and I found myself making a comment to the person standing next to me who was obviously looking at the same thing, which we both understood it was a shared experience. But later, looking back, I'm thinking, wait a minute, I didn't say hello, I didn't look at them, I didn't ask their name. We had no other interaction other than, well, we're in the same space, we have a shared experience.
So for some reason, my brain thought, well, that's good enough, I don't need to make any other connection, I can just speak directly to them and they will respond. And at an autism conference with other autistic people, you can generally get away with that. But in other situations, it's kind of a good idea to say hello before actually talking to someone.
I used to live in a share house where the bathroom was right next to the kitchen. I remember one time I was, I just stepped into the bathroom when I heard my housemate in the kitchen. And so I opened the door and asked her a question.
I can't remember what it was. It's like, did you buy the eggs or something mundane like that? And then I caught myself and thought, hang on, wait a minute.
Try again. Hi, good morning, how are you going? You know how you said you were going shopping yesterday?
Did you get the eggs like you said you were? All of that fluff around the edges. When my brain is super engaged in the process, I forget that other people are not necessarily having the same experience as me.
So that initial first step of saying hello to make sure we're on the same page in the same universe before actually diving into the content is a step that's often missed. Similarly in big groups, it can be hard to break in and announce your presence and say hello. Sometimes it's easier to just sit down without trying to get acknowledged.
And similarly saying goodbye, there's, there's a whole group. They're all talking with each other. I want to go.
It's hard to get their attention and tell them I'm going, so I'm just going to leave. And the result is that a lot of autistic people seem to be like ghosts sometimes just suddenly appearing and suddenly disappearing because others don't necessarily notice us when we're used to not being noticed and not demanding attention. Anyway, that's an interesting one.
Let's see if you notice that from now on. Number two is a little bit hard to describe, but autistic people very often walk funny. That might sound really strange and I definitely don't want to be misunderstood with this one, but sometimes just by looking at someone's posture and how they move, you can tell that there's something a little bit different about this person.
I've had a lot of experience at autistic events in largely neuro-typical spaces, and it's quite common that just by looking at someone, I can say, I think you might be one of us. And there are actually a couple of good reasons for this. The first one, and this absolutely blew my mind.
The first time it made sense to me is that it's actually a sensory thing with regard to proprioception. I remember when I was first reading up on autism and it said things like autistic children are often clumsy and like clumsy. That's a bit weird.
Why, how does that fit in to having your brain wired differently? Whereas from a sensory standpoint of proprioception and having a sense of where your body is in space, some people really like moving their body and really like dancing and other things like that. And others just don't really like to move very much.
And if that's you, it's likely that you might have a little bit of a scrunched up posture and it's likely that walking will be a little bit different to most people as well. And on top of that, it's also really common to have a lack of self awareness as to how other people are perceiving me. So I'm just here doing what feels good.
You know, in my case, I really love proprioception. I love moving my body. I move my shoulders all the time.
I rock, I do all these other things and I don't always have a sense of how noticeable that is to other people around me. Anyway, the point is when you put all of these things together and when you've had enough experience of what to look for, sometimes you can make a pretty good guess just by how someone walks or how they hold themselves in their posture. If they're likely to be looking for the autistic meetup or not.
Number three is one you may have already noticed. Autistic and neurodivergent people in general seem to often have colorful hair and colorful clothes. Now, I'm clearly not saying that wearing colors makes you autistic, but it's one of the very noticeable things when you've got a room full of 20 autistic people, lots of members will have colorful clothes and or colorful hair.
And in a similar way, number four is that autistic people are often gender nonconforming. Again, obviously not always, but when you think about it, it kind of makes sense that if you have an atypical relationship with your identity and your sexuality and your gender, then it's likely that that expression might fall outside the normal stereotypes. And this could be for any number of reasons.
It could be as simple as I like loose fitting clothing, or I like swishy dresses, or I don't like brushing my hair so I shave my head, but this is definitely one of the more noticeable traits and in autistic friendly spaces focused on freedom of expression and helping people feel comfortable, gender and sexuality diversity is a big part of that. Number five, and this one might not surprise you either, but it's really common for autistic people to laugh at their own jokes. It's well known that we're famous for our sense of humor, but imagine if I was limited in my sense of humor by what other people around me are going to understand, how limiting would that be?
Instead, if I think of something hilarious or really clever, why don't I just enjoy it even if the people around me aren't going to even know what I'm talking about? In some ways, it feels like a burdensome extra step to try and explain my hilarious brain to someone else if they don't already get it. Having a very active imagination is a well known autistic trait and part of that sometimes means being in your own world a little bit and laughing at your own jokes.
The sixth weird autistic trait that you may have noticed is over explaining. This one is so common that I've actually done an entire video on it, but briefly there are a couple of reasons why it's so common for autistic people to over explain themselves. Number one, it might be because we feel misunderstood and therefore I'm going to try and explain my way into being understood, which absolutely doesn't work, but it sort of makes sense to try.
Another reason might be that it's just hard to prioritize information. I don't know what the important information is, so I'm going to give you all of it as opposed to trying to get inside your head and think, what do you want to hear from me? And then make my story around that so that you only get the important information.
That's a lot of work. How about I just tell you everything and then let you decide what's important. Or another reason for over explaining is essentially processing out loud.
Maybe I don't know what's important and what I even think about something. So if I just tell you all of my thought process as it's happening, then that can sometimes be a way of helping me to understand my own thoughts. Weird trait number seven is a little bit counterintuitive, but autistic people are incredibly flexible.
In fact, we're so flexible that we often need really rigid structures to keep us in check. This is especially true of social expectations. They say autistic people are good at thinking outside the box, whereas in reality, it might just be a complete lack of awareness of where the box is.
Oh, oops, sorry. I didn't realize that was out of the box. Can you remind me where that box is and what I'm supposed to be doing right now?
What this looks like is constantly asking the question, do I really need to do that? Like really, really need to do that? How important are socks anyway?
Can I just wear shoes without socks? Is that okay? Do my socks need to match?
Probably not, right? Everyone else has already said happy birthday. Do I also need to say happy birthday?
I mean, come on, surely that's implied that they would know that I'm wishing them a happy birthday, even if I don't say it. That's probably a terrible example. But the point of this one is that very often autistic people are way more open to doing things a non-standard way than your average person, which is kind of ironic because a lot of the time we're also way more rigid and insistent on doing something a particular way than your average person.
So these two things are kind of two sides of the same coin in that sense. Weird trait number eight is inconsistent communication. And what this one looks like is nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, everything.
I have a friend of mine who did not text me for maybe six months and then suddenly I'm getting pages and pages of messages. It's almost like she had to put six months worth of texts all in one go because well, clearly we need to catch up. And the reverse is sometimes true.
This is one of the most common complaints that people come to me with in relationship coaching. We had a really close relationship and now they've just suddenly stopped talking to me. We can be a bit binary, it's either on or off.
If I have energy, great, I'd love to connect. And if I don't have energy, well, I need space so I can recharge, which means no connecting now. I need to recharge and we'll connect later.
You might even notice that some people tend to be highly introverted sometimes and highly extroverted at some other times. Having a huge amount of energy and really engaging and then suddenly not having energy and completely withdrawing. Unfortunately, this one can have quite negative impacts on relationships.
So if I seem to be describing your partner and you're really struggling with that, maybe you'd like to check out my video on Aspie withdrawal that has some strategies on what you can do. Okay, finally, weird trait number nine, speaking with an accent. This one can also be quite subtle, so you might not have already noticed it, but I've noticed that a large number of autistic people speak their native language with an interesting accent.
This is of course completely unique to the person, but the accent can potentially be best described as a bit of a mix. You might hear it on just one or two words that are said in a bit of a funny way. I remember once, several years ago now, I went on a date with someone who I'm pretty sure grew up in Melbourne and I'm pretty sure has never traveled overseas, but when we were chatting at the cafe, my brain assumed she was from the US because of her accent.
So when your brain is used to masking and camouflaging and when you learn language and social skills from watching movies and you've potentially had slightly less experience observing the behavior of your peers to know what they think is normal, all of this results in sometimes having a tiny bit of a funny accent. And most of you probably haven't noticed, but I have that as well. In my case, I've spent a lot of time in Europe speaking to non-native English speakers and because of that, I've picked up some ways of saying things that are just not how everyone else would do it.
They are what I would call international English. They are a slightly simplified version of English that is not immediately obvious that it's a little bit different. But if you're really paying attention, sometimes you'll notice a couple of words or phrases that are just a little bit awkward from a native speaker perspective.
For example, the other day, a friend noticed that I sometimes use the word probably as the first word of a sentence. Saying something like, probably that's not going to work instead of that's probably not going to work. So you can see how I've simplified it just a little bit, which would probably make it slightly easier for a non-native English speaker to understand because I've separated out the two concepts.
However, that's just not how everyone else speaks English, at least not in my part of the world. Okay, so I better leave it there. That has been nine weird autistic traits that you probably didn't know about.
I'm curious to hear how many you'd already spotted before you watch this video. And if you've noticed other weird autistic behavior that I didn't mention in this video, please leave me a comment. I'd really love to hear it.
And if I get enough suggestions, maybe I'll even make a part two of this video. So thanks for watching. I hope you've enjoyed this video.
If you did, maybe you can share it with a friend who you think might enjoy it as well. Don't forget to comment and subscribe if you haven't already, and I will see you again next week. Bye.
Bye.
