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I was telling someone my superpower is people want to give me food all the time. She said yes, but, the more impressive superpower is that you actually eat all the food they give you. I truly have the mindset that everyone and everything is wonderful and delicious and nothing bad can ever happen.
She said she was too Catholic and would just curl up and wonder what she could possibly have done to deserve anything.
I guess I.. don’t have that mindset at all. If someone is offering me a cookie, roast chicken, honey, chillies, a job, I usually want it. And I am extremely thankful and enthusiastic.
I have followed people off trains and into their homes to eat with them in Beirut, Bombay.
Surprisingly, my gut instinct for stranger danger is actually very finely tuned for an autistic person, and I feel reasonably comfortable with being able to read situations.
It wasn’t always this way, but connecting with people because I am super interested in how different people live became something of a fixation for me.
In 20 years of doing it, I feel I’ve gotten the chance to have very rich experiences everywhere I’ve been in the world. I find it difficult to go immediately to threat mode (I am almost never in it).
I know that’s a function of a privilege I have: I was brought up in a loving and secure environment, and I was rarely (never) afraid. Increasingly I find myself wondering if that was the single most important thing that led to certain outcomes for me, more than anything else.
Even today, I am deeply afraid of knowing what will happen in the world, but on a personal level knowing I can always go home, to a warm meal, makes me feel safe. And sometimes I want to try to help others feel that way, as best as I can.
One time I asked an old friend how we met each other. He laughed and said, remember when you were in Chennai in the late 00s? You were sitting on the road eating a huge bucket of chilli chicken by yourself, and you were so happy you had the chilli chicken, that I decided I wanted to be your friend.
Most of my friends are like that.
@skinnylatte This is autism as a superpower, really 
@skinnylatte I had a story like this! It was my second last day in Yellowknife. I was wandering the city by myself and found myself back at the incredible fish and chips place that I absolutely loved.
I was in heaven with this fish, and the guy next to me hit up a conversation. Then invited me to an impromptu house party with the coolest people I had ever met.
I don't remember any of it, but that was when I figured it'd be a good place to move if I ever wanted to leave Toronto.
@mayintoronto @skinnylatte I had a really excellent fish and chips from Bullock's Bistro, was it there?
@va2lam That was the place! Sooooo good.
@mayintoronto haha score
@mayintoronto @va2lam adding to my list!!
@skinnylatte This was my first time going to a random stranger's house. Apparently they just picked up the phone and called each other, then people showed up. 
@skinnylatte It turns out most people are great, actually. (The world works, I say, because most people want it to work.)
@skinnylatte Honestly every time people were like, how do you live in SoMa, I’m like sure too many of my neighbors live in tents on my sidewalk but we take care of each other
@skinnylatte That’s how we live here despite how fucked we are and how fucked everything is
@kevinriggle same in the TL
@skinnylatte Same, same, so much the same. Operating from that base assumption of security is so different than nearly everyone around me, and it really does inform so much of how I act in the world. And I end up in similar situations because of it.
@aredridel ooh sounds like we have had a very familiar secure but also free range past!
@skinnylatte Yes!
You end up with so many stories this way. Speaking at conferences around the world. Sleeping in Golden Gate Park. Biking 1600 miles and sleeping on beaches. Ending up in random people's houses at 3 in the morning after a night out. Some of these within weeks of each other. Having a cookout with homeless folks.
@skinnylatte Oh interesting. I’ve always felt I’ve been trusting of people generally but now that you mention this I realize how tied into the fact that’s also because I avoid people when my gut says “don’t” on someone.
@djcapelis I feel like people on the spectrum tap into different heuristics and signals about people!
