“But I’m Good With People”: Why Autism Can Be Missed in Adults
Updated: Sep 14
Can you be autistic and still be sociable, empathetic and good with people? Absolutely. We explore masking, learnt social skills and why being socially capable doesn't necessarily mean social interaction is intuitive or effortless.
When people imagine an autistic adult, they often still picture someone who obviously struggles socially.
Someone who doesn't understand other people.
Doesn't make eye contact.
Doesn't have many friends.
Doesn't enjoy socialising.
Perhaps struggles to hold a conversation.
So what happens when you are actually really good with people?
You have friends.
You can make conversation.
You understand humour and sarcasm.
You might work in a very people-focused profession.
Perhaps you're the person everyone comes to when they're struggling.
You can walk into a room, smile, chat and appear completely comfortable.
Surely you can't be autistic?
Actually, you can.
Because being able to navigate social situations and finding social interaction intuitive, effortless and sustainable are not necessarily the same thing.
And that distinction is one of the reasons autism can remain unrecognised well into adulthood.
“But I can make eye contact…”
Good.
Fortunately, we don't diagnose autism by seeing whether somebody looks at us.
Eye contact is one of those things that has become disproportionately associated with autism.
Some autistic people find eye contact intensely uncomfortable and naturally use very little of it.
Others make plenty.
Some have consciously learnt how much is expected.
Some look towards someone's face without necessarily looking directly into their eyes.
Some can make eye contact perfectly well but find it distracting while they're trying to think.
And some are sitting opposite me during an assessment thinking:
Am I looking at her enough?
Was that too long?
Look away now.
No, that was weird. Look back.
Technically, we're making eye contact.
I'm just not convinced we can call that effortless social communication.
Social skill can be learnt
This is something I find fascinating.
Many autistic adults I've worked with aren't socially unaware at all.
In fact, some are extremely socially aware.
They notice tiny changes in expression.
They analyse tone.
They think carefully about how other people might interpret what they've said.
They replay conversations afterwards.
They learn which questions you're supposed to ask.
They remember things people have told them so they can ask about them next time.
They adapt themselves depending on who they're with.
Over many years, they may have built an enormous mental library of social information.
And they can become very good at using it.
From the outside, we see social competence.
What we don't see is the processing happening underneath it.
Intuitive and intellectual understanding are different
Imagine being fluent in another language.
You can have a conversation.
You understand what the other person is saying.
You can respond appropriately.
Someone listening might think you're exceptionally good at it.
But your brain may still be doing considerably more work than it does when you're speaking your first language.
You're translating.
Checking grammar.
Thinking about vocabulary.
Monitoring whether you've understood something correctly.
Social interaction can sometimes feel a little like this for autistic people.
They know the language.
They may speak it extremely well.
But some of it has been consciously learnt rather than intuitively acquired.
That additional processing matters.
Because it takes energy.
“But I'm really empathetic”
This is another autism stereotype I'd quite happily retire.
Autistic people do not inherently lack empathy.
Some autistic people describe experiencing other people's emotions incredibly intensely.
Some work in caring professions.
Some are exceptionally sensitive to distress or injustice.
Some notice changes in the people they know very quickly.
What can sometimes be difficult is knowing what another person expects you to do with that information.
You might care enormously but not know what to say.
You might immediately try to solve the problem when the other person wanted reassurance.
You might recognise distress but misunderstand its cause.
Or perhaps you're so affected by somebody else's emotions that you become overwhelmed yourself.
Empathy is complicated.
A tick box asking whether someone “understands other people's feelings” doesn't come particularly close to capturing that complexity.
This is where masking comes in
For some autistic adults, particularly those diagnosed later in life, social interaction has involved years of watching, learning and adapting.
You might:
Rehearse what you're going to say before making a phone call.
Plan topics of conversation before meeting someone.
Copy expressions, phrases or gestures from other people.
Monitor whether you're talking too much or too little.
Force yourself to make eye contact.
Suppress movements or behaviours that might attract attention.
Laugh because everyone else is laughing, even though you're not entirely sure what was funny.
Change aspects of yourself depending on who you're with.
Analyse conversations afterwards to check whether you got something wrong.
Have a mental collection of reliable questions for when conversation starts running out.
Eventually, you can become so practised at doing these things that you don't necessarily realise you're doing them.
It's simply how you socialise.
And sometimes you're very good at it
This is important.
Masking doesn't necessarily mean someone is walking around performing a terrible impersonation of a neurotypical person while everyone secretly knows.
Many autistic people become extraordinarily skilled at navigating social environments.
They are warm.
Funny.
Engaging.
Articulate.
Insightful.
They may genuinely enjoy connecting with people.
And that can make autism much harder for other people to recognise.
Sometimes even for experienced professionals.
Because if we're only looking at what somebody does, rather than how they experience doing it, we can miss an enormous amount.
The question I’m interested in is: what does it cost?
This is something I come back to repeatedly in neurodevelopmental assessment.
Someone might tell me:
“Yes, I can socialise.”
Okay.
What happens afterwards?
Do you need several hours alone?
Do you replay the interaction?
Do you feel physically exhausted?
Do you avoid making plans on consecutive days?
Do you spend the entire journey home analysing something you said at 7:42pm?
Do you enjoy people but find groups overwhelming?
Can you manage beautifully at work and then have absolutely no capacity left when you get home?
Can you attend the event but spend the three days beforehand wishing you'd never agreed to it?
That information matters.
Because:
“Can you do it?”
and
“What does doing it require from you?”
are very different clinical questions.
Some autistic people genuinely love people
Autism does not mean somebody doesn't want relationships.
Some autistic people have little desire for lots of social contact.
Others desperately want connection.
Some have a small number of very close relationships.
Others have large friendship groups.
Some love parties.
Others would rather remove their own toenails than attend one.
Autistic people are, inconveniently for diagnostic stereotypes, people.
There's enormous variation, and of course there should be, we just need to diagnostic tools to catch up now.
The relevant question isn't simply whether someone wants relationships.
We need to understand how they experience and navigate them.
Someone may deeply value friendships while finding the unwritten rules surrounding them confusing.
They might struggle to know when someone has moved from acquaintance to friend.
They may worry about how frequently they're supposed to make contact.
They might prefer relationships based around shared interests.
They may find conflict particularly difficult.
Or they may have spent years feeling as though everyone else received a handbook explaining friendship that mysteriously never arrived for them.
Being a psychologist didn't make me immune to stereotypes either
Having ADHD myself and working with neurodivergent individuals has made me think much more deeply about the assumptions we all carry about what neurodivergence is supposed to look like.
Clinical training gives us frameworks.
But people don't always arrive looking like the textbook.
That's why I'm much more interested in understanding the individual sitting in front of me than comparing them with a stereotype of an autistic person.
Sometimes the most important information isn't immediately observable.
It's in the developmental history.
The sensory experiences.
The relationships.
The routines.
The exhaustion.
The compensatory strategies.
The things somebody has spent years deliberately learning.
And the difference between the person everyone else sees and what it actually feels like to be them.
This is also why one assessment session can't tell us everything
Sometimes an adult worries about an autism assessment because they think:
“What if I seem completely normal?”
Firstly, I'm not assessing how “normal” you appear.
Secondly, being able to have a reciprocal conversation with a psychologist for an hour doesn't tell me everything I need to know about how you've experienced social communication across your lifetime.
A comprehensive autism assessment brings together different sources of information.
We look at development.
Childhood experiences.
Relationships.
Communication.
Sensory processing.
Predictability and change.
Interests.
Patterns of behaviour.
Current functioning.
Masking and compensatory strategies.
Where appropriate and available, information from someone who knows you can also contribute to that picture.
No single observation should be expected to carry the entire diagnostic decision.
This can be particularly relevant for women
Although masking isn't exclusive to women, we increasingly recognise that some autistic women reach adulthood without their differences being identified.
They may have learnt to imitate peers.
Their interests may not fit traditional stereotypes of “autistic interests”.
They may appear socially motivated.
They may be highly verbal.
They may internalise distress rather than displaying it behaviourally.
Some have previously understood their experiences entirely through anxiety, low self-esteem, perfectionism or other mental health difficulties.
And some only begin wondering about autism after years of feeling that social life requires an amount of conscious effort that other people don't seem to need.
For many, discovering autism isn't about suddenly becoming a different person.
It's finally having a framework that makes sense of the person they've always been.
Wondering Whether Autism Might Explain Some of Your Experiences?
Autism can present in many different ways, particularly in adults who have developed sophisticated ways of navigating social situations or masking their differences.
At I.N. Therapy Berkshire, adult autism assessments consider developmental history, current experiences, social communication, sensory processing, patterns of behaviour, masking, compensatory strategies, strengths and the impact these experiences have across everyday life.
The aim isn't simply to look for stereotypical signs of autism. It's to understand the whole person and consider whether autism provides a meaningful explanation for their experiences.
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