Aspiedar: can you tell if someone is autistic?

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It's the opposite - two people have asked ME if I'm autistic.

I'm too self-absorbed to be able to pick if others are on the spectrum.

It's not a black and white thing of: oh this person seems autistic so now I'm going to treat him like this.
It's more like just a hunch that you use to understand someone. If someone seems strange or rude they could be autistic or could be something bad like sociopath.

We cannot force someone to go and get diagnosed, and actually narcissists often charm psychologists into giving them a diagnosis of someone who is not harmful.

So we have to make decisions based on our hunches and hope it works out.
We have to make on the spot decisions of who to trust,who to get involved with etc. Without the luxury of an official diagnosis.

I was on a techie BBS, and one of the other guys was a successful shop owner and family man. I wrote to him that I thought he was a fellow aspie. He'd never thought of anything like that himself, but saw right away that I was right.
I'm pretty sure that a friend of mine divorced an aspie, and carries over some of her conflicts with him to me. Another old friend was even stimming a lot, but I have not gotten back in touch to discuss it.

i was shopping in the Lakewood grocery warehouse about 20 years ago, a little boy with a flat affect came up to me and asked me in a quasi-adult voice, "do you know where daddy is?" not "MY daddy" mind-you. i thought to myself, "i've finally met somebody else like i was when i was young."

I don't think you can tell just by looking at a person, but as I have learnt more about the traits I can look back on some of the people I've got to know over the years. Knowing what I know now, I know that some of them were Autistic because of what they told me about their traits, and also what I could observe in them. I'm aware I'm not a clinically trained diagnostician, but in the real world we make judgements, hopefully based on having sufficient facts.

There's some people I'm absolutely certain about because of the things they told me. It's likely that they recognised my Autism and so wanted to talk about it by giving me clues and hints about their Autism. But as I didn't realise that I had Autism at those times, those conversations never took place.

I have my suspicions of others. What do I even know of myself? LOL. I can observe to the best of my ability (or ask)... if someone might be overwhelmed by or seeking sensory input, if someone might be overwhelmed by or seeking ambiguity or certainty, likewise interpretations of an idiom or social situation that may be more or less clear or confusing ... this may or may not be cultural... special interests, etc. When I relate to others very well, and seemingly better than Allistic people, I especially wonder. If enough parts are indicative of an elephant or duck or an ancient dinosaur ... it may be one, or a platypus or seaweed frond.

I have family members and friends that are on it and other that highly, highly overlap it, if not... where the line is drawn --- that's the question. I have made caring suggestions to my BFF, my mother and one of my children. I have a close friend who suggested she might be on it to me; I agreed it had occurred to me. It is for them to explore or discover for themselves - if they deem it of value. I am aware that some in my family wouldn't want a line drawn. Mental health is super taboo on one side of my family, yet I have my theories there too.

I have an acquaintance who is very likely ASD but I haven't suggested it to her b/c she tends towards narcissism and is fairly abusive (as was/is my mother). I probably should mention it so she could explore and gain awareness and perhaps insight into potential invalidation and abuse she may have internalized (and is spewing). April is coming up... Maybe a flyer on her door to start...

I usually can't tell. I know a few autistic people and the only reason I know they are autistic is because they told me. Otherwise I wouldn't have known. There is only one person I've met who I was certain he was autistic without him telling me. He was rocking back and forth, repeating what I said to himself (echolalia), and was stimming with his hands. I didn't ask him if he was autistic, but I was certain he was.

I can sometimes have hunches if someone is neurodivergent in some way based on their behavior, but I wouldn't say I can 'tell' if someone is autistic specifically and nor is it a 'I can talk or interact with someone once and immediately clock them as ND' thing either, it's just a 'If someone behaves in a way that's somewhat common among neurodiverse folks, then there's a possibility they may be ND themselves'.

But I also don't go and asking random people if they're ND or autistic or anything like that. I'm weird but I'm not that weird.

Unless someone is a master at masking, I can usually tell, though sometimes I need to be around someone for a bit to really know for sure.

If I wanted to deliberately engage my aspiedar, I'm sure I'd get false positives, as I do with any other uncanny ability.

I cant tell "just by looking at someone" one time obviously. But if you work with a person for a long time you pick up clues. One coworker guy, though around 40, acted like a 12 year old version of me (less street wise, and even more dorky than I act now). Half of the work force would ridicule and bully him, and the other half would sorta baby him because he was "special". I wouldnt bully him, but I would be frustrated with him because he wouldnt master certain basic skills of the job like a certain thing like touch typing- that I had sense enough to force myself to learn early on to survive in the job. Then I was gossiping with a coworker low level supervisor lady - who told me that he was in fact an aspie (she had signed papers so he could leave for shrink appointments, and she said "I was a psych major and could tell he was anyway".

Like gaydar you should usually take your own thoughts with a grain of salt. But as with gaydar you cant not make guesses about folks around you because humans are wired to do that to survive.

But unlike "gaydar", which both straights and gays wonder if they "have" because both groups are obsessed with sex, its only autistics who think about "detecting autism". NTs dont concern themselves with uncovering autism (as such) in others like they do with determining sexual orientation. Or at least thats how it was for most of my lifetime. There maybe more "autism awareness" in society now than I am aware of. An autistic might worry about being 'found out', but NTs arent likely to think "this person is autistic". They will just think "this person is...weird...ret*d...impaired...or 'special' in some way".

I think that, unless explicit criteria is shown, this os difficult due to the diversity in individuals. If I had to guess, I'd base it on how much facial movement/eye contact they make.

Sometimes.

I mean, there are a lot of flags which mean it's more likely someone's autistic, but it's never going to be 100%. And then there's the issue of undiagnosis; there are huge numbers of people out there who are autistic but never suspected it of themselves and don't think of themselves as autistic. If you ask them if they are, they'll say "no" and may even be offended.