I do not speak of my autism terrifically often. If I were to say something on the subject, I would likely begin by stressing that autism is not a feature of my person, but a filter on my perception. For me, autism is not a reduction of ability, but more like a smudge on the lens through which I view the world.

Many of the things that we see as defining us — our religious views, our political opinions, our hobbies and our pastimes — are like smudges on the outside of our figurative camera lenses. They may distort, discolor, or obscure the world as it is, but they are not permanent. They can be wiped off; the lens can be made clean, particularly if the person looking through the lens is aware of the distortion and how it is affecting his or her view of the world.

But autism is like a smudge on the inside of my camera lens. It’s been there since my manufacturing date, and there’s no way to remove it. I may be aware of the smudge. I may even have deduced the precise aspects of my life — namely, social communication — that is blurs. But that smudge is never coming off. No snapshot of my world will ever lack its distinct obfuscation of interpersonal “vibes.” I will never see the feelings of others the way I want to: as they are.

What’s going on with that lens? Is it a really a smudge? Is it more like a black-and-white filter? Does it take away the emotional depth perception that other people seem to have?

I don’t know.

Much of the time, I simply cannot know what, why, or how someone else is feeling unless they tell me. I am largely reliant upon others to tell me the truth about their feelings when prompted, perhaps in the way that a blind man might be dependent upon the honesty of others for accurate descriptions of his environment. The problem is that people don’t tell the truth about what they’re feeling; people aren’t honest about what’s going on in their minds, or their hearts.

To illustrate my point, I’m going to share with you a personal story of something that once happened to me.

I am an introvert by nature, which means I can benefit from trying to drag myself out of my comfort zone and meet new people. I used to have a habit of sitting and talking with strangers during my three daily meals spent in a college cafeteria. I would approach someone who didn’t look busy, ask if I could sit at their table, explain that I was only looking for conversation — and that if this made them uncomfortable, they could say no without hurting my feelings — and (most of the time) get a yes and reduce the count of strangers in the world by one.

Over the course of one such meal, I met a young woman with a fondness for The Chronicles of Narnia. When I explained that I was writing a novel in the vein of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and asked if she would have any interest in reading it, she told me she would. We exchanged contact information, I sent her the manuscript, and we shared a few SpongeBob jokes over text.

Then she stopped responding to me.

Oh, we still saw each other. I ate in her building three times a day, for Pete’s sake. I would smile and wave, she would smile and wave back. But she never got back to me on the novel. She never got back to me on anything. Whenever I asked to sit with her, she would insist a friend was coming.

I’m autistic, not stupid. That vestigial part of my brain intended to pick up on social cues was telling me that she was uncomfortable: that something was wrong. I just couldn’t figure out what.

Eventually, I approached her and said,

“Hey. I get the sense that I’ve done something to make you uncomfortable. If that’s the case, I’m very sorry. But I need you to understand that I have autism, and if you don’t tell me what I did wrong, I’m never going to figure it out. Will you be honest with me?”

She smiled and said, “You’re fine.”

The next time I asked to sit with her, she called the campus authorities on me.

I was notified by email that I was going to attend a non-negotiable meeting at a rather unfair time for my schedule. I was given less than a day’s notice and was refused any information regarding the subject of the meeting. What I experienced the next day was a shakedown, in a building where I didn’t live, in a room I’d never been, at the hands of a person I’d never met. I was accused of stalking this girl, harassing her, and hanging out in places on campus where I knew she’d be so I could pop out and ambush her.

I could go into a detailed defense of my character, explaining that I only ran into her so much because we had classes in a mutual building, and I ate three times per day in her residence hall because it’s the only nearby food source that my university, in its infinite wisdom, has provided for students who rely on dining account money for sustenance, and that it was cute anyone thought I had time to devote to stalking people. I’m not going to do that because it’s not the point of this article.

My interrogation by an inconsiderate and disbelieving individual I’d never met who accused me of things I’d never done was capped off by a low-key restraining order. I was told that (1) I was not to say hi to this person, (2) I was not to acknowledge this person’s existence in any way, (3) I was not to sit near this person, (4) if I were sitting somewhere and this person sat down by me, I had to get up and leave, and (5) I was not allowed to contact her or explain myself in any way.

I mostly ate by myself after that.

In retrospect, it’s clear that she lied to me: on many occasions, and about many things. But lying to a person who needs the truth to function is not a defensible course of action. You don’t tell a blind man the way ahead is clear when there’s a wall of Mario-style spiked blocks directly in front of him, you definitely don’t proceed to chastise him and his blindness as the reason he’s been wounded, and you absolutely, positively, do notthen accuse him of walking into the wall of spikes as a means of harassing you. If the blind man in question literally asked, “Is there a giant wall of spikes in front of me?” and you answered “No,” then it is even less his fault.

All I’m saying is that maybe I’m not the defective human, okay?