Funny, You Don't Look Autistic: A Comedian's Guide to Life on the Spectrum

by Michael McCreary

There are a lot of other stereotypes about autism. For example, some people think being autistic means you’re unable to perceive the thoughts and emotions of others. Actually, based on my experiences and from talking to other people on the spectrum, it’s quite the opposite: you feel every possible emotion and see every possible outcome of a social situation at once. It’s kind of like being Doctor Manhattan from the comic Watchmen: you’re seeing several time lines happening simultaneously. But unlike Doctor Manhattan, you can’t teleport to Mars every time you feel overwhelmed, so you shut down and remove yourself socially. People are exhausting, and when your brain is working overtime to try to understand them, it can suck the joy out of socializing.

One of the difficult things about autism is that when you’re talking to people, there can be a cognitive dissonance between the words they’re saying and their body language. So, if someone is smiling at me while calling me a moron, I’ll think they’re a nice guy and they’re just joking around. It wasn’t always clear to me when someone was actually making fun of me, and I often didn’t realize it until another person pointed it out.

“Autistic people hate being social and don’t want relationships.” Correction: Autistic people want relationships, but on their own terms. Some prefer one-on-one interaction. Others like to keep it to a Skype call.

For instance, when I was in the young acting company, there was another actor I would regularly joke around with. I thought we were getting along great. Until one day he was pulled aside by one of the older actors who had been watching us, who told him sternly, “Don’t talk to Michael like that ever again.” My “friend” had been making fun of me, but because he was smiling the whole time, I hadn’t even realized it.

I almost would have preferred not to find out. Oh, just let me dream! I thought. Let me live the lie! It was always a heartbreaking thing to learn secondhand that people—people who I thought liked me—were actually messing with my mind. And as time went on, it started to really put me at odds with others. I wasn’t sure who I could trust. By grade six, this sort of thing had been happening

I think my awkwardness was a big part of why I gravitated so strongly to performing. An everyday, normal conversation was a kind of performance for me. Doing it onstage was somehow less exhausting, and much more rewarding.

what’s the point? I’ve found many people with ASD have this in common: we obsess about the negative. You

“Life is too short to be a chore, so why not say yes and have fun with it?”

Routine means everything for us autistic folk, and breaking from it can be quite stressful.