u/Enygma15

Talking to other people they ask about how many friends I have or who my friends are and I always say well I only have like 2 or 3 FRIENDS but there are a lot of people that I talk to frequently I just don't consider them to fall under the definition of friend to me. I like to use "acquaintance" more often than not because I feel like a friend is someone you hang out with and speak with very frequently outside of the situation that you are forced/required to be near them as well as someone you actively think about when they are not around. Other people I talk to are like from school or work and we aren't necessarily friends because our being friendly is situational outside of a random text or two. Does anyone else feel this way where people think you're strange when you say you only have a couple of friends and then you have to explain that you are friendly with others but you aren't really friends with them? Why would you consider someone a friend if you don't talk to them outside of situational contexts?

I obviously understand that autism affects social skills where good eye contact is classified as that but it just doesn't make sense from accounts of people I know personally and what I have seen online

When I first told my therapist that I think I may have autism her actual first statement was "I'm not qualified to diagnose anything but you make eye contact and are very good at holding a conversation" (I love her and she is very good about most other things but she thinks that my ADHD diagnosis that I got in 4th grade is my main struggle when its not and she has a few outdated ideas on what autism is but I don't blame her because she graduated well before the DSM-4 even was released) I just don't understand why the first thought in people's mind to deny autism is eye contact. I've always thought eye contact was looking directly at someone's eyes while they are speaking and I've been told its rude to not make eye contact when someone is speaking to you so I always assumed that I'm bad at eye contact because I find it difficult to stay focused specifically on people's eyes when they are speaking (partly because I'm hard of hearing and need to lip read) and only recently found out that is not the case (obviously this belief came from literal thinking so my good eye contact is kind of still a symptom) But I have heard many other people have this same thing where they are told that either they don't at all or likely don't have autism because they make eye contact and non-professionals are reluctant to accept your diagnosis because of it. I suppose I can understand the average person thinking that way because of the way media portrays autism but I am confused as to why medical professionals still see it as an end all be all?

(Granted I don't understand a lot of the way that autism is medically categorized and stated as fact even when it's not really accurate in real everyday life outside of a clinical setting)