Please Allow 3–5 Business Seconds for My Autism to Process You

I am very capable of being social.

Sometimes, shockingly so.

I can hold a conversation.
I can work a room.
I can facilitate a meeting.
I can make small talk with a stranger.
I can be warm, funny, present, engaged, and socially functional in a way that suggests I have, at some point, read the manual.

But only if my brain knows we are doing that.

This is an important distinction.

Because there is one particular scenario where all of that apparently disappears:

Running into someone I know unexpectedly on the street.

A chance encounter.

A surprise familiar face.

Someone appearing in public when my brain had not scheduled them.

Horrific.

It does not matter if I like the person.

In fact, sometimes liking them makes it worse, because now there is pressure to be normal, pleasant, affectionate, relaxed, and not behave like I have just been caught stealing office supplies.

But my brain wasn’t ready.

It had no agenda item called: Spontaneous Human Interaction With Known Person.

It was not briefed.

It did not receive the pre-read.

There was no calendar invite.

And this is all made significantly worse by the fact that, without my glasses, the world is essentially a soft-focus impressionist painting.

People become shapes.

Faces become suggestions.

The general public becomes a moving collection of blurry heads and vibes.

So half the time, I don’t even realise it is someone I know until I am basically right up in their face, by which point the socially acceptable window for recognition has already passed.

There is no graceful transition.

No smooth, distant smile of recognition.

No casual wave from across the street.

Just me walking towards someone, squinting slightly, slowly realising their vague outline is not just a pedestrian but a person from my actual life.

And then my brain has to process three things at once:

Who is that?
Where do I know them from?
Why are they suddenly so close?

By the time I work it out, they have usually already seen me, registered me, and possibly watched me fail to recognise them in real time.

Which is wonderful.

Very normal.

Extremely chic.

So now I am not only dealing with an unexpected social interaction.

I am also dealing with delayed facial recognition, blurry visual input, and the shame of having looked directly at someone I know with the blank expression of a man trying to identify a bird in the distance.

No wonder my social skills take a back seat.

They were never given the full briefing.

Actually, no.

They don’t take a back seat.

They get out of the car entirely.

Suddenly I have no idea what to do with my face.

Do I smile?
How much?
From what distance?
Do I wave?
Is it too early to wave?
Have they seen me?
Do I pretend I haven’t seen them?
Are we stopping?
Are we doing a passing hello?
Is this a hug person?
Is this a “how are you?” person?
Is this a “we both say hello and keep walking because everyone understands the social contract” person?

Too many variables.

Not enough processing time.

And then, by the time I have mentally assessed the situation, they are already in front of me.

So what comes out is usually some combination of:

“Oh hey!”

Too loud.

Or:

“Hi, how are you?”

Too formal.

Or:

“Heyyyyy!”

Too gay customer service.

Or sometimes just a noise.

A sort of surprised human notification sound.

And then the conversation begins.

Allegedly.

Because at that point my brain is still catching up to the fact that someone from one context has appeared in another context.

This is key.

I can know you from work.

I can know you from the gym.

I can know you from a party.

I can know you from a friend group.

I can know you from the internet, which is its own terrifying category.

But if you appear somewhere my brain has not assigned you, there is a brief internal system error.

Work person at work? Fine.

Gym person at gym? Fine.

Friend at planned dinner? Fine.

Person from the club standing near me in Coles while I am holding spinach and a rotisserie chicken?

Absolutely not.

That is a crossover episode I did not consent to.

My brain likes context.

It likes roles.

It likes preparation.

It likes knowing what version of me is required.

Work Mitch.
Gym Mitch.
Friend Mitch.
Family Mitch.
Gay night out Mitch.
Quietly buying groceries and hoping nobody perceives me Mitch.

These are not all the same operating mode.

They overlap, obviously. I am still one person. Annoyingly.

But the social rules are different.

The energy is different.

The mask is different.

The level of sass, eye contact, warmth, professionalism, posture, and sentence structure all shift depending on where I am and who I am with.

So when someone appears unexpectedly, my brain has to do a very quick identity merge.

And apparently, it is not always a smooth software update.

This is when I feel most autistic.

Not in the dramatic, stereotypical way people sometimes imagine.

More in the very specific way where the social script has vanished, the setting is wrong, the timing is wrong, the visual information is delayed, and I am suddenly painfully aware that human interaction requires a lot of invisible processing.

Processing I am usually very good at hiding.

Until I am ambushed by someone I know outside a cafe.

Then I become a man standing on a footpath trying to remember how greetings work.

And the annoying thing is, from the outside, it probably looks like I am being awkward, cold, distracted, rude, or weird.

I’m not.

I am buffering.

There is a difference.

Inside, a full operations team is working very hard.

One department is trying to identify the person.

Another is searching for the appropriate tone.

A third is reviewing the last known interaction.

A fourth is still processing whether the blurry person was actually looking at me or just near me.

Someone in the corner is screaming, “Do we hug?”

Meanwhile, the conversation has already started and I have only just loaded the home screen.

This is why planned socialising is easier.

If I know I am meeting someone, I can prepare.

Not necessarily in a formal way.

I do not need a printed agenda and a risk register, although honestly, imagine.

But I can orient myself.

I know who I am seeing.

I know where I am going.

I know what kind of interaction it is.

My brain can line up the right files.

Spontaneous run-ins give me none of that.

They demand immediate performance.

And immediate performance is not always where my particular brain shines.

Give me ten minutes and I can be charming.

Give me two seconds on a footpath and I may accidentally respond to “how are you?” with “yes.”

This is also why the goodbye can be just as bad as the hello.

Because once the unexpected interaction starts, I am also trying to work out how it ends.

Do we keep walking?
Do we say we should catch up?
Do we mean that?
Do I say “see you soon” even if I have no idea when soon would be?
Do I walk away first?
What direction was I going?
Have I now turned around by accident?
Why am I like this?

The whole thing is a lot.

And then, after it ends, my brain does the very helpful thing of replaying it for the next fifteen minutes.

Why did I say that?
Was I weird?
Did I seem rude?
Was my face doing enough?
Did I ask them anything back?
Did I say goodbye properly?
Did I damage a relationship with someone I vaguely know because I was holding a coffee and unprepared?

Very normal.

Very peaceful.

This is the part of AuDHD that people do not always see.

They see the social version.

The capable version.

The person who can speak in meetings, make jokes, connect with people, lead a conversation, read the room, and seem perfectly comfortable.

And that version is real.

But so is the version who short-circuits because someone he knows appeared on the wrong street at the wrong time, while also being visually rendered in low resolution.

One does not cancel out the other.

Being socially capable does not mean socialising is effortless.

Being warm does not mean every interaction is easy.

Being confident in one setting does not mean being prepared for every setting.

Sometimes the difference between charming and malfunctioning is simply whether my brain had advance notice.

And whether I could actually see the person coming.

Which feels like a basic requirement, but apparently not one life is always willing to provide.

Maybe that is what I am learning to accept.

I am not bad at people.

I just need context.

I need a second to switch modes.

I need my brain to know which version of the social map we are using.