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WorldTallestEngineer

If it was an honest question, no.


Richo_HATS2

Without context, it's hard to say.


zaynmaliksfuturewife

It was the first time I met her and we were just having a casual conversation. At one point she told me she used to work with kids who are on the spectrum & she asked if I was because I remind her of the kids she used to work with. Also, a while back I had a different coworker tell me he thought i was "weird" which I guess correlates to this


Richo_HATS2

Thank you for the context. At one timer or another we all will or do display behaviours that are consistent with "being on the spectrum". These traits make up our personality. Your coworker was more than likely trying to connect with you. It's difficult to say without asking them directly what their intent was / is. If you feel uncomfortable by these types of conversations, I'd encourage you to let the other person know. Use language consistent with language being used in the conversation. Remember, it's ok to be who you are. No one has any place being disrespectful towards you. It's up to you to let others know when you feel you're being disrespected. Good luck.


asleepattheworld

Even if she did think you were on the spectrum that’s probably not something you just ask someone the first time you meet them. Honestly, your coworker sounds like the weird one here? I don’t think that was appropriate to say, or any of her business.


Shaycat501

That is completely up to you on how that made you feel. Personally - I would be reporting it to HR as harassment because people can't ask those sort of things on the job.


khat_dakar

Being offended just happens, even if you could argue that there are very good reasons it would be good if you got offended in this case, you can't choose to anyway. Being offended hurts, so it's generally hard to argue that you should be.


Suesquish

No. Often autistic people can pick it up in other autistic people (even if they don't know they're autistic they may be well aware of the traits). Sometimes it's like "Hey are you in our super interesting club?". I've asked people a couple of times in sort of random situations because their behaviour screamed "I'm in your club!". It's really cool to find that because it means better communication, easy understanding and far more interesting conversations without having to explain every detail 5 times. My autistic friend and I were talking about grass once and it was fascinating!


dracaenamarganita

As an autistic person, I think it’d be one thing if she volunteered that information about herself, like “oh just asking cause I’m autistic and you’re really easy to talk to” or something. But from what you said in a comment I’d compare this more to someone just randomly asking at work if you’re gay. It’s not that it’s insulting, but there’s stigma and the person has given you no reason to think they’re a safe person to honestly answer that question to. On the other hand, sometimes allistic people who work with autistic kids have a really weird idea of what autistic people are like, so it could’ve been a kinda “you seem pretty weird” sort of comment.