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Comment by scandox | Hacker News Reader

I am very far from Autistic but I think the whole idea of authentic feeling is rather fragile. I may generate appropriate responses very smoothly but I have no idea if they're authentic until much later. Mostly not. Mostly just what I know people need to see and hear.

I imagine an Autistic mind-adventurer who got inside my head would be very disappointed.

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> I have no idea if they're authentic until much later.

Your emotional response about something can change over time as you process it. Thus your initial response can be authentic even if it isn't how you feel five minutes later.

This post is slightly surlrising to me, although I don't doubt that many people feel like they need to behave that way to be accepted / loved. However, an authentic only response exposes your true feelings and opinions about something, and I feel like most of the time, you should be able to generate a decently socially respectful and well attuned response without misrepresenting yourself, even if it takes a slight bit of effort or risk feeling rejected

This seems to imply there IS a current feeling. Is that that always the case?

I agree, expressing non-authentic feelings is so common we even have figurative expressions to describe it, e.g. to "put on a brave face" or "grin and bear it".

On the other hand, it seems that autistics have the unpleasant pressure of doing this in almost every social interaction.

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