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Comment by dennis_jeeves2 | Hacker News Reader

Nearly every professional 'relationship' I've had has been transient after you stop working with them, with people completely failing to reciprocate even after multiple attempts to reach out.

From talking to people I know that this experience is not unique to me, this appears to be the norm, may be it's the industry I work in : software development.

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It's not that I don’t want my private life to seep into work, it's that I don't want work to seep into my private life.

So I don't need friends that are also colleagues or clients. I already have great friends. I'm a great colleague in every way possible, but I never feel the need to be anything more than that.

For most people work / life balance is already tipping towards work. They want it to be the other way around.

When I've gotten friend from a job they stopped being mentally classified as a coworkers and started being classified as a friend I met at work. Aside from random bullshitting about shared experiences or whatever, I rarely felt compelled to discuss work with them any more than I did with other friends, and they can be really great at giving frank feedback when other coworkers might not have the guts. Unless there's a boss/subordinate relationship or a romantic connection, I've never seen or experienced any real problems or drama spring from workplace friendships.

I don't even have that many real 'friends' (non-colleagues/family)... and I still agree. Separate is best - even if that means one side suffers. Solitude beats being taken advantage of, every time.

Allow me to be crude for a second: half the people in software are likely autistic so I'm not surprised they struggle with building or maintaining relationships.

Yep, I thought this was a ridiculous statement. Then I got diagnosed in my mid thirties because of sleeping issues. My psychologist needed to evaluate everything about me and diagnosed me as autistic, despite not really having social issues that much right now (it's because the science of social skills is one of my special interests).

No big surprise here -- autism is not a social or emotional imparement anyway and the doll test is a lie.

> Autism is not a social or emotional impairment

That is blatantly false.

That's what normies want you to believe.

Some of the most loyal and connected colleagues I've had have been autists. I have a lot in my family so there's probably some amount of "safe person" vibes I give off, but in my experience, many autists realize the value of someone they can feel comfortable talking to and confiding in that can comfortably navigate social situations and professional communication. Lots of "I just don't understand why they reacted like that-- what's your take?" kind of conversations. Most of these folks have been younger than me, though, so there could well be some other cultural factor at play: some way that young people are getting different experiences/skills/comfort levels now, or maybe their interaction style/strategy will change as they get older?

Honest question: has the software profession not been democratized to the point where "neurotypical" people have come to overtake these jobs from those stereotypical "basement dwellers"? Or would you argue that being on the autistic spectrum provides one with abilities that their unaffected counterparts cannot possess?

Autistic people have bottom up processing. So when an autistic person gets into software engineering, it's likely that they have a "first principle" style of thinking.

Many neurotypicals I see don't have that as their default processing mode. They can do it, but it's not their default.

So what you get is something that you can see with blind people as well: they get better at hearing because they spend much more time with it compared to people that can see (except for musicians, etc.).

Autistic software engineers spend a lot more time with bottom up style thinking (aka being detailed).

I'm on the spectrum too, mostly a non-stereotypical representation.

This feels like a broad generalization. While some autistic people may lean toward bottom-up thinking, it's not universal, and plenty of neurotypicals excel at it too. The analogy with blind people and hearing doesn't really work either, since autistic engineers aren’t compensating for anything in the same way. Processing styles are much more complex than neurotype labels.

FWIW I am on the spectrum and am working on precision psychiatry with autistic individuals for my graduate thesis. I don't buy a lot of the stereotypes often peddled about spergy software guys. I find a lot of these people to be quite problematic as coworkers, regardless of how talented they may be.

Yes, I did figure that out, they are idiot savants of sorts.

I could never talk to my colleagues with the same abandon that I do with my friends. They’re always slightly at arms length to maintain decorum.

I think that's probably ideal as a default approach. In my experience, when it moves beyond that into friendship, it's pretty organic rather than a conscious change in approach.

I'm sorry to hear that's your experience and hope this article helps that get a little better!

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