Me at age 25 (who didn’t know he was autistic) “I will say the emperor is naked. Other people will like me more after I have said the emperor is naked. That girl who I asked out yesterday and who said, ‘I’m busy maybe some other time’ might now agree to go on a date with me. I believe other people will like me more because I model other peoples’ thinking on my own and I would have greater respect for someone else who says that the emperor is naked.”
Me at age 54 (who does know he is autistic). “I really, really want to say the emperor is naked. I get this will cause most other people to think less of me. I emotionally believe that I should not care about anyone who would think less of me for saying the emperor is naked, but I intellectually know this isn’t true. I’m also aware that most other people would have some natural trepidation against saying the emperor is naked that I, being very weird, have inverted. This inversion can cause me to fail at social signaling games and hinder progress towards my goals. But I so very much want to say he is naked that I’m going to do it unless I can convince myself that the costs of doing so are very high and being a tenured professor means I probably won’t suffer too much by being honest in this case, and I have succeeded in having a few friends who would not abandon me for saying the emperor is naked. Indeed one such friend has a blog post up saying that the emperor is not only naked but also mentally defective”.
Me at age 25 (who didn’t know he was autistic) “I will say the emperor is naked. Other people will like me more after I have said the emperor is naked. That girl who I asked out yesterday and who said, ‘I’m busy maybe some other time’ might now agree to go on a date with me. I believe other people will like me more because I model other peoples’ thinking on my own and I would have greater respect for someone else who says that the emperor is naked.”
Me at age 54 (who does know he is autistic). “I really, really want to say the emperor is naked. I get this will cause most other people to think less of me. I emotionally believe that I should not care about anyone who would think less of me for saying the emperor is naked, but I intellectually know this isn’t true. I’m also aware that most other people would have some natural trepidation against saying the emperor is naked that I, being very weird, have inverted. This inversion can cause me to fail at social signaling games and hinder progress towards my goals. But I so very much want to say he is naked that I’m going to do it unless I can convince myself that the costs of doing so are very high and being a tenured professor means I probably won’t suffer too much by being honest in this case, and I have succeeded in having a few friends who would not abandon me for saying the emperor is naked. Indeed one such friend has a blog post up saying that the emperor is not only naked but also mentally defective”.