Which is why I wanted to come here and explain why so many of us autistic have SA and why so many people on this sub could potentially be undiagnosed autistic. For those who do not know there is not just one "level" of autism. Society generalises autism as an extremely debilitating disorder that causes individuals to demonstrate extreme deficiencies in social communication and intelligence to the point where they are unable to even form basic sentences. This is simply not true. There are many autistics who don't qualify for having an intellectual disability and are fully capable in speaking full sentences, etc. These people are what general society would call the "weirdo nerds" or the people who tend to be very shy, intelligent and/or weird. A lot of these people end up in STEM careers.

I believe the reason why SA is so much higher in autistics than in the general non-autistic or neurotypical population is due to the innate ability of NTs to naturally socially conform. Via CONSISTENTLY exposing themselves to social situations, neurotypicals can harness the tacit, involuntary power of their emotionally intelligent brain and easily smooth through social interaction (although it will take some practice to adjust). Meanwhile, autistics communicate very literally and do not have the same tacit, involuntary means of communication with others. We instead require on logical thinking and IMITATING the behaviour of others as it does not come naturally to us AT ALL. E.g. an NT will instinctively know when to look at someone in the eye, when to smile, what tone to use, etc. Meanwhile an autistic tends to look away whilst having a very blunt face, tone and expression, leading to the other party involved in the conversation to become very disturbed and start to dislike the autist. This innate lack of social skills causes us to become victims of extreme bullying. And as a result, we develop social anxiety. Because no matter how hard you learn how to imitate another neurotypical, it can literally never be perfect as our brains just aren't wired like that and eventually our "mask" slips and people will start bullying us again.

Hnece, why so many autistics have extreme levels of anxiety and social anxiety, a fear of being perceived, etc. Im not saying that just by social exposure can an NT overcome SA. Im saying that they are MUCH MORE LIKELY to be able to overcome SA via social exposure as their brains can naturally replicate normative social behaviour and become likeable automatically without requiring consistent, conscious mental and physical effort in order to appear 'normal'.