What a load of tosh. I'm autistic. I listen very, very well. It's true that I'm not that empathetic, if by that you mean that I don't make the person feel valued, important, nurtured, etc.

Let me share something I read by an American professor who came to teach in South Africa just after apartheid fell. He taught at UCT (University of Cape Town).

He became aware that he wasn't very popular or liked, and he tried harder and harder throughout the semester. After three months, he was really concerned as to why nobody responded to him. So at term end (semester end), he asked them to do a questionaire about how much they had enjoyed the class.

It came back that he was the best professor they had ever had.

What was the problem? He was American. He had grown up in a culture where flattery, approval, nurturing, affirming, and all sorts of other comforting was essential otherwise Americans couldn't function. He went on to research it some more and found that no other people in the world needed this constant petting by other people in order to survive emotionally.

Your society is so competive and so vicious that people need that comfort just to survive. I lived there for 11 years as a legal immigrant. It's not for me.

Also, after 27 years of being attacked on social media by Americans, I couldn't care less what they say. I've developed a thick skin. I'm not building a 'personal brand.' I'm a human being - not a marketed object.

In my teens, I was 'sent to coventry' or ostracised. It's a very old form of social punishment for crimes deemed to be unacceptable. Mine was simply to be autistic.