You'll have to convince me if the relevance here.

As it stands, somewhere between 2 and 4% of the adult US population. Even with as many as 4 times more men being affected as women, this isn't a significant enough number to justify or explain away choice and man myth propaganda in the absurdly high numbers of men "too anxious or shy" to aporoach women. Its a rationalization that's out of place. The math ain't mathing.

While, of course, it's extremely relevant to autistic persons on an individual level and I'm not unsympathetic (especially as it's been suggested multiple times by autistic friends that I myself might be on the spectrum) as an explanation for what's going on in the broader population, it's a cop out.

Further, I know very well just how good autistics are at picking out patterns and how they tend to relish going into minutae detail on things that interest them. Given that, one would think autistics would be naturals. But they're not; they generally find it difficult. Considering why that might be, because no one seems to have ever thought about it, they also don't like looking at people and picking up social cues does require some observation. They're also natural mimics a lot of the time. I've seen autistics mimic actors on TV with amazing precision.

Perhaps autistics would show the rest of us up easily, were it not for that impulse to deflect away from looking at their fellow people.