Within 10 seconds of meeting an autistic person, strangers rate them as awkward and lose interest in getting to know them. Show those same strangers only a written transcript of what was said, with no audio or video, and the bias completely disappears.

I think I am binary with liking/disliking people in such a short amount of time (usually just a few minutes) because my body has instinctively learned to mirror them. For the longest time I've tried to figure out what the conditions were for my instinctive filter with people, because it's a pretty strong feeling usually, but I could never figure it out. I was thinking about it now and it makes sense that I'd have a hard time if it was completely external. The process goes, someone sniffs me out as an alien immediately, as per the quote above, my body notices (without me consciously noticing) and then translates that into "I dislike this person" as a defense mechanism because it can tell that that person viscerally does not like my presence.

There are two ways in which this fails, I think. One is that socially skilled people will be able to get through my instinctive filter, I will not be able to read that they have a naturally negative reaction to me, and I will thus code them as a one when they aren't. The other is that socially unskilled people and other autists, due to their initial awkwardness, will be incorrectly read by my instincts as having this negative reaction to my presence, and I will thus code them as a zero prematurely. This would mean that throughout my life I have been trusting my incorrect instincts and filtering the exact people who I'd have been most likely to get along with if only I had given the interactions more of a chance. A true tragedy of terrible proportions, to realize it only now too.