One thing NTs have is an indirectly acknowledged (sometimes unacknowledged) hierarchy of power. They’re constantly aware of this hierarchy and their position in this hierarchy. The majority of their behaviors are related to this hierarchy. Since many autistic people aren’t even aware of this hierarchy, we violate it often and upset the group. I argue that this is why we get diagnosed as the broken/wrong person: we disagree with the very structure that defines what is broken/wrong.

/c/austim’s helpful resources has a link to a book written by an autistic person that studied NTs and explains what they are like to us. The book is A Field Guide to Earthlings: An Autistic/Asperger View of Neurotypical Behavior. It’s free at the link or you can purchase it in a more convenient format. I found it highly insightful.

Neurotypicals are people with traits, likes, dislikes, phobias and strengths like you, but less extreme. The differences can be small if looked at one by one, but added up it causes a completely different lifestyle.

They may really hate the sound of styrofoam on glass, but they don’t literally black out from the sound.

They can find it very uncomfortable and anxiety-inducing to socialize in a new environment, too, e.g. a social event at a new job. However, they adapt faster and don’t have to go to the dentist the next week because they clamped their teeth so hard they chipped a tooth.

They may be good at and enjoy [activity/skill] like you, but not find it relaxing and mentally healing to spend 6 straight hours on a Saturday evening practicing [activity/skill] home alone while forgetting to eat, so they have to put in conscious effort where you don’t.

To me it looks like an awfully dull and ignorant experience. It’s been my life’s experience that neurotypicals generally don’'t engage in learning as a passion. They only learn what they feel they must in order to succeed. This is a mistake in my opinion. Learning is so good for the brain and body.

The only neurotypical person I know well is my sister. The only major differences we’ve actually established is that she has significantly more energy for activity-filled days than I do, and she doesn’t understand the concept of being paralyzed by indecision.

I can’t really say from personal experience – mostly because I’m quite certain that I would offend someone in-so-doing – but I have an idea that might offer some insights:

There’s a link in the right hand sidebar of this community to helpful resources; from there is a link to Autism tests. Click on the AQ-10 test, and take it. After you finish, look back over your answers, see if you can guess which questions would have made your score lower, and change those answers accordingly. Play around with it a bit, and maybe even think of it as a game. If you get your score down to zero… that’s roughly how the most “neurotypical” person would have answered. That’s not to say that all NTs will answer that way, but it gives you an idea of the traits that suggest neurotypicality, with the opposing answer obviously suggesting neurodivergent traits. Analytically, this also means that the more strongly you gravitate towards the ND trait answers, the less “typical” is your natural behavior.

You could also do this with the 50 question version of the test, but I imagine that would take a lot more time and effort with a much more limited return on investment, as compared to just doing the 10… but even as I’m writing this, I’m finding myself tempted to go do it anyway. That’s probably one of the ND traits in me.

(Alternatively, if you’re familiar with the structure of HTML, you can easily figure out all of the answers from the page source.)