"Look at the other kids. Watch them, play like them."

The autistic boy becomes a teenager and wants a girlfriend. The parents have always told the boy "Look at the other kids. Watch them, play like them." Now, when he sees a girl and says "She's hot," they assume behind the conventional form of expression, he's talking about what he really feels.

Just as he's learned our language and our customs with a lot of hard work and memorization, he'll soon have to learn how to navigate the world of sex. But how? Through imitation and observation? Through rules we teach him? No. The same kids he has studied and imitated to gain other social skills are going to be fumbling in the dark themselves, behind closed doors. And in this particular game I don't foresee his father and me doing much coaching from the sidelines. He'll truly have to find his own way.

The author of the linked piece, in addition to her personal experience, has written a book, called -- tellingly -- "Overcoming Autism." But I note the existence of the Autistic Liberation Front, which would approach the problem very differently, embracing the different ways of the autistic. Especially in love, there is something so painful about the idea of aping the ways of the other kids. But the problem described in the article is that the boy -- who, we're told, is very good looking -- cannot attract the girls he sees as "hot."

Writing this post has made me want to see this movie again.

ADDED: That is, shouldn't the boy find a nice autistic girl?