Yes. It does need to make it difficult to function. That's one of the core criteria for most diagnoses in the DSM. "Neurodivergency" as a meme and - I guess you can call it a subculture? - on the internet is wholly misunderstood.

It's really hard to categorize neurodivergency. Particularly in contrast to being "neurotypical". There isn't an "average human" that they compare people to on a chart and say "yep, you're not up to this standard" gavel bang "autism".

I mean, just think about it. If more than 50% of people exhibited this trait in one way or another, this behavior suddenly becomes neurotypical, since the "typical" person possesses this trait.

But the problem with this, just like your problem with intelligence and ethics is that it's all impossible to measure. Behaviors like this exist on a spectrum. This is part of my problem with this aspect of the subculture and posts like this. This behavior happens in "neurotypicals" as well. Autism isn't a switch flipped in your brain that suddenly gives you special traits that neurotypical people don't have. Autism is a diagnosis that happens when a person has a defined constellation of traits that are generally correlated and one or more of which are making it difficult to function.

I saw another post recently that went something like "neurotypicals don't understand having to take a day off after social events" and "neurotypicals don't rehearse social interactions in their head". Which is simply untrue. Many many people take a rest day after a social event or think about how to handle a social interaction, the only difference that the behavior isn't so severe that they are functionally impaired by it.

I feel like you grasped a straw here and it really didn't work. Even if I can parse out the point you're trying to make, it still just affirms my point? But I'm not sure I even got what you were trying to say.

Most of the time most rules are really arbitrary, actually.

Especially regarding table etiquette, or things as social etiquette. Why should I sit in a way or another at the table while eating or use spoons, knives, and forks in one way or another, even if those aren't the most comfortable ways for me, just because that's the rule? Why should I look people always to the eyes? That won't make communication better or easier, and just will be hurtful to me (literally, I can suffer from headaches, nausea, cold sweat, stomach aches, and other symptoms of severe social anxiety).

The problem with acritical rule following is that it will make you more prone to do bad things if a rule tells you to do so, just because "that's what the rules say".

To be clear, I'm happy as a clam to follow rules

As long as they make sense

I don't know