I'm on the autistic spectrum, and "emulation" is exactly how I'd describe my social interactions as well. It always feels like I'm trying to emulate floating-point arithmetic on a CPU without hard float support. It kinda works if you can do a lot of integer operations quickly. But unless the emulator is really good, you'll get all sorts of rounding errors.
In some ways, I've even gotten a little too good at emulating some types of interactions. I'm still lousy at realtime verbal communication, but when it comes to written communication, I can catch all sorts of nuances and unstated assumptions that ordinary people often miss. It's one of those cases when an emulator or hypervisor outperforms bare metal under some workloads. Since my emulator is so lousy at verbal communication, I've optimized the shit out of it for written communication.
At the end of the day, though, all this heavy emulation takes a toll. My brain burns a lot more cycles (calories?) running the emulator all day long and rapidly context-switching in and out of it. It makes me exhausted after a few hours. I wish our society was organized in such a way that I wouldn't need to spin up my emulator so often.
I can really relate. A lot of the time I'm seen as quiet during verbal conversations, and it's confusing to me because I feel like I'm just being polite and listening to what people are saying. I've gotten better at it, but I've had to put a lot of work into doing so. I used to be called "shy" a lot.
On the other hand, because I've spent so much time figuring out how to talk to people (it's an important life and business skill) I am very good at expressing things clearly. I can see miscommunication a lot faster, and with written word I can -really- pick up on the nuances. I think it's because I've spent so many years having to figure out how people think and how they came to say the words they're saying. I have to think through every step so I can empathize better. Constantly putting myself in their shoes.
But like you said it can be exhausting. Not only am I figuring out what I want to say, but I'm trying to emulate the reasons they are saying what they are saying.
Yeah, it annoys me when people say that those on the autistic spectrum "don't have a theory of mind". I have an excellent theory of mind, thank you very much. I'm just not very good at applying it in real time, because it's implemented in a rather slow language :p
In some ways, I've even gotten a little too good at emulating some types of interactions. I'm still lousy at realtime verbal communication, but when it comes to written communication, I can catch all sorts of nuances and unstated assumptions that ordinary people often miss. It's one of those cases when an emulator or hypervisor outperforms bare metal under some workloads. Since my emulator is so lousy at verbal communication, I've optimized the shit out of it for written communication.
At the end of the day, though, all this heavy emulation takes a toll. My brain burns a lot more cycles (calories?) running the emulator all day long and rapidly context-switching in and out of it. It makes me exhausted after a few hours. I wish our society was organized in such a way that I wouldn't need to spin up my emulator so often.