Dear Teen Talk,

I am a freshman in a local high school. I am considered a good student who makes good grades, and I don’t cause trouble.

There is a kid in my grade that, for lack of a better term, is socially awkward. She doesn’t have any friends, she doesn’t seem to understand social cues at all, and honestly she says things that are just blunt and rude and does not seem to be sensitive to other people’s feelings.

Teen Talk, a new column in TJH, is geared towards the teens in our community. Answered by a rotating roster of teachers, rebbeim, clinicians, and peers (!), teens will be hearing answers to many questions they had percolating in their minds and wished they had the answers for.

The issue is that as one of the “good kids” I have been asked to try to befriend her and even to have her in my room at the school Shabbaton. I know there is a concept of chessed, but this girl is just mean and no one wants to be around her. Even if we are nice to her, she doesn’t fit in and now none of my friends will want to be in my room either.

What can I do?

-Stuck between a Rock and a Hard Place

Dear Stuck,

This sounds like a really difficult position to be in, and I can relate because I was often in the same position when I was in high school. I really appreciate you writing in because I think this brings attention to a very important difficulty that a lot of kids your age are facing.

Firstly, I want to address the concept of chessed that you mentioned. Doing chessed is a foundational aspect of who we are as Jewish people. It is not something to take lightly and sometimes it involves doing things that are uncomfortable. I can guarantee you from both a personal and professional perspective that stretching yourself in the area where it is the hardest for you will bring you the most growth overall. You are always going to face challenges in life. And the more you stretch your “resilience muscle,” the easier it will be for you to get through those even more difficult challenges later on.

But now I also want to add on something from a professional perspective that may shed some light on this and possibly change your perspective. It is very difficult to look at someone who is “socially off” and says blunt and even rude things and have compassion for that person. But what if you were to learn that the same person who you somewhat dislike has a diagnosis that causes them to behave this way?

In recent years, I have been seeing many teenagers in my office with different presenting symptoms which have turned out to come from them being improperly diagnosed or never diagnosed. And what we are seeing is that after we send these kids for appropriate testing, the diagnosis is coming back that they have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This may sound surprising. The general public views autistic kids as children who can’t speak, who don’t make eye contact, who attend special needs schools, and who have shadows. But that is really not representative of autism at all. The reason the diagnosis is labeled ASD, is because it is a spectrum. There are kids with autism who are very, very high functioning – so high functioning that they have never even been diagnosed. They can be very smart and do well in school. In fact, they often have tendencies to excel in computers, math, or sciences. But the way high-functioning autism would present in school would be very similar to that “socially awkward” kid. They may not be able to pick up on social cues, they do not know how to chat about everyday, non-important things. They do not always understand the concept of empathy and that something blunt may hurt someone’s feelings. Very rarely are these kids actually mean. They just do not understand feelings in the same way that we do. They may think if they tell someone that their dress is ugly that they are doing this person a huge favor so that they won’t wear an ugly dress again and get teased. They see the world in black and white concrete terms, and the gray nuances are often too hard for them to understand.

So where does this leave you?

While I hope that every child who presents with some of these difficulties is getting the appropriate diagnosis and resources to help them, that is not always the case.

Are you a teen with a question?

If you have a question or problem you’d like our columnists to address, email your question or insight to editor@fivetownsjewishhome.com , subject line: Teen Talk.

Sometimes, it falls under the radar. But perhaps you can change your perspective and realize that your classmate is not mean, rude or just socially off; she is struggling with ASD and struggling to belong in a world that is so different for her than it is for you. Even without the actual diagnosis, perhaps you can look at this girl with a dif- ferent viewpoint, with more compassion and realize that she is hurting and scared because she is living in a world that does not make sense to her.

And maybe befriending her in the limited capacity you can, and even rooming with her, won’t seem so bad.

Wishing you the best of luck!