This is a remake of an older comic, I have adapted it to the new looks of the characters..

Sometimes, two people can interpret one e-mail completely differently. While the Troll Brain thought it would be a good idea not to involve too much emotion, the recipient would have expected a more empathetic, emotional reply. People who are on the spectrum often have difficulty reading between the lines, which can often result in an unintended miscommunication and may even have some very drastic consequences. Although we can learn to become more aware of implicit messages, I think it will probably never come naturally for us. To a certain degree, we will always be dependent on other people to tell us when we are not drawing the right conclusions or even being rude by not identifying the emotional part to a message or not acknowledging somebody’s emotions. What works really well for me is when somebody tells me right away “Hey, you are being rude, I feel XY and you didn’t even notice”. As I don’t want to make other people feel sad or even think that I am being rude, this gets me to reflect my behaviour right away and take corrective action, such as explaining my perspective from a more emotional point of view (if I get access to my emotions, which I don’t always achieve, unfortunately) or apologising. Obviously, there are always limits and sometimes we have to be assertive without letting other people guilt-trip us, which becomes particularly difficult when you have a natural inability to read between the lines and, at the same time, you are very vulnerable to be manipulated.

Disclaimer: This comic is not supposed to be sexist. The recipient could have also been a man. The point of this comic is to depict the discrepancy in the perception of the e-mail and the fact that the Troll Brain doesn’t always give good advice.