Are You a Butterfly or a Bear? Understanding Social Energy in Autism

In this solo episode of Amplifying Autism, Wendy explores social approach and avoidance through a simple but powerful question: Are you more like a butterfly or a bear?

Some people are like butterflies, drawn to connection, moving from conversation to conversation, energized by social interaction (even if it eventually leads to exhaustion). Others are more like bears, preferring smaller, quieter environments, needing more recovery time, and feeling drained by social demands.

Neither way of being is “wrong.” Autistic and neurotypical people alike can fall anywhere on this spectrum. Release judgment, understand your own social needs, and practice self-compassion in a world that often favors one style over another.

And when you're learning to forgive others, remember to forgive yourself, too.

You deserve it.

Takeaways:

• Social behavior exists on a spectrum
• Autistic people can be highly social or more reserved
• Social interaction can be enjoyable and still be exhausting
• Needing space, quiet, or recovery time is valid
• Self-understanding and self-forgiveness are key to navigating social life

About Your Host:

Wendela Whitcomb Marsh, MA, RSD, is an award-winning author, TEDx speaker, and host of Amplifying Autism. Though not autistic herself, Wendy has dedicated her career to supporting the neurodivergent community. She is the founder of Adulting While Autistic and helps late-diagnosed autistic adults find clarity and community. 

Website: wendelawhitcombmarsh.com

Books Available on Amazon

Instagram: @wendela.w.marsh

Adulting While Autistic: @adultingwhileautistic 

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Thank You for Listening:

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Transcript

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This is Amplifying Autism, where every voice matters and every story shines. Join us as autistic authors, professionals, and trailblazers share their journeys, real stories, and real insight from those changing the world, one conversation at a time. Are you a butterfly or a bear? In the social world of approach and avoidance, some people are more like butterflies, and some are more like bears. Butterflies don't stay home. They fly happily from one flower to the next. Social butterflies crave the connected feeling they get when they're with other people. This is just as true for autistic food as for those in the neuroprivileged. Anyone might be a butterfly at heart. You might meet someone at a party and take a deep dive into a conversation. After a while, you might be attracted to another conversation and flutter over that way to see what they're talking about. Everyone at the party is fascinating to you and you want to hear their story and tell them yours. At the end of the night, if you're autistic or introverted, you might be utterly exhausted, even though you enjoyed every minute. If you're more extroverted, you might find instead that your batteries have been recharged by the contacts. Some people are more like bears than butterflies. Bears don't travel in herds. They can be loners and stay in a small family group with their mother bear while they're growing up. If you're a social bear, you'd much rather stay home than go to a party. If you do get dragged out, you'll find a quiet corner and stay snug. It's not that you won't talk with anyone, but the other person will have to find you and work hard to keep the conversational ball rolling, maybe. You'll probably feel worn out and need to recover for a day or three after the party. Whether you chatted with someone or not, that's fine. You deserve to rest after something that takes a lot of your emotional energy. So, what is considered normal or abnormal when it comes to social approaches? Who's to say? People might presume that most autistic folk are bears and that neuroprivileged people are social butterflies, but it's not cut and dried. Let's take a look at how most people socially approach or avoid others at various developmental stages, and what might be different for autistic folk. Most babies are fascinated by human faces and voices, and they'll spend more time looking at a face than at a toy. Their way of socially approaching and responding when their parents interact with them is straightforward. They reach out, they smile, they giggle and coo joyfully. When they need help, they cry, look around for their parents, and reach out to them. Typical social butterflies will reach out to anyone who smiles at them, and typical bears might reserve their smiles for parents and other familiar friends. Some babies are different. If you're autistic, you may not have shown much interest in human faces when you were a baby. Your family may have stories about how you could watch a ceiling fan turn for hours while ignoring their attempts to capture your attention. You may have been self-sufficient, fine on your own in your crib or playpen, like a teddy bear in a cave, until you were hungry or uncomfortable. You may have cried when you needed something, but you might not have reached out to people for comfort. After a colicky period during the first few weeks of your life, you may have been called a good baby, an easy baby, not needy or clingy. Not all autistic babies are bears. Some are little butterflies, but they may be fluttering towards interesting objects rather than people. Now most toddlers and preschoolers, when they see other kids, they show a lot of interest, like social butterflies. They go over and try to touch them or hug them. They may want to do what the other toddlers are doing and parallel play nearby. If they're shy, they may hide behind their parents like a bear cub and peek out to see what the other kids are up to, approaching slowly only after getting used to the situation. Some autistic toddlers and preschoolers may not notice other kids their age. They might run over to play like a butterfly, but they may have been more interested in the toy the child was holding than in the child. What looked like parallel play may have been a coincidence because they wanted to feel sand trickle between their fingers, not because they wanted to play with the other kids in the sandbox. Most school children typically join into groups of other kids with no preamble. It just seems natural to them. When the bell rings for recess, everybody runs out and starts playing together. At lunchtime or on the bus ride home, kids gravitate towards each other and become groups with no obvious rules for how to join the group. Many are natural butterflies. Others are contented bears who connect with one or two close friends rather than a large friend group. Some school children are different. If you're autistic, you may not have found it easy to approach other kids. Perhaps you spent your recess watching them from afar, trying to figure out how they did it. How did individuals merge automatically into a tribe or pack? Apparently by proximity or osmosis, with no rule book, no guidelines. It was a mystery. Even if you were drawn towards others like a social butterfly, you often may have stayed on the sidelines like a watchful teddy bear. Most teenagers' interactions shift from active play to unstructured gatherings, heavy on verbal discussions. There are distinct social clicks. Everybody understands the unwritten rule that says a band geek can't sit at the cheerleader's table at lunch. Group lines can be strictly formulated with almost no crossover, and everyone seems to know their place. The most successful social butterflies become queen bees, and quiet bears find friendship. If you're autistic, your teen years may have been lonely. If you are lucky, you might have found yourself part of an automatic group based on your major electives or clubs, like the drama kids, the band kids, or chess club members. Some autistic girls have been adopted into groups where they sit quietly on the sidelines, the least popular girl in the group. If you didn't have a group, though, it was almost impossible for you to approach and join one, or to ask someone to be your friend or for a date. Bear behavior seems safer than risking rejection by trying to be a social butterfly in a confusing social quagmire. Most adults find that their workplaces are a lot like high school. There are cliques and groups that seem to speak their own language. Your break room may have a table where the in-crowd eats lunch together. For many autistic young adults, going out to a restaurant, bar, or club after work on Friday. For others, it can be a good way to shake off the stress and form groups with other people who share interests. Social butterflies and bears can find their people there. But if you're autistic, you're probably exhausted at the end of the day. The idea of extending the stress into after hours, trying to follow the banter in a noisy bar just to get to know your colleagues, it's unthinkable. You may be content to eat lunch alone and go straight home after work, rather than trying to approach your colleagues socially. You may be lonely, but to actually ask someone out on a date is too fraught with potential embarrassment or a heartache. Even if you have the inclination to be a social butterfly, you may not have the energy to try to start up the conversation, especially if you've been burned before. Going home and curling up like a bear with a favorite book or movie may be your preferred way to spend your evenings or weekends. What about you? Does any of this sound familiar? Whether you are more like a butterfly or a bear doesn't necessarily determine whether or not you're autistic. When you see someone approach others with no apparent effort and join in seamlessly, do you wonder, how do they do it? If you can relate to any of these descriptions for people who struggle with such social approach, you might have been autistic all along. Congratulations. One more thing. You know, I'm not autistic, so I'm all about amplifying actual autistic voices. I have a few quotes to share with you. Krista, a business owner and a designer who was diagnosed at age 50, had this to say. By age five or six, I knew I was different. I wasn't quite reading social situations the way others were. It started my educational masking. I worked hard to study social patterns. I could pass, but patterns have always been my special interest. I was always scanning for patterns, but it was tiring and it took a toll. Luke Campbell, autistic author of The Neurospicy Guide for Beginners, A Tiny Introduction to Neurodiversity, wrote this. Even as an adult, I sometimes find myself at a loss for words, as though my mind freezes. It can leave me feeling stuck and even helpless. It's not ideal for someone who already grapples with imposter syndrome. And finally, Dan Harmon, Autistic Showrunner, said, We float around and we run across each other and we learn and we make mistakes. We can and should forgive each other for that. I hope that when you're forgiving each other, you will remember to forgive yourself too. You deserve it. You've been listening to Amplifying Autism, celebrating the voices that shape a more understanding world. Don't miss the next episode. More stories, more insight, and more voices that matter.