pig man is incredibly and unironically fucking autistic
Personally I don't agree with this take. I don't think Pat is autistic, he is too able to function in society day-to-day. Yes he's an angry asshole to random people, but most angry assholes aren't autistic and most autists aren't angry assholes. He doesn't have any hyperfixations, nothing that he is obsessed about understanding or communicating with others*. By contrast, he is obsessed with everyone thinking that he is an expert in every single subject there is, while demonstrating no actual interest in actually becoming an expert on any of those things. Basically the opposite of an autist.
*While he is obsessed with his war with the stalkers, he knows little about it, and doesn't do the classic autistic sperg-out/infodump. He doesn't do much research or quote massive amounts of law the way an autist would. Jackie Singh, with her over-complex conspiracy theories and rambling paragraphs of bullshit, fits the mould of autism much better.
Pat is a sociopath. He is capable of superficial charm and social functioning, which is how he was able to persuade 2 women to marry him as well as weaselling his way onto Discovery programs, into the SFWA, and other places that a proper autist wouldn't be able to navigate.
Autists seek knowledge, Pat seeks the
appearance of knowledge and expertise because he is obsessed with social status and labels that promote his personal "brand". He doesn't care if he actually understands anything he talks about or masters any skills. He just wants other people to think he has. That's another difference between him and an autist - autists don't care what other people think of them, Pat is absolutely fucking
obsessed with it. Autists aren't interested in the social hierarchy, many reject it altogether. Pat has nothing else. There's a void where he soul should be, that consists entirely of what he believes other people perceive him to be.
I think the reasons Pat's sociopathy is mistaken for autism are two-fold. Firstly, he is clearly obsessive, a trait that we associate with autists. But it's a different kind of obsession, that seems to have more in common with OCD and other Cluster A conditions. Look at the way he wants to correcT the record, going back over months-old tweets to Prison the Stalker Childs. An autist would eventually recognise the futility of that, and the mockery would eventually cause them to change course - Pat keeps trying the same things over and over. It's more like a ritual for him, narcissistic magical thinking that if he says it often enough, it will become true. He believes that what he says defines what is real, a sign of sociopathic solipsism (the belief that they are the only people who are really self-conscious, leading them to think that they are the only people that matter). OCD sufferers do what they do because they believe that something bad will happen if they don't perform their rituals (those things often being unconnected to the ritual itself, such as someone believing that their children will die in car crashes if they don't clean all the ornaments in their house). I think Pat's Prisoning and kneejerk denial of obvious facts speak to that kind of belief, that everything will come crashing down for him in some way if a single Stalker Child goes Unprisoned or a single Police report is not denied.
The second is that Pat is very stupid. He doesn't behave like most people's idea of a sociopath because he's as incompetent at sociopathy as he is at everything else. Whilst he has the drive and obsession to control the narrative and paint himself as a modern-day Renaissance Man, he isn't smart or well enough emotionally regulated to pull it off. His arrogance and narcissism blind him from really understanding how other people see him (see also: Pirate Software), whereas the successful sociopath can more accurately gauge when they're failing at persuading people and changing their approach. Pat can only think of "Nuh-uh", so that's what he does, over and over again, and he lacks the intelligence to really understand how and why it's not working, plus his obsessive traits bring him back over and over to the same solutions. Sociopaths spend all their time engineering their own social images and climbing social ladders, and that's what Pat does too, he's just really incompetent and unsuccessful at it. I also think his alcoholism has contributed, he's too sozzled or hung-over all day to manage his image as effectively as he did 7 or 8 years ago when he was more successful, before Norm/11 and the Lappening. Alcoholic brain damage could also help explain why his obsessive traits have worsened over time as well, his mind is too fogged by booze to think of new approaches any more.
Let's take a random example - Pat cheating in the Milwaukee half-marathon. Why would an autist get into distance running? They might get hyperfixated on fitness, nutrition and improving their times and technique. They may also enjoy running on a sensory level, or meet like-minded obsessives to sperg about running with. None of those would give an autist any motivation to cheat in a run where there is no money on the line. In fact autists would be more likely to be obsessed with the rules and making sure everyone obeys them. Now think of the sociopath, someone obsessed with how they are perceived, and the glory and status of performing well in a race, while believing that they are the only person that matters. Absolutely they would cheat. Running is boring and hurts. They're not interested in getting fit or improving their times, they just want people to think they are cool and successful. So they cheat. All the desired results for less effort. Pat's behaviour here massively favours the sociopathy theory over the autism theory.
tl ; dr: I don't think Pat is an autist. The evidence much more strongly support him being a low-IQ sociopath with obsessive traits.
Also he's fat.
