Fact:
When an Autistic person calls you beautiful, we’re talking about your soul—i.e., your True Self, the emotional root of your being and how it grows into your personality as a whole; your presence and impact on the world.
It’s never an empty compliment. We mean it with all our hearts. We can see all that you are, all that you can be, and how you got where you are today. Even more so, you can trust that we not only mean it, it’s the absolute goddamn truth.
Unsubstantiated Personal Opinion:
It’s not like we Autistics care absolutely nothing for outward appearances, it’s more like we only see outward appearances as a natural extension of a person’s relationship with their True Self. When we bother to cultivate an “image,” we always seek to best express our inner truth through the medium of fashion, with no interest in looking good to other people.
Whatever the underlying psychological and neurological differences are between Autistics, NDs excluding Autistics, and NTs (choose your preferred theory here), somewhere along the line our Ego/Self/Analog I lost the capacity for vanity. Or perhaps we threw it away along with the other incompatible traits that NTs take as inalienable and sacrosanct aspects of the human mind. It’s difficult to say for certain.
And don’t forget, we love our little bubbles; we live in our “Mind Palaces” and often come to resent the cold, empty, meaningless world of Reality. So if we come out of our bubble to look into your heart and see your truth, know that that already demonstrates how much we care about you. Our attention is our expression of devotion. So yes, we give it sparingly and resent it being seized against our will, because that’s what’s inalienable and sacrosanct to us.
Relevant Aside:
One of my real-life fellow Autistic friends called me “you beautiful, beautiful man” last night, and honestly—and given all of the above—I had no idea how much I needed to hear that. She even doubled “beautiful”, which is one of the ways we Autistics express the strongest emphasis. I still feel all warm and fuzzy this morning.