insisting that allistic people can just be besties with autistic people is a pipe dream

Oh yeah definitely, things like these depend on the personalities, and at least in my experience us autistic folks tend to just clash with most allistic people. Not with everyone, but it's a lot harder to find any circles you can fit into... Anyway things could still be better than they are now, if autistic traits weren't seen as such weaknesses, which increases how badly we are perceived socially. The modern times are a terrible match! For example in one book from 1800s written by a relatively low-class person from my country there was a description of a person that pretty clearly was on the spectrum, but they weren't described harshly at all. Just told to be an excellent worker, even if a bit strange for wanting to just spend all summers working in the forest alone.

Of course things have been pretty terrible for "low-functioning" people through recent history (we do have evidence at least some ancient tribes took care of their disabled so who can say if we go back enough), but I'll argue that this development where autistic traits are becoming just a liability is very recent. Hell, when I was in university I could do fairly well because I could just read books and then write essays on them and pass courses, but some years after they changed that and now those require group-work and I would fail all of them.

Even though it's true the "bridge" between autistic and allistic cannot be erased, it does not have to be so damn long