Autism

We do. I think a stronger innate understanding of the relationships involved makes it a lower-stress affair.

"I'll do my best. It might work out, it might not... but even if I fuck it up and my mom is annoyed, I think that's ok, because I can navigate my mother being annoyed effectively"

So this is pure conjecture and makes far too many assumptions about ASD and NT people; but I have two theories:

I suspect NT have an easier time with these situations since they have an easier time reading the emotions of others, which means they have a more accurate understanding of the consequences. ASD people are less confident in understanding how others may react so they catastrophize (X will be upset with me because I didn't do exactly Y)

NT people know that the person on the counter isn't mad that they don't have correct change, they know that their parents are happy about the effort and the will to help ileven if the outcome isn't the same.

Theory 2 which is related: A reliance on rules, scripts patterns and rituals to navigate the world makes uncontrollable deviations from these highly unpleasant, and empathy suggests that things you find unpleasant are probably unpleasant for others too.

This is compounded by the way people react negatively to atypical social reactions (this looks a lot like you have broken someone's social interaction script and they are unhappy)

This then loops into itself and causes recursive problems; if you are forced off script you have atypical social interactions (I don't have enough money for this, can I go home and get more) Vs the normal interactions the chaser has. This means you can perceive yourself as propagating your troubles to everyone else. E.g. if you bring home the wrong fish will your parents still be able to cook dinner or will they have to gasp improvise on the recipe.

By contrast NT people can see that the cashier experiencing unusual circumstances isn't a problem, they don't care and are just happy that the weird customer isn't demanding to speak to the manager because something was out of stock.

All of this means that NT people have a reduced (and more accurate) perception of the stakes involved and therefore less stress and less need to over-plan.

An NT person wouldn’t consider someone else not having something they were told to get to be their problem, it’s not like they can make trout appear, it is what it is. There’s no alternative action here, you just buy the fish unless you have an explicit reason not to like “ONLY buy trout” or “Don’t spend a single penny more than X” and since there’s no alternative action there’s nothing to worry about or consider, there is no reason to expect a negative consequence in this situation, and if there was it would be chalked up to the person who is upset being unreasonable. Most of them can also process language quickly enough scripts aren’t needed.

I don't think it's unreasonable, but it may come a doss as unusual as it's a small amount of extra work that most people don't feel the need to do or at least not to the same extent; they are much more comfortable being reactive and only planning for contingencies after the primary plan fails.

This is the exact type of thought that only ever shows up after the whole thing is over and done with, likely while overthinking it on the walk home.