How can I relate better, and be a better friend to this person?

I'm not trying to be rude. But this guy(we have hung out a few times before) he has autism and asked if I would hang out with him again. Now, I don't have autism so I don't completely understand it. But the last few times(over the summer) we hung out, I found it kinda awkward... I tried to make conversation with him at times and he would just stare at the wall and look around. Does anyone have experience with people with autism so I can better understand him and be a better friend for him? Is autism like being shy or something?

Although I sometimes wonder if I'm on the spectrum somewhere, I don't have much experience with autism myself. I think it's really nice to want to be a better friend and relate better to him though. If it were me, I'd head straight to Google University (lol), and look up how to be a friend to someone with autism, or just, autism. I think it's a good idea to ask here too. Hopefully you will get more responses.

I needed to behave and relate better to someone with an eating disorder, so I went over to that section of the forum and asked what to do (also did research online)...They were tremendously helpful and honest with me.

There is an section of the forum for autism, so maybe you could go and do some reading over there?

People here are generally very lovely and it's a great place to learn tolerance.

I have Asperger Syndrome at a high-functioning level on the autism spectrum. When I was a 'teen (1960s), I would ask a girl to "go steady" and then almost never be able to talk to her. In High School I had a Jr.-High "steady" because that protected me from having to feel embarrassed in front of her or others by my not being "socially equipped" or whatever for carrying her books and walking her to her next class. I once invited another girl to a group roller-skating party and then never went near her for the entire evening, and another time I visited a girl at her home and even her parents wondered why I had come over and then just sat there in silence.

The fact that this young man has asked you to hang out would indicate to me that he is not shy in the usual sense, but that he does not know what to do once you are together. If you wish, you might ask him whether he would like to go for a walk in the park or go visit a local attraction of some kind, but you will likely not have any success if you ask him whether he would like to go do something and then ask him what he might like to go do. He might or might not be analytically aware of his social awkwardness, but anything you might say or do that would cause him to think about it or bring it to light for review would likely just freeze him some more.