I have never been diagnosed with autism. I am positive that I am an aspie. I realized this about ten years ago. I never get lonely. If possible, I would never speak to anyone ever. Unfortunately, I work as a bartender, so talking to people is required. I have done this work for over fifteen years. It is the only thing that I know how to do to make money. When I save up enough money, I quit my job and hide. When I run out of money I go back to work. I often get overwhelmed by how people tend to be. I have seen people who claim to be best friends say cruel and demeaning things behind each other's backs. I have seen people who seem to like each other completely screw each other over for small sums of money. I cannot quite understand why people are not nicer to each other. I do not usually have too many problems with people at work. People are generally nice to me at my jobs because I show up on time, I work hard, and I never talk about myself.
I feel like I am always starting over. I get out into the world and I start making errors regarding personal relationships and I just cannot figure things out on the fly. I always have to go back to the drawing board. Most people accept my frequent hibernating, but some are deeply hurt by it. I feel like there is no real me, only the personas that I use to make it through the day. At some jobs I was a complete introvert because I was allowed to be and nobody really bothered me. At other jobs I was an extrovert because it was required.
I am very afraid of what I believe I know about human nature. I believe nobody cares about anybody but themselves. People pretend to care about other people because that is what they are supposed to do, but really people just use each other. I just feel all wrong. Smiling at children is creepy. Ignoring children is rude. Too much eye contact means this...too little means that. Doing a complicated social calculus every time I interact with someone has just gotten hard. Too many rules to remember. I do believe the world of people is better off without me, and me without it. I dream of separating myself from society somehow. The irony is that in order to make enough money to not deal with people, one usually has to deal with people. I apologize if this is negative or in some other way inappropriate.
Anyway, I'm here to try to learn how other people cope with being on the wrong planet.
23 Jul 2016, 9:55 pm
