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Hello everyone, I'm new to the forum and wanted to say hey. I'm 22 and I'm not diagnosed with anything, but since I was young I always knew I was very different. I didn't fit in well during grade school, starting out with my first couple grades; although I managed to make a few friends, I was loud, bratty, snotty, obnoxious, etc, but I never realized it until I was older.

I took karate classes for about 5 years starting in 2nd grade, which taught me alot about being humble and observant. Along with growing up and becoming increasingly distant from the other kids at school, I started to become quiet and sortof obsessed with pissing other people off (as in, I didn't want to upset anybody at all, which continues to this day but I understand it a little more).

During those mid-to-late elementary school years, I would play alot of football/basketball/baseball with the few kids that lived up my street. I was always always really nervous about playing with kids I didn't know, but when I was around familiar people I would open up and that loudmouth side of me came around, but I was really behaving more like a normal kid. In school, I was pretty weird but got along alright, albeit without many friends other than those few kids up the road. But around age 10-12 I stopped going outside often, stopped taking karate and playing baseball and everything else, and started programming in BASIC on a 1980 IBM.

I was pretty much locked in my room for 4 or 5 years programming up until the middle of high school. During middle school, I hardly talked to anybody, because when I did I felt like I was just blown off and was always afraid of kids talking about me behind my back. Most of my life up until age 16 or so I sortof had the feeling that the world was set up around me, and everybody knew what was going on but me (What's that Jim Carrey movie called? I was fascinated by it once I saw it).

I had a few girlfriends in middle school but I was so weird, that I never kissed or anything except in 8th grade, with a rather "surprising" 2-month girlfriend who I was very awkward around. I ended up telling her I didn't love her, because I didn't, and we never spoke again. In fact, I never really liked a girl for the conventional reason (you know...birds & bees) until 10th grade or so, and all I need to say is that I went through all of highschool without any relationships that lasted over 1 week, and absolutely no action whatsoever. I was really interested in a girl for a while, but when I found out she was "just being nice" I had trouble letting go. Especially since my best friend for the past 6 or 7 years (who I knew from church) immediately went to her house to hang out with her once they met. In the several months I had known her, I went to her house twice, and just sat on the couch without saying anything (very red in the face the entire time, too). It's that fear of saying the wrong thing that kept me from saying anything at all.

Anyhow, during the first couple years of high school I tried to fit in socially. During lunch I tried to sit with the cool kids, but they didn't talk to me. I tried to sit with the goth kids, but they didn't talk to me either, and for the most part, I thought they were all dumbasses like the cool kids. I never shared the same lunch with any of the half-dozen kids I talked to (our lunch was split into 3 times), and after 10th grade I quit trying to fit in. During lunch in 11th and 12th grade, I sat alone and ate very quickly, finishing before anybody else, and I would stand in the hallway next to the soda machines for about 35 or 40 minutes waiting for the bell. Over the course of those 2 years, there were 3 people who tried talking to me; I talked to them but just as acquaintances, and not for more than a few weeks. I wanted to be friends, but I didn't want to talk, because I'm really, really bad at talking. I'm sure kids talked about how I was probably crazy and wanted to shoot up the school, but that wasn't the case at all, although I was pretty severly depressed during high school (At one point I approached my mother about it in tears when I was feeling pretty suicidal, I think that girl I liked talked me into speaking up; my mom told me that depression "isn't real" and i just needed to get a job; I'm actually grateful for that answer, although it put me through hell for a couple years).

My senior year in highschool things started to look up. I smoked pot a couple times, which is probably not something that should be mentioned, but it really helped me socially. And most of all, I bought a motorcycle a few weeks before the end of my senior year. I soon found out that motorcycling=therapy. I stopped worrying about stuff, started being more positive about everything, and started spending ALOT of time outside for the first time since I was 10 or 11.

Once I made it to college, I roomed with a couple computer nerd guys who I would later yell at and label "horrible roomates" although I was just frusterated that they never drank or went out like everyone else. They were the only ones I talked to for a couple of months along with another smart kid I had known since kindergarten. That third kid (who wasn't my roommate) took me out drinking and partying a little bit, and like me, he wasn't accepted by most of the people he tried to talk to, but he just kept trying anyways (unlike myself who would just stop talking). After a few months, I started hanging out with most of the other guys on my floor, but after a few more months they stopped talking to me and started avoiding me (I guess nobody wants to hang out with the guy who just sits around and hardly talks, understandably).

But in the spring of my freshman year, I met my girlfriend (now fiance) and I've been a different person since then. I just stopped worrying, for the most part; the stuff that bugged me before doesn't matter now, because I have someone who will cooperate with my "lack of social skills" and love me for who I am. I've always had a bad temper, but that has gradually disappeared over the last 2 years with her caring (although sometimes brutally honest) help. I have a much easier time understanding what's important and what's not.

I still have some issues, of course. I've worked at a gas station for over 2 years now, and after 2 years of working afternoon shift (waiting on several hundred customers each day, many of them flaming angry at me for stupid reasons) I recently switched to midnight shift, and it's nice not to have to deal with so many as*holes. I can't stand to have people upset at me, especially people I don't know, and I'm often overly kind to people just so they'll be kind back. When I was new, as a 20 year old, I was brought to tears (in front of other customers even) by an irate guy who cursed me to hell and back because I set his gas on the wrong pump. I mean, there were about 20 people inside the store and he's screaming at the top of his lungs, I just had to put my head down, run in the back, and call my girl for some comforting. Since then I've had this mean streak waiting on some people, which probably isn't healthy but I'm only mean to people who are excessively mean or inconsiderate, so I have trouble feeling bad for them. I'm always in that "too nice" mode until they do something to piss me off, and then I promptly switch to "i dont care and I think you're stupid" mode. After the mean ones I tell myself, "Just another customer."


Anyways, several years later, I finished this post and starting surfing around the forum Sorry to be so lengthy, I don't expect anybody to read all of this, but I figure I'll post all this stuff once so those who care can get in my mind a little bit. Just to finish up my post, I'd also like to mention that I'm totally obsessed with...

-Moto GP racing-Valentino Rossi
-NBA Basketball-Phoenix Suns
-Sports cars-ferraris, absolutely
-Sport bikes
-Led Zeppelin, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Weezer, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, more
-Car/Motorcycle video games
-the History channel, unfortunately
-Formerly QBASIC programming, and I built my own computer (and continue to update it ~yearly)
-Hating Nascar-why do they have to cover it on ESPN now?

And a million things that I've submerged myself in and forgotten about a few weeks later

Sorry to be obnoxious with this huge post! If it's too long just dont read it

Welcome to WP!

Tim

welcome to WP
read most of it....

Thanks, didn't realize it was that long until I was finished, and I wasn't gonna start picking out stuff to delete. Maybe I type too fast for my own good.

Hi, welcome to WP!

Interestingly, I went through a BASIC and NBA phase from ages 12-16ish.

Hello!

You left out the most important thing, what brand and model motorcycle liberated you?

I hit a total life change at fifteen, a 1957 Puch 250.

I went from social zero to self assured in no time.

Years later when life got depressing, I bought another bike, the Sport BMW is still going.

Any other AS racers?

The almighty Kawasaki Ninja 250!!

Exactly, same here!

I wrecked it a year later, I was going down the highway on a 5 hour trip, and I had a jacket bungeed to the back; the bungee cord snapped and the sleeve of the jacket got caught in the chain, and I went tumbling. I can still see an image of the front right tire of the 18 wheeler that was behind me, about 2 feet from my face as I'm rolling along the asphalt trying to go toward the shoulder. My girlfriend and her mom had to drive a couple hours to come rescue me.

Now I ride a 2006 yamaha r6 with the anniversary paint, I went in the shop to look around and ended up riding it home. I'm a big motoGP nut, i couldn't resist.


Thats funny. I was into NBA when I was younger but whenever I started programming i forgot about it. I "re-realized" it last season, and I tivo'd all the big games this season.

Thanks for the replies

Hi,
have you listened to Deep Purple 's Highway star?

Welcome!

No, I can't say I have. I'm a bit embarrassed to say that I've only heard smoke on the water. Duh-Duh-Duh...

Hello and welcome to WP.

I've tried three times to get motorbike lessons.

I booked in for a weekend starter course where you have 2 days x 7 hours.

I had a whiplash a few days before and my neck was agony for months.

A couple of years later I booked in again. The first day I felt a bit sick in the stomach before I went and decided it was just nerves.

I ended up passing out but luckily manged to stop the bike and get off before I passed out. I ended up having really bad food poisoning.

The third time I was booked in I found out I was pregnant with number 3 chid so had to cancel.

Now I just don't have time. Maybe when the kids have grown up.

Wow, one thing after another, huh? I got pretty lucky... I just called and booked for the MSF (motorcycle safety foundation) course near my house, and although I booked for december and it was snowed out, in april I took the class, it was two 10 hour classes over a weekend, half of each day inside and half outside on the bikes. I took a nasty spill when we were doing laps around the parking lot; my instructor called in everybody after me (I was in front) and by the time I made it back around, he was letting the next group go in front of me. Going around that turn I hit the front brakes and hit the pavement like a hammer. I just jumped up and acted like it didn't hurt, but I was deathly afraid of everybody else in the class after that, because I was the youngest and the first to crash but the next day I did great, especially in the tricky back-and-forth stuff, and a couple other people crashed, I think they did it on purpose to make me feel better (just kidding) But I was glad to crash without getting hurt, as a quiet skinny dorky kid who loves dangerous stuff (Cue flashbacks of flying through the air 5 feet up on my mountainbike as a 10 year old...) I always have that strange need to feel invincible Probably not a good thing, but then again, when it's panic time I don't panic, I don't really even think, I just act. That's one of the few positive qualities I can name for myself As a (probable?) person with aspeger's, I have the uncanny ability to concentrate way too hard.

Welcome to WP.

Never apologise for length of post. Your initial post made fascinating reading. I think I've managed most lengths between single character and "War and Peace". Consistency is NOT my middle name.

Consistency? Not something I'm accustomed to either Thanks!

Greetings!

Fellow motorcycler here too.