Would any of you say that you're Eccentric?

Post Reply New Topic

i wouldnt say i was eccentric. most nts mistake me for one of them and its my biggest problem in life

I've never s thought of myself as being particularly eccentric. But then eccentiricity (like beauty is said to be!) is in the eye of the beholder. If other people see you as eccentric, why then, in the eyes of the world, you are so; since eccentricity itself can only be defined in relation to what the majority of people do. The very word itself means "outside the centre" - i.e., away from the average, the commonplace, the usual. This of course doesnt mean it is necessarily better or worse to be eccentric ... just different.
At school, and throughout my adult life, a lot of people have described me as "eccentric". so I suppose thats how I am. Possibly they are thinking of my obsessive interests, manner of dress. solitary lifestyle. The problem is (for me, at any rate) that "eccentricity" is not liked or accepted by a lot of people. If you are eccentric it seems taken for granted that you are odd (even if 'likeable' - from a distance!); slightly unacceptable; and a loner. And a lot of people seem to regard loners as a bit suspicious. Look for example at newspapers; how often, when writing about some terrible crime or murder, the writer comments that OF COURSE, the suspect / perpetrator was "a loner" as though that in itself confirms guilt!
Taking all this into account I guess I am a bit eccentric (but definitely not criminal!). But who cares? To me. its a damn good way to be - it can be fun and in can make life interesting!

Glenn

well put, Glenn!

Then I am indeed eccentric!

Yep. I've always been eccentric.

I only started to notice I was eccentric in my early teens. I didn't have "normal" hobbies. Pre-computers I liked to do woodworking, particularly carving. I remember once when I was out of ideas for something to carve I just started making a miniature tool rack. I grabbed a chisel and mallet and made exact replicas of them in miniature, complete with a tiny rack to hang them on. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but I realize now that that must seem odd to a "normal" teenager.

Then later when I got into computers I started making bizarre gadgets to go with them. I actually built a full color 3D imager that was wired into my old Atari 800. (It used a rotating disk, one half clear, one half painted black with a light gate switch to control which image the computer displayed. If I only knew about sycronous(sp?) motors at the time I could have had it totally stable...)

I was also facinated with the blue ridge mountains and carved images of it based on photos on pieces of scrap lumber. In school I'd wear the same old parka with a Skyline Drive logo on it.

Unfortunately my mode of dress and obsession with computers got me pegged as a "druggie" by my teachers. I had really long hair, and would come in with bloodshot eyes and yawning every morning. I also got horrible grades. This added up to "he's on drugs". But the real story was I liked my hair long and I stayed up 'till three or four in the morning every night working on my gadgets. Homework was ignored and classes were skipped to hang out in the computer lab.

Now I make my living in computers and as long as I do my work and get along with my coworkers (which I do), I'm accepted.

i suppose i'm eccentric as my lifestyle generally revolves around sitting in a room alone.

i'm defintely not an outlandish extrovert with triangular hair though

I guess I probably am considered eccentic by some people, but then I tend not to notice too much what other people's opinions of me are.
I dress quite unusually- I make a fair few of my own clothes and my favourite pair of shoes are red maryjanes with a black cat on the toe and heel I love velvet, lace and net and most of the clothes I've made are one of a kind, weird creations.

And I suppose I have a range of fairly unusual interests too.

I would definitely call myself eccentric. I dress very conservatively, and also very casually. The conservative part because I have no real concept of fashion, and the casual part because "business" clothes are exceedingly uncomfortable.

The eccentric part comes in because of a photographic memory. I simply notice things most others miss. One of my last jobs with my company was as a mortgage loan processor. I would flip through the screens on the system showing the application info at the rate of 4 or 5 a second, and then stop and go back to the first screen to fix an error. Nobody could understand why I was working this way, but the reason was that it took my brain time to review what was on the first page and realize that something was wrong. If nothing was wrong, I would have just kept going, piling up mind-images of what was on the screen. Some of my bosses would assume that I was taking shortcuts and not checking certain things, so I was constantly being audited, but I never had a single error.

Now I have a job that basically entails me being a "guru" and training others, fixing issues, and showing how our products fit the market in an economic sense. I love my job. But, it means I give a lot of business meetings in jeans and a T-shirt (this is at a bank). I work behind the scenes, so it is ok, but definitely a quirk.

The fact that I have enough knowledge to fill a Time-Life encyclopedia on Colorado Railroad history is another quirk that fits in to the eccentricity part.

Then there is the fact that I put ON sunglasses walking into buildings. Last week, I was helping somebody fix an application, and they mentioned that they were sorry to bother me when I was headed out the door. I* was confused, as I still had about 4 hours to go in the office at this point, then I realized that they thought that because I had sunglasses on. I don't wear them all the time indoors (unless "indoors" means Wal-Mart) but when I start getting bothered they go on (and work great!).

At work, I tend to rock back and forth while sitting, or if I am standing up, I pace back and forth outside my office. I have a phone cord that is about 25' long, so I put a headset on and walk around (pacing) staring off into space with my head cocked playing with a slinky. I mentioned in another thread that this quirk has been recognized, so that I have a collection of slinkys given to me by co-workers. I love work, as it seems even when I am at my wierdest, people accept it and allow me to do my thing.

So yes, I am eccentric, and I love it. The problem is finding people that aren't put off by a person that doesn't quite fit in...

Wow. A few of you were troll-like back in the day;)

My mommy always told me I was.

The general concensus seems to regard me as eccentric. "Cmaximus is Cmaximus," that kind of thing.

My family wasn't considerate enough to use a nice label like "eccentric". Instead they just called me weird.

I think that I don't know how not to be eccentric.
I don't really go out of my way to be eccentric...I would have to go out of my way to not be.
I have been referred to as a rugged individualist.
I have never fit in with the uniform counter culture scene...

Astheticly, I emerged from the androgenous painfully akward oblivion of my childhood and started dressing really strangely....thrift store raggamuffin chic has been my typical style of dress since jr. High.
I also appear in public in costumes frequently.

i probley am ecentric, but whats the difference on having AS and being ecentric?

lets see....

Well.....you can be eccentric and not have AS.....and I guess maybe you can have AS and not be eccentric...maybe...

I guess it is necessary to define eccentric....

ok..I looked it up on Wikipedia...and it almost seems to um...

ah...read for yourself....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eccentricity_(behavior)

They almost seem to equivocate eccentricity with high functioning autism and whatnots to a certain extent.

I am certain I have met eccentrics who would nto be concidered to be on the spectrum.

The differentiation seems to lie in their ease in social situations for one thing..