If you could be nuerotypical...

Post Reply New Topic

That goes for me too magic - doesn't sound weird to me. I spend a large amount of time 'staring into space' when I have been forced to socialise or spend too much time with others, recharging my batteries and letting my mind wander, or doing a repetitive simple operation like playing a computer game like tetris or collapse. It helps rebalance me somehow. The more stressed I get, the harder it is for me to come out of that zone.

Dunc

I understand what you mean, Magic. It is the same way for me, but I guess I need less "recharge" time than you do. As Duncvis said, it's not weird at all.

Since you said that you wanted to spend less time in your dream world, I assumed you were able to do so, but you just didn't want to before. Now I understand that it's a matter of necessity.



I stare into space, spin in my chair, check the forums repetitively without posting anything, or play fishing on Gaia Online (another repetitive motion game). If it's especially bad, I need to press my head against the desk or the floor, or just go to sleep.



That's a hard question, Magic. You work, right? Maybe you can try to be more open or socialable with someone at your work whom you admire or like. It's best if you find someone who shares an interest of yours, so you have something to talk about or do together.

I'm not really sure how I make friends, I think I just get lucky a lot of the time. I meet one or two people, and they introduce me to their friends, and that is how I eventually get more of them.

Dunc and Civet, thanks for dispelling my notion that I was so weird. It's nice to be in a good company! I will also admit that doing repetitive tasks, such as listening to a song over and over again, helps me unwind, or rather "dream" deeper.

Well, it's not entirely beyond my control. I guess it can be compared to a sleep. One can wake up at any hour if necessary, but it nonetheless requires effort, sometimes rather big. For years I was devising schemes to help me "wake up" from the daydreaming, such as instilling guilt in myself if I did too much of it, etc.


No, I don't work at this moment. When I did, I tried to make friends at work, but it either backfired or didn't progress beyond a casual chit-chat (i.e. them listening to my monologues ). In 2000 I was in Europe and brought 25 boxes of chocolate, and gave them to all my work colleagues as Christmas gifts. I got thank-yous. In 2002 no one even asked me about my Christmas, let alone thought about inviting the lonely guy (even if only to go with them to their church). After that I stopped pretending that I wanted to socialize with them, I refused to participate in costs of presents that they were buying for some employees, avoided participating in office birthday cake events, etc. It was a total fiasco.

Its not weird at all to need to time to recharge- I find social situations take a lot out of me. Repetitive games such as solitaire help me relax, I thing its because you don't really have to think all that much about it, just enough to quiet down whatever thoughts are buzzing around your mind.

As for trying to be friendly with people at work backfiring that has happened to me too- whenever I've had a job in the past I've always been too nice to my co-workers and every single time it has backfired. At one job I let a co-worker take some of my shifts because she was short of money- she seemed grateful, but when the manager asked her about it she lied and said that I'd refused to work them. I know I probably have come across as too willing to do anything to be liked and that probably puts a lot of people off.
And whatever situation I have been in- be it school, college or work- I was always the quiet one who never got invited to go out with the rest of the group.

Me too, Magic. For awhile it was the "Ukranian Bell Carol." Yesterday it was Moby's "Everloving." I am doing an animation and using that as the background music.



I understand what you mean, it's the same for me. Actually, when I don't want to go out, I usually just pretend to be asleep.

My friend who I haven't seen in awhile came over the other day, and she said "We tried to get you to go out with us the other day, but you must have been sleeping or something."

I just told her that sometimes I just can't really go out and don't always want to. At times like that I don't want to talk to people even to tell them that.



Well, if your "chit-chat" is monologuing, maybe you should try to find a way to let them talk, as well.

It's a bit easier for me, since I don't like to talk much. I don't really go into monologues unless I am very comfortable with a person already. By that time, they know how to deal with me.

I find that if you let someone tell you about things in their life or what they are thinking about, then just ask them questions about it, it makes them more receptive to you. It conveys that you are interested in that person, and want to know more about them. If you just talk at them they may think that it doesn't matter to you who you are talking to, just so long as you get to talk. That may not be the case, but they probably don't understand that.

I'm sorry to hear about your experience at work, but next time you get into that situation, try to go to the social gatherings. If you don't go, it only makes them less willing to be around you.



That has happened to me, too, Melvis. At work, I was invited to go out with everyone only once. I am still not sure why, and I know that some of them were not happy about it. It was a going away dinner because one of the women I worked with was moving. She liked me, even though we didn't talk much, so she invited me. Unfortunately, I ended up sitting next to the girl who hated me because I am "too passive" and "boring," and I was a bit confused by all the people talking at once, so it wasn't a very fun night. I only went because I did not want to dissapoint the woman who invited me to go.

Besides that, whenever people left work together to go do something, I was never asked to go.

I was lucky in high school and am now in college, because I was able to find people who are as odd as I am. My group of friends in high school were all the outcasts and weirdos. In college, it's not quite the same, since I go to an art school a lot of people are pretty "strange." Still, I end up getting ditched sometimes when people go out, but it's not as often as when I was at work.

Nope, I've never known anything in life except having a learning-disability. I love being different and am very proud of it.

In high school, I've learned that weirdos make the best friends. They understand and they don't care if you're different or not. They have no qualms; they're more interested in you being yourself.

I just want to be me

I support everybody and their wishes.

I would definitely stay exactly the way I am. I like me! I have no real need for other people so I live in my own little world.

All my problems come from interacting with society, so I have become very reclusive.

I like who I am. My childhood was pretty hard, being mostly isolated and stuff, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I'm happy now, and even though my life has it's problems, I've gotten though more than most NT's have been through, and it's really paid off. As for the things that haven't come to me yet, like romance - it will be there. For everyone.

Also, being an aspie has given me the gift of art. I just won an award in an art contest!! ! I'm so excited. But without being an aspie, I wouldn't be as talented or have gotten as far as I have today.

I've been through so much, just trying to learn social skills and to communicate better, and it's gotten me pretty far. My parents said my AS is practically gone. It's a miracle, since I'm only a teenager, but I'm really fortunate, and even though it's caused me some problems in the past, I wouldn't trade my life for anything.

Been there, done that and bought enough of the t-shirts to open up a Benetton outlet.....

You should do what I do and sell them on ebay

My choice would be to keep the brain God (and my parents) gave me, but augment my education with what my parents and the public school system left out -- an express curriculum on Emotional Intelligence.

I find that I am reasonably able to learn to recognize and decode facial expressions, body language, and voice inflections to adduce someone's affective emotional state. But this learning task would have been a whole lot easier if there had been an express program in social-emotional intelligence in the public school system, complete with dictionaries matching the names of emotional states with corresponding facial expressions, body language gestures, and poetical allusions.

It also would have been a whole lot easier if somebody had bothered to lay out for me the mathematical relationship of emotions to learning.

Hmmmm - I see potential here..... "I'm with sad and lonely" would sell like hot cakes..... Thanks for the idea, but don't expect a percentage though

Last edited by TAFKASH on 29 Jan 2005, 3:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.

OMG!! ! I just noticed that I'm a "snowy owl" now!! !! ! Oh well, I suppose this'll be another obsession developing then, will it? I knew that these message board thingies would be a bad idea......

Steve I have found ALL MB's are an addiction. I don't think that is a bad thing though!

The best part of having only one date every five years is that you better appreciate that date! I grew up with a lot of people who dated regularly but took it all for granted and were therefore completely unsatisfied with their social lives.