do many of your friends and pears underestimate you

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as you know being an aspey socializing is tough. as a typical aspy i found it tough my self. i however managed to make friends with a few NTs over the past four years in the area i live and felt really happy and on top of the world about it. however lately i've been finding out that it seems like many of my friends actually think less of me then i thought. one close friend i had who i did a lot with and shared a lot of things with told one of my friends that i'm a '"im a fragile weak kind of person and i'm imature for my age", another friend told my roommate that she was surprized that i could pay my own rent, another guy who i knew very well was shocked that i dated someone, and another girl who i was good friends with for many years thought i was a virgin all these years and one of her friends told me she said that. i feeling like im suddenly realizing this all at once and feel like probably everyone sees me as kind of retarted like more then i thought and feel sad. do you kind of feel this way too?

This happened to me when I was a teenager. There are some compassionate neurotypicals out there, or so I've heard, but this type of behavior seems to be in their nature.

I stayed friends with most of them beyond that, after a social hiatus of a few months, but it always bothered me knowing... I also made some more along the way but there was always that slightly-out-of-place feeling. Now I feel completely disinclined to associate with any NT's beyond my immediate family.

My solution has been to try and reach out to others like myself.

You may want to fix the typo in the subject line. I was wondering why "pears" - the fruit would underestimate anyone. I guess you mean "peers".

Now pears are judging me? I honestly wouldn't be surprised at that.

I'm quiet, shy etc. people assume that I am incapable of having a successful career and that i dont I buy my own stuff (cars,horses etc) . My OH was well off when I met him, and I'm sure people assume I'm sponging off him.

Fortunately my OH sets them straight - he really looks out for me in social situations.

I will probably sound mean for saying this, but I do not think your friends said anything wrong. They are just expressing themselves. Aspies are usually immature for their age (I know my kid and my husband certainly are), and are perceived as weak (emotionally) by their peers. The others just showed surprise because they had a different idea of you. I know you should feel sad because they thought you were weaker than you are, but I do not find ehat they said mean or offensive or that they intended to hurt you. And it seems that they really do not know you well, that maybe they interact with you but you do not provide much information about yourself. If they say something like that you just need to correct them. And I think you should feel proud because you are stronger than they think you are!

Yeah I do get this aswell, people seem shocked when I tell them I'm at uni they seem to think I'm not smart at all!
I do get frustrated when people say I'm happy to let people think I'm stupid but it's not that at all... Until people tell me I have no idea what they think of me!

Yeah, I have to agree with this. I came across the same way until I realised how people perceived me and had to work hard to change it. On one hand I like being underestimated, because it meant that people were always surprised by my achievements, but on the other hand, my peers are now my co-workers and it doesn't pay to be seen as weak or incompetent.

I have an aspie friend who currently comes across just as you describe, weak, immature, bit of a twit in all honesty. Thing is, I've seen her 'other' side and know she's not any of these things, but she never presents this side of herself to the world. Either she's too busy freaking out about what others think of her to be able to present herself well, or she is just completely blind to how others see her and thinks she's being endearing...I'm not sure which one.

But now you know this is how others perceive you, you can decide whether you want to (a) change your behaviour or (b) not worry about it and continue as you are. If you choose the latter, noble though it may be, just remember that people aren't going to change their mind about you just because you disagree with their perception.

If, on the other hand, you do want to change their perception, you'll have to modify your behaviour. In this case, I would start by paying attention to yourself as you interact and think about why people might perceive you as they do. For my friend, it's a mixture of a fake, high pitched voice, constant laughing at inappropriate times and using baby words like 'thingamy-whatsa-jiga' to a professor of cardiology. (Not cool when you're trying to get onto a surgical training program.)

We all make decisions about how we want to present to the world, NTs and aspies alike. Aspies just have to be a lot more aware of those decisions.

Happened to me in the past, over and over again. That feel when you realize that all your "friends" consider you a ret*d and only hang out with you to make fun of you....not a good feel, that's certain.

I thought I was your girlfriend all this time hahaha..

People who know less than me and get horrible grades call me stupid. Maybe it's to mask their own insecurities? Whatever, I just think it's annoying that they think this as I continue to prove it wrong. People have also called me immature for my age, me being the total opposite. Maybe I'm a little immature emotionally, but when people say I'm immature they mean that I can't act like an adult, which is not true at all.

Those pears never think that I'm going to eat them, but I do. Mwahahahaha!

Yes this has happened to me before.

At the last job I had, I thought I was getting along with everybody at least decently-- I knew for sure I wasn't Mr. Popularity-- but didn't feel disliked. Then when I was having an especially pleasant conversation with 2 particular co-workers-- filled with lots of laughter and merriment; and I even managed couple successful jokes that brought laughter-- one of my coworkers said "Screw those other guys... who cares what they think about you, [my name]!.... WE like you!"

So apparently everyone else didn't like me... but at least it felt good to know that two of my co-workers liked me. I was kind of shocked 'cuz aren't you not supposed to tell someone that everybody else doesn't like them? I worry that what happened was that I was so disliked that everybody assumed that I knew I was disliked without being told-- and therefore my ability to read social cues is much worse than I thought.

Later I asked him more about what others at the job thought of me and he was a bit reticent, but revealed that a few careless errors I made and my general demeanor plus tendency not to talk much made everyone think I'm an idiot with a drug problem (I don't do drugs) and just generally weird.

Another time recently, a close friend of mine said almost the same thing "Screw what everyone else thinks, I think you're brilliant! And someday you're gonna make it!" I was even more shocked because I thought all our mutual friends really were friends. I asked a bit more and it seems a lot of people like me but think that I'm immature, oversensitive, extremely eccentric, and just kinda loony etc. And apparently a lot of people think I'm 'sweet' and childlike, but beat myself up too much, take things to harshly, don't take other things seriously enough, don't know how to take care of myself, am naive and guillable, etc.

Oh well, it's true that I'm in many ways immature. And I wish I could be less sensitive but it's hard. I am making incremental improvements, but those take a long time to add up to something noticeable. What worries me most is how oblivious I can be to these things-- that people apparently think I already know that so many other people think them about me.

OTOH I've had a few people tell me things like that I'm "wise beyond my years," or even "like an old man trapped in a young man's body," and similar things, so I dunno what to think.

I have also had some people think I'm just a complete idiot and then become shocked when then find out how much I know about certain things.

I suppose at this point I'm fine with people considering me immature, since I really am in many ways, but also because I believe I was naturally programmed to mature slower than normal. Even on the physical level I didn't hit puberty 'til a few years after all of my friends, and I grew over an inch in height between ages 23-24, which is not typical. I wish there were an easy way to say to people: "I don't naturally mature as fast as normal people, I need to live my life at a slower pace. I'm making gradual improvements and trying to suddenly fit in to what I 'should' be like at this age isn't possible." but I don't think it would be wise to say that.

It seems most of the time, my peers overestimate me in some respects and underestimate me in other respects. Its really weird sometimes. See for NTs, socialization is intuitive so many people overestimates my abilities to socialize. They dont realize, that Im struggling to socialize when they see me on a regular basis. But then they underestimate my innocence in a way. They preceive me as very book smart and innocent. I know a lot more then people think. Sometimes, i feel like I have to shove it in there face how much I know for them to know Im not innocent.

People very frequently underestimate me. People often mistake not having a lot to say as stupidity. I also think my constant stimming and tics contribute to it.

I don't know what they are thinking, so I have no idea are they underestimating me or not. And how could I possibly know this?