Do you feel you fit in WP???

Post Reply New Topic

ToughDiamond. Really appreciate your post. Hopefully one day I can be more like you. I was lucky enough to have friends once maybe I can be so lucky again. Maybe this time knowing myself better the friendship can be happier for both of us. I'd like to believe that's possible.

And thank you for saying so. It's the first time I've really thought about my experiences here in such depth, and I'd not realised before quite how much good stuff happened until I added it all up.


Thanks I'm only too glad to have been of some small service to you. I agree that when you know yourself accurately, social things get easier, and that if you've once had any social success, it proves that you can get there again. I believe that Aspies are learning animals and that we usually develop coping strategies in time as we discover through (often painful) experience exactly how autism is impacting on our lives. It's taken me most of my life, probably because I had no idea I was autistic until about 6 years ago, though I think I was finding coping strategies long before that, even in such darkness. You've got some light already, so you'll likely progress faster.

I found it best to focus on the WP topics that interested me rather than making friends as such. It makes for a calmer experience. In my youth I was completely fixated on the idea of finding a girlfriend and being good enough to win their approval, and it took me years to notice that without common purpose and common interests, no group, couple or pair of buddies can endure. People have to be "good enough" for each other in just that way before it can possibly work - so rather than directly looking for friends, I recommend looking for shared interests, values and hopes. It helped me a lot to list the characteristics of the kind of partner I wanted, and to list what I had to offer. It made me feel that at last I was valuing myself as entitled to be reasonably picky. It reduces the number of possible short-term friends, but not the long-term ones. It didn't stop me feeling desperate, but it helped stop me acting desperate.

There's also the angle of sexual chemistry which can override and make a mockery of all this. I can't detect that consciously, so my solution was to avoid that with partners. Avoiding privacy with them (easy on WP of course, compared to real life) sorted that one out. When I failed to do that, sex generally happened too early, which caused premature emotional bonding, and that put the long-term prognosis at high risk - it's hell to be intensely bonded to somebody and then find out that they're wrong for you. The bond then has to be put out of its misery, either by a clean break or by waiting until the sheer pain destroys your affections, and that will probably give rise to emotional baggage which will cause trouble in your next relationship. Delaying sex won't make losses painless, but in my experience it helps.

Hope you'll find this second data-dump of mine useful, and that you will soon feel able to proceed with more confidence.

Most of the friendships I've had just happened. Looking back it seems to have been fated. What gets me about being here though is people tend to seem well adjusted. Even if evidence suggests that's untrue I can't shake the feeling of others being more normal than me. More capable of knowing what to say and how to react. I'm sure it's a common phenomena on the spectrum. Always feeling different than those around you. In real life it's utterly overwhelming how fine everyone seems. Whether or not they have tons of problems that I don't know about the feeling that I'm the odd one out is hard to transcend.

I wouldn't actively look for friends. I don't think about getting a girlfriend at all. Not unless I or my circumstances change dramatically. But I do need to think more positive and just enjoy life. Not let all the negativity waste away my hours. Thank you for posts. You write very intelligently and I completely get everything you say. Now I should probably stop posting in this thread. I've posted way too many times lol.

Thinking about it, I fit in more on WP than I do within my immediate family. Most people on WP are open minded about my gender issues. My family is in denial about my gender issues.

I really don't think I fit in anywhere. WP helps me understand that allot of my problems are AS based. I do not like being disconnected with the world. My animals are the only thing that keeps me from taking my own life.

I do, sometimes.

I don't get how some on here can get women, jobs, etc. I can't drive or do anything remotely functional to operate in a "civilized society", so I can't relate to a lot of people on here.

But, others on here can relate to me, so I feel that I'm not alone on here. It doesn't make it any better, but it kinda helps out.

I don't fit anywhere and I don't really intend to. I like to talk about autism related things, but I don't come here for companionship or to feel a sense of belonging.

I do go off-topic sometimes. I hope I didn't accidentally insinuate anything about you.

I'm barely here for a week, so I can't say much on how much I fit in. Thus far I can't say I dislike the forum.

As for being a fit; I suppose I fit in here just as much as I fit in elsewhere. I have a few areas that I might fit in more than others and probably keep more to those areas. The question might very well be "do you fit within aspie/autism culture?" and that would pretty much be the same. I don't connect that well with most people; slightly more with people on the spectrum but it's nowhere a perfect fit. But as long as I'm fine with not getting involved with things I have little to no affinity for, I suppose I fit in fine.

I don't posses animosity toward this forum, but no. I'm very anti social period, the only people I regularly talk to are my parents and my ex. I am diagnosed with autism (among other things) but I feel like a weirdo even among others on the spectrum. This may be because I suffer from depression, social anxiety and other social "disorders", it just makes me feel disconnected from everything. In fact if I could have anything I wanted I would hook back up with my ex, move far far away without a computer and start painting or something. I really just feel like a human island, faaaar out in the pacific ocean, I have trouble relating to anyone.

I'm the exact same way. The only compansionship I want is from my ex. I enjoy talking about interests occasionally, especially if someone into tabletop comes forward because its two-fold: we get to chat about games we like and I possibly get to see their awesome painted miniatures.

^ I didn't actively want to fit when I first joined. I found out I might be an Aspie and came here to find out more about that, just information. My only social awareness was that I felt I'd best try not to be too boring or nasty. All I'd known before was a users' group for a music program, again just for the info, but I think it happens like that, if you're a social animal at all. It starts with an inquiry about a subject, it becomes a shared interest, then you realise you can give help as well as ask for it, it becomes mutual support, however nerdy the subject. I think if you want it, it'll find you.