Who is highly confident?

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I'm in general very confident. I'm even rather narcissistic. If you made a facile analysis of me, you could think I have Narcissistic Personality Disorder. This doesn't mean that I'm confident about everything and this confidence has varied over time, like confidence with women and in social settings. The latter has actually fallen over the years, as I have realized what a hash I can make of things.

I feel just fine about myself. there are plenty of things im great at to make up for what im not so great at. im happy with who i am. even when im depressed i do not feel bad about myself because there is nothing wrong with me. i have more bad feelings toward others though.

I may not seem as confident at work usually because I have to be professional at all times...and lemme tell ya our customers do not lend themselves to making my life easy enough to want to be professional; I gotta really force it.

But I'm confident in regards to my business, and the ideas and philosophy I believe in.

Still learning to discern between confidence and arrogance

Well, I'm a little o' that too! But those who know me well and understand me "get" it.

I don't get it

Uh, i don't think i'm confident. It's kind of complicated with me, though. I don't care much what people think of me in a lot of ways.. And i think i'm awesome. But i'm still constantly unsure of myself. I'm not sure if i'm doing something right, i'm not sure if i'm interpreting something correctly, i'm not sure if i'm supposed to be doing whatever it is i'm doing. I actually feel kind of uncomfortable in my own skin a lot of the time, and i feel like i'm just stumbling through life without a direction. But there have been some people i know who were surprised to hear that i've ever had social anxiety issues... So my individuality and tendency to be really outspoken at times might come off as some sort of "confidence." I think anyone with any kind of ASD or related issue who truly feels confident in themselves is my hero.

Can you elaborate on this "magical" quality? What do you mean by this? I'm just curious.

You know... I wish I could. I think that people can immediately sense that I am different. Many people with an ASC/ASD say that holds true for them. It's almost impossible for me to put into words.

It probably has to do with the way I carry myself, the way I dress (which is... um, unconventional), and my tallness. So people can tell that I'm different, yet somehow I don't set off the alarm bells in people's heads. My voice is sort of the opposite of flat: kinda sing-songy and a bit exaggerated when I get excited. I laugh very heartily. I have a whole lot of self-confidence, but it's heavily tempered with humility.

I think people see someone who is not bound by convention, and that intrigues them. They talk with me and find out that I'm very confident, talented, passionate, strongly opinionated but not unreasonable, and fun to be around. It's certainly not charisma. I'm not a good speaker, nor am I a charmer. Those sorts of things take intent, I think, and I don't have that. I guess I used the word "magical" because I don't really understand how the heck I figured this all out. I guess it took some years of practice. And in the interest of full disclosure, I'm not really sure if I am on the spectrum at all. Maybe this disqualifies me...

I've told almost no one about this "magical" quality because I'm always afraid that it's going to sound arrogant if I bring it up.

While I would not describe my effect on others as being magical, it might be interesting to other autists to understand that NT's don't necessarily despise or even look down upon us. Unlike fiddlerpianist, I have no doubt that I am austistic. I was a full-fledged autistic flapper until at least the age of 11. The school I attended, which was relatively small, was divided into three sections, but even the seniors were aware of my strange flapping and were intrigued by it. My flapping was of the sort that you can see by viewing videos of young non-verbal autists. There are many, many other reasons for me to be convinced that I am an autist.

Now for something interesting. While only in grade 10, I was elected President of my school's Student Council. This was unheard of and somewhat crazy, and I recall that there was considerable debate among teachers on whether my canditature should be allowed to stand. By the way, in that school candidates had to be nominated by other students. Of course, a prospective candidate with friends could always get friends to nominate him/her, but I didn't ask anyone to nominate me (and I no longer remember those who did, in fact, nominate me). Like most of my school recollections, I recall the whole episode as being hilarious.

My main point is that although I was, and am, rather autistic, people don't necessarily dislike me. I wish I knew how to make others on this board more self-confident.