How do people perceive you offline?

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Don't know, don't interact with people enough to have a clue. Don't really have any friends these days and all I have is my parents and that would be biased.

I'm usually perceived as NT and someone without any significant issues or trauma because I come across as confident and "strong". Someone's actually said to me "no offence, but you've had an easy life haven't you?" ¬_¬...

My therapist says that the more "in control" One appears, the more out of control they truly are. I'm not really as confident or strong as I come across. You'd think being seen as NT or "normal" would be a good thing but it's not really. I experience no sympathy or validation in real life, for any of my mental issues or my PTSD. Most of my family doesn't know about any of it. Even my friends who know about my traumas say it weirds them out how I can casually talk about the seriously dark sh*t I've experienced as though I'm telling them as story about someone else; without any emotion. I guess it's my fault that I keep presenting this "everything is perfectly fine" mask, but I'm just too afraid to take it off. I don't want to burden anyone with my true self.

Shy, not intelligent, territorial, too strict.

I think I probably seem NT to most people otherwise they would just think I'm shy (can have inconsistent eye contact). Everyone knows me as an introvert. Sometimes I've been called smart, though I only occasionally feel knowledgeable about something.

I only do NT-style stims in public (swiveling side-to-side in a chair, bouncing a foot or leg) and only a couple others at home. I mostly talk business at work, so I have a good idea of what to say. Chit-chat is doomed to fizzle out shortly if someone tries. I feel bad about that so I try to throw in something like "no kidding" or "you got that right" if possible to validate their position.

Assuming you're perceived as 100% NT has positives, certainly. However, it also means you can spend a lot of time worrying/second-guessing how you actually came across. Unless you just don't care, which has it's own pros & cons.

[Edit: word-choice, clarifications]

Last edited by Exuvian on 21 May 2019, 7:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

People often say to me...

"For someone so smart, you know nothing about getting along with people!"

... or words to that effect.

From what I'm told withdrawn spaced-out awkward. From what I've overheard "ret*d" "spastic".

But you have internet friends, right?



I think you resemble that remark.

People have called me highly introverted, shy, distant, eccentric, overly serious, intelligent, articulate, stubborn, passionate, and sometimes pretentious.

This changes for any sort of public demonstration, in which I have been repeatedly told I display the traits of a trained thespian despite having no such experience. I think it might have to do with mimicry and an obsession with movies as a kid (would apparently watch the same one in repeated succession) and politics as an adult (I have consumed obscene amounts of punditry and political speech).

I don't have that kind of "public speaking" social anxiety at all. It gets me high in a way. I have anxiety about typical, random discourse and trying to express the proper responses/emotions. Those events would be where the first sentence in my post becomes relevant.

There are people I talk to and am friendly with here, online. No one that I spend extra time with, so no, not really. I feel like most people throw that word around lightly and I take friendships very seriously. For me a friendship is an intimate relationship. Most people I would consider acquaintances that I like and I am friendly with. No one goes beyond that in the sense of wanting to get to know me personally on an intimate level. Not that I am all that open to that, to begin with. I have spent too much time alone and I have no doubt suffered brain damage from my self imposed isolation. She was asking about how people perceive us offline, which I have no way to determine because I have no interaction. I don't even talk to strangers on the phone anymore besides the rare match on Tinder that never results in much more than ghosting.

I freak people out, creep them out, rub them the wrong way, come off as intimidating. At first. If people get past that and get to know me a little bit, I have no idea how I'm perceived then.

It varies. People who know me well know I am often unhappy and think I am overly negative while people who don't know me think I am "weird" or they have expectations about me that I don't ever meet. My friend claims his father would call me a "pothead" if he ever met me and wonder why my friend is "wasting time" on me.

Schultz
Sweet Pea

I absolutely agree with that, but even in writing I find random communication (as in not on a topic, just making conversation) extremely hard. So while I enjoy reading some of the chat threads here, I usually can't think of anything to add, or I overthink it until I just give up or put it on hold and never get back to it.

"is she ret*d?" (asked by my grandmother's nurse because I wasn't talkative, age 13)
my grandmother's response was that no, I was a smart kid.

"difficult" (family members)

"rejecting, uninterested in her fellow pupils", "quiet" (teacher)

"abrupt" (my grandfather)

"no idea what signals you send out" (my father)

"unpredictable" (more than one)



"You can appear so dismissive" (my mother)

"reflected" (two teachers in high school)

"you're so quiet it's easy to forget you're here" (former classmate)

those are the ones I can remember right now. The latter 3 are the only ones I've gotten at adult age (20's)

I believe that's typical for adults, too. It's quote common among progressive liberals; everyone is a racist or bigot (even if they're sexists, homophobics or xenophobics). Misogynists are called masochists (etc.).

I'm not entirely sure how I'm perceived. I think maybe I come across as nervous and socially awkward, and also as a bit of a pushover, as in not standing up for myself.