Were you able to blend in as a child?

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no.

when i was 4, i was diagnosed with selective mutism. what this meant in practice was that i hardly ever talked to any of my classmates or the teachers or anyone out in public, and always everyone thought of me as 'that weird kid that wouldn't talk'. it's been that way my whole life, and even now i don't really seem normal, you can tell that just within 5 minutes of being around me. i just don't show the kind of reactions to things that people seem to expect me to show.

As a child?

When I was very little I think I blended in fairly well. I don't really remember anything too specific about not blending in. But once I hit around 8 years old I started to really notice the differences between me and the other kids. At first I had just thought it was cultural since my parents are not from this country and since I was a military child and had lived all over the world. I just assumed the other kids were more American and that is why I was different. But as I got into my preteens and teen years I saw distinct differences that were not about just being American.

The thing about not blending in though- I really just don't understand why that then necessitates such violence against the "other" people or kids...
Adults love to talk about how children are pure and innocent and sweet. Really, they are just lacking in social graces and mildly dumb... Never saw that "purity" in kids. Instead they always just seemed like nasty little f*****s to me lol.
And seeing little kids now as an adult they don't seem any different really, still cruel and self-centered little s**ts (to other kids often without being taught). Except they are cuter to look at now..

All throughout school, I was bullied for being different. But middle school was the worst. My hair, my weirdness, things I did by accident. Kids talking about me both behind my back and to my face. My voice, throwing bugs at me, on me. It seemed that NOTHING was off limits. I'll tell you, graduating middle school was one of the best experiences of my life. I was finally free of those a-holes!

In high school, kids called me weird. It didn't bother me as much though. I was used to it by then. And I had better luck making friends. I had friends in elementary school too.

I blended nicely with the teachers (most). But learned soon enough to keep a very low profile otherwise.
Played mostly with my younger brothers, so I can not exclude a dominating disposition. My mother would put me in unpleasant social does, like birthdayparties sometimes.
The social structure was other, most kids at elementaryschool were of an other social background, at middle/highschool that became more of a same group thing and some vague looming failure brought selfdestruction with it, or more conciously an aversion to a false idea(l).

Age 3-5: zero interest in playing with other children
Age 6-9: managed to blend in reasonably well at school
Age 10-12: classmates were interested in pre-teen stuff, but I wasn't
Age 13-25: was accepted by other social misfits, but we weren't exactly close friends
Age 25-43: chose not to socialize with anyone outside of family

I do remember going through a stage where I had to change my group of friends. It was when I was about 11 or 12 and I think it was simply because I didn't meet their standard of maturity.

It was actually really difficult at the time but I tend to play it down a lot as I don't hold grudges.

But there was a bit of bullying involved and a few fights where I had to fight as if it was for my life. There are never winners in the incidences...but I did eventually move on and find a new circle of people to be involved with.

It's difficult for me to say that I had friends because I've only ever once had a great connection with a person. But they were people who made my time at school quite enjoyable even if it was for all the wrong reasons.

My school was a bit rough when I look back hahaha...

Honestly, I did not blend in with other children at all for, not was it easy to pick up on many of my mannerisms & quirks but, also I had a strange & unorthodox physical form which tended to mark me out as being different than other children.Therefore, I literally struggled to decipher the nt social system as a small child and continue to do so this very day.

i did not have to blend in as i remember.
accommodations were always made for me and i made the most of them.

people were just "out there" and they did what they did but it did not interest me.

i did what i wanted to do and other people went in their directions. i do not know actually the precise meaning of "blending in"

people were so interested in absolute rubbish and i thought they were like monkeys and i thought they were stupid.
i kind of still do but i do not know how that relates to "blending in".

i do not know how they saw me. i would have to be stupid to know.

I was a complete outcast. I couldn't relate with anyone and I was not at the same "level" as them. I would try to copy the other kids' movements and speech patterns, and sometimes the way they dressed to fit in. Long story short, it was not successful.