When did you realize people don't like you?

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Probably 3rd or 4th grade. But at least I had friends.
The Pandemic taught me that even "friends" have a limit, and most of them realized there was no longer any reason to pretend to enjoy my company.

So it's just me and my son now, and I've spend the past couple years trying to spend more time with family.

Aw I know what you mean. In adult life is "how come everyone else is being invited to social events and I am not?"

Yeah I remember thinking "if I get this object that other people like, they will like me."

In the end it was me alone at home with that objecting going "this object kindof sucks."

I didn't keep a log so I can only guesstimate.

In order:
- I'm just like everyone else
- Why am I not treated like everyone else? (10ish)
- Why are people mean to me? (pre-teen)
- Is there something wrong with me? (teen)
- I don't think it's me...I think everyone else is messed up (later)

P.S. About halfway through that I'd seen the results of the standardized tests our schools had us take. So I knew that, according to those tests, I was very intelligent compared to most of my classmates. For a long time I wondered if that difference was the issue.

The intelligence part may be a coping mechanism. I have meet people who have both high IQ and high EQ. I knew a guy that had that and ALSO had family money. Its like daaaaamn this dude's gonna be a politician someday. He even had the intelligence and abilities to drop out of law school and become a F-16 pilot in Afghanistan before going back and finishing.

School.

I had to learn people that actually liked me did exist. I figured everyone hated me since I was 3.

Probably around 4th grade.

There have been people who actively disliked me, both as a kid and as an adult, but I have mostly tried to fly under the radar and not be noticed. It didn't earn me many friends, but at least it deterred at least some people actively shunning me or attacking me.

Kindergarten.

I'm sure there was evidence of it before that, but I don't think it really clicked until a year or two later. There was nothing I could do to fit in or be liked. I was bullied mercilessly all throughout school right up until I started writing for the school paper and people started seeing my name in the by-line.

Someone actually came up to me once to tell me that they liked my article, and they said "I couldn't believe you wrote it. Until I saw your name there, I thought you were ret*d."

It dawned on me when I was four, the acceptance came when I was 18, the effort to be a friend ended when I retired…

Yes, I believe so. He's always saying he "MIN MAXES" when he plays his online game at home. I think he's accidentally MAXED charm when ordinarily he considers that a useless game skill.

I was thinking about this thread recently. My 10 year old has ADHD and went back to school this year after a 3 year break while we got his medications figured out. He's ahead of the schoolwork in there, but isn't doing as well with his grades because there doesn't seem to be structure or discipline in the school. He keeps thinking he is being friendly and polite with the kids around him, but they are mean to his face back. One of the boys tore up a paper he gave him and told him they aren't friends. Then there are a few other kids who we will pass on the street and they will shout out his name like he's some kind of celebrity. I'm like SOC Jr, who are those kids? He's like, I don't know.

I told him there's always someone in a group who thinks you're great and maybe you are just not noticing that they notice you. He's like, I don't know how to find out if there are kids who like me. It's hard to be a kid, I guess.

Trust me, you guys, there's SOMEONE who likes you.

Sounds a little too optimistic.

I had been given that impression from 1971 when ABA was inflicted on me for 3 years without the autism diagnosis which I would ultimately been given 32 years after and especially in April 1974 when I was about 7 or 8 when I left Wakefield Lodge. Especially after 1977 when I was put into mainstream school with the demands that came on to me. From 1974 my mum withdrew her love for me and never had a good word to say about me all her life and my dad starting being physically abusive to me from 1972 and especially 1974 onwards. I had nightmares as a child of how I would be perceived as an adult and it was not nice. The demands put on me exceeded my emotional and social development at the time. I can say I have only had one friend since 1977 and that ended when he moved away. If I did anything wrong any consquences or punishments would have been more cruel and unusual than an allistic who does the same thing. Black and white thinking about my actions. That sounds like hate or extreme dislike to me and without deserving of that obscenity. That is an origin of autistic anxiety.

Interesting replies, all. Thanks.

I realized people did not like me all throughout school, through various traumatic incidents & betrayals, in college when I failed to make any friends after four years, at various jobs (same result) & when I was married... We would have big parties, dozens of people. None of them resulted in friends for me, just friends for my Ex.

And then the way my Ex treated me, that also informed me. Maximum extraction of money, then legal divorce to extract even more money (from my IRA). Being treated as an ATM during and after marriage. Good thing I hired a detective to dig up the dirt and reduce the damage.

I kept imagining this phrase, over and over again during those times. "P.A.G." or "People are Garbage..." which does not sound very nice to be sure if applied in a general sense. I think I had in mind my Ex and his co-conspirator. Just the way that person can lie and lie, and swear up and down, they are telling the heart's honest truth.

People are complicated & multi-faceted critters and although I may sometimes think "P.A.G." I also have found people that are just stunning beams of light. Yet even in such cases, I know I had better keep my distance, they have their limits too.

When I moved to a new town right before sixth grade, I learned the truth. I was never really accepted there and was relentlessly bullied. Those who were considered my “friends” would sell me out to move up the social ladder in a heart beat. They caused me to see the darker side of humanity.

If that was not bad enough to deal with, my only set of grandparents stated that they did not love me to my face about the same time. They had eight grandchildren, yet only cared for the first-born male. He had killed a 6-year old kid when he was 11. It was called an accident, but it was no accident. He is a total piece of trash. I still spit on my grandparents tombstone when I can as payback for their hate in my youth. Most of my cousins do the same thing.

The sad thing about this is my own mother has stated she hates her third great grandson. He is on the spectrum and is non-verbal. She does not understand why he is acting as he does and calls him an evil kid. I tried to talk to her about it, but she is too much like her parents.