Aspergers and Popularity in childhood and adolescence.

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When I was a very young child, definitely not.


When I was an adolescent at a small supportive, inclusive High School with a strong work ethic and an anti-bullying policy: definitely yes!

I wasn't "popular" in the conventional way "cliquish" way though. I kind of reinvented the concept of "popular" when I was there. I actually acquainted myself with about 100 students when I was there. I could probably draw a very good diagram of the entire "grapevine" diagram for my year-group if you asked me to now. Of course there were some cliques that I was more familiar with than others. I had a kind of "home clique" and close friends in my form group that I could return to when things got rough.

It was quite interesting to observe the group social structures/hierarchies: the alphas, the betas, the henchmen/henchwomen, the go-betweens (I liked to call the "bridge builders" between groups), the entertainment committee (the class clowns), the "techies", the "agony aunts", the "hangers on"...

I kept a "data-logger" in my head of what people were interested in, what classes they attended, what branch of the grapevine they were on, their social status in a group, their interests and so on. I also made a note of who was in power, who I could trust and who to avoid. I wasn't cliquish at all. I just waited to be invited into other people's groups or met them in classes or after school activities.

I kind of drifted around the cliques.
If I hadn't been "socially naive" and open to new experiences I wouldn't have met so many interesting/challenging people. I learned a lot from my experiences, even if other did have to initiate the conversation for me most of the time. I learned how to have give and take conversations with people. I think that it would have been boring to hang around with the same people all the time.

I was told that paradoxically:
"It looks as if you need help socialising, but you don't! You can get on with almost everyone. You can see things that other people can't."

It was a different style of socialising. It was a kind of "interplanetary diplomat on the Star-ship Enterprise" kind of socialising, not the Machiavellian, "cultish" socialising practiced by the alpha females.

I used to have a relative who was a nurse. If you think about how a nurse has to keep track of people's data in a hospital and wander from ward to ward, my socialising patterns were a bit like that. I wonder if I could have inherited a kind of nursing behaviour?

Maybe I saw school as being a bit like a hospital. I helped people out who looked as if they needed help or asked for advice. Lots of people thanked me for my help and appreciated it. I even had my own self-appointed "fan club" at one stage, though they did get on my nerves at times (I should really have been grateful for all the attention).

Some of the teachers were taken aback by this and people often asked me if I was "alright" wandering around on my own. I was usually fine enjoying my own company. I saw the teachers as being like my friends too. Sometimes I even sat with a teacher at lunch and discussed things. It was a very friendly school.

I didn't become popular until my senior year of high school. I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought as I would. The pressure eventually got the better of me.

Wow, interesting thread!

When I was in Elementary School, I was definitely not popular. I was usually alone, felt like an oddball and was pretty intimidated by the other kids- (although I could play with younger kids, like my brother). Apparently, I also interacted well with adults. Some of my teachers noticed my social problems (back in the days before diagnosis), and talked to either my parents or myself about it. I remember childhood as being a kind of hell, and I felt very alone.

Before I went into the Junior High, I thought about how much better I felt now that I was beginning to understand things a bit more. I made a vow to myself that I would "reinvent myself", and no longer be a shy kid- (up until that point, I hadn´t talked much). I guess my Elementary School years were the observing phase, and now that I was a teenager, I decided to put things into practice.

At around that time, Elton John was popular. I´ve written about this on other posts: but I decided to use Elton John as a role model- possibly because he said in all his interviews that he had been the shy, loner kid in school, and then he became famous- anyway, every day I showed up to Junior High as "Elton", with bell-bottomed pants, platform shoes, sunglasses, etc. Needless to say, none of the other kids dressed this way! Well, it was half successful. Of course I was teased horribly by some- that was nothing new!- but the teachers seemed to think I was a really interesting character, and some of the students found me interesting too. One girl decided she wanted to play the game with me, and wanted to be Bernie Taupin (Elton´s lyricist). When I was friends with her, I suddenly had a circle of friends too! They weren´t the "popular" crowd, but I thought these people were more cool anyway. Unfortunately though, when I was in 9th grade, "Bernie" went to another school, and as soon as that happened, it was back to hell again. I was suddenly alone and teased, so I stopped dressing like Elton, as it only drew more attention to myself. I went back to avoiding the social stuff, and being involved in my interests...

But when I was "Elton", I really played the popular person, if that makes any sense. I had visions from Elton, and other actors (like Carol Burnett) who acted like stars and divas, and I just acted this way. I still do it from time to time, it´s just sort of a popularity act (a persona), if you know what I mean.

Pre-school: Popularity? I didn't have any friends that I can recollect until I moved to the small town in Saskatchewan.
Kindergarten: I had two friends, I was quite comfortable with.
Grade 1: Had those two firends from kindergarten until I moved to the big city in Alberta.
Grade 2: Absolute hell. No friends whatsoever through the whole year. Constant beatings throughout each recess.
Grade 3: Slightly better. By now I could actually run and stuff ad appeared to actually "get it".
Grade 4: Downhill.
Grade 5: Downhill.
Grade 6: I don't even want to remembr this year.
Grade 7: Even more so.
Grade 8: I disappeared, dissolved. I was too fearful to engage in any contact. I started to improve. When I moved across the city, I had no idea what to do in the school. I just paced up and down the halls for two weeks during lunch hour. People eventually invited me to join in. I did so.
Grade 9: I screwed that up. By now I managed to fill up my time without being too scared of being beaten up. The principal was really good so no one really bullied another. There were some jerks but they were considered jerks by everyone.
Grade 10: I had a couple friends that didn't leave me for anything, other than to go to the computer labs - which I was not allowed to go into since I did not take any computer courses.
Grade 11: Best year in terms of school.
Grade 12: I got lost. Weird stuff happened, I didn't graduate.
Grade 13: Redid one course. Made friends with this guy and he introduced me to the electronic music scene in this city.
Post-Secondary 1: Did alright
Post-Secondary 2: Fallen to pieces. Now here.

Up until about the 7th or 8th grade, I remember feeling respected and liked. I was an athlete, so that helped a lot. I'd befriend the outsiders, and also get chosen first or second for any kind of sport on the playground, so I could be friendly with everyone.

Then 7th grade came and ugh...The boys I'd been friends with forever started making jokes about the fact that I didn't have boobs yet, and kept talking endlessly about the girls who did. From that point on, it was pretty much downhill. High school was a complete nightmare socially. I would never, ever go back to those years, not for all the money in the world.

I think this sort of experience was very common for girls, at least when I was a kid...We started out being strong and sure, and then adolescence came and our power started draining out through the bottoms of our feet. My daughter and her friends seem to be better able to hold onto their power and self-esteem.

I had a strange school experience. School and I didn't get along from the very start and I don't know what could have happened to change that.

i was not popular at the schools i went to.
i have no real personality to talk to anyone with.
but i was "celebrated" a bit in a way that i did not like.

kids who were bad used to like to watch me talk to the teachers. inevitably i wound up in an argument with teachers, and some kids liked to watch the event.
they laughed so hard and when i was about to start to talk to a teacher, they all told each other to "shut up" and listen.

then i would have an "event" with the teacher and i would be thrown out to be dealt with later, and most of the class was completely disrupted with laughter and general hysterical behavior for the entire lesson afterward.

i did not do what i did for the entertainment of the kids. i did what was all i could do to mediate my situation with the teacher.
i locked horns very severely with teachers that other kids would not dare to cross, so my actions were somewhat "celebrated" (which was a reason always for my expulsion from schools).

but these kids thought i was an insane lump of meat and they did not want to know me personally.
they would never be seen to talk with me or anything because i was so severe in my behavior.

they did not really trust me i think. maybe they thought i would defy them like i defied the teachers, but i only defied authority and never normal people.

whatever. i was never "well liked and needed to be included in anyones idea of an ideal social situation", so i was never popular.

I was never popular, but I think up until the end of junior school I was respected to a degree because I was good at my schoolwork - I was always way ahead of the rest of the class in reading and writing - and because I knew a lot of information about things and other kids at that age found it quite interesting, even if they used to sort of laugh at me at the same time. Later, though, it started to be the essentially stupid yet 'cool' people who received respect, everyone became interested in the opposite sex, partying, hanging out, etc., and I became a complete outcast.

I always felt that one of the problems was that they all moved on and grew up socially, and I didn't. Things that were acceptable in a nine year old were no longer acceptable in a fourteen year old.

I was very unpopular and was teased a lot up until eighth grade. After that, I was indeed "respected," because I was seen as the nice, smart girl. So, while I never was popular and people always thought I was "weird," people were nice to me and accepted my eccentricities.
-OddDuckNash99-

I have never been popular among my peers. In childhood I usually had 1-2 friends at a time and they moved on after a couple of years and our friendship died out. In childhood I wasn't respected either. I was usually the one being bullied or left out and ignored.

It wasn't until college that I was respected by my peers, for my academic success and reliability.

Most of my teachers trusted me better than anyone else in the class though, both in childhood and in college.

I was the most popular kid in primary school, both among the teachers and the pupils. Then it was good up until the end of high school. College is where I started being a real outcast, and it's become worse and worse since.

Someone once told me I was the most known kid at my old high school (which contained 2800 students). I think people generally respected me too. I never heard anyone speak ill of me behind my back. Sometimes people would be mean but that's part of life anyway. Then again, I was also an athlete. Played Football and ran Track. I didn't just hang with the in-crowd though. I hung out with many cliques. How I did it remains a mystery to me and always will considering I've got Asperger's and several other things.

From preschool to second grade, I was average, not popular but not unpopular. Everything changed when I switched over to an all girls school, where I developed selective mutism for the next 9 years of my life. I was picked on in 3rd grade. I switched schools again in 4th grade and I was picked on in 4th and 5th grade. They gradually stopped picking on me in 6th grade and I started doing pretty well in school. From 6th-11th grade, I had no friends, I was completely clueless on my social status, I just assumed I was unpopular cause I had no friends, I wasnt picked on either. In 11th and 12th grade I started making some friends after finally breaking my selective mutism and Im guessing I was unpopular I really dont know. And now Im in college and it dosent matter anymore.