Aspies && Age - Do You Agree?

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That describes exactly how I am. I've always been a very unworldly person.

Yes. Very.

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yes

I am starting to wonder whether Aspie mental development during the second and third decade of life is not comparable to the later reorientation phase that typical individuals often refer to as a midlife crisis. As mentioned above, I can't relate at all to the socialisation stage of development, which typical adolescents and young adults seem to go through.

My teenage years and twenties were a period of increasing isolation from wider society, and a period during which I had very few social contacts and interactions. I developed my own idiosyncratic value system, based upon an appreciation of all living creatures, independent of established ideologies and social norms.

It took me some time to learn that many others worry much more about their visible social status in terms of job title and pay than the quality of their work. It also never occurred to me that you had to ask for a pay rise. A colleague eventually explained to me some of the unwritten rules of office politics. By the time I was 35 I had finally understood enough to opt out of corporate employment and related social expectations and constraints.

Now, at age 50, I discover that a few neurotypical individuals of similar age are finally starting to question the logic of some established social norms and institutions. Having lived their whole life according to culturally transmitted norms and values, they have a very hard time admitting to themselves the silliness of playing the social status game, and seem unable to exit the game.

In my world, the heightened curiosity of very young children is a sign of active mental development and maturation, and the socialisation phase of typical mental development is a step backwards, to the kind of power politics shared with our primate cousins.

I feel like I stopped growing up around age twelve. I'm not interested in adult stuff like work or sex or partying or anything. I miss the days when I could run around pretending to be a talking dog and nobody would bat an eye.

So... :/

I don't think I could call myself "innocent," though. Naïve or gullible, yes. Innocent? I'm far too cynical by now, plus I write some really smutty stuff, so...

ETA, wow, I...totally did not notice there were four pages to this thing.

That is one thing I may disagree on. People describe me as weird, stern and rather mature.