a confident Aspie???

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This is weird, but cool, but weird, but cool but weird...

So the little private local uni I am transferring to this fall is full of people I graduated from community college with--lots of friends who are absolutely thrilled that I am returning to the fold. (I made exactly TWO friends my entire year at the big uni this past school year.)

I was telling my therapist about this the other day, and I mentioned that I was extremely popular at the community college because it was relatively easy there to keep up the NT act. My therapist said something I had never considered: "Maybe it wasn't the NT act at all that was so attractive to people there, but rather, your self-confidence was the key."

WOW. I never thought of that. She told me that after I had wondered aloud what I would be like at the new uni: the "rock star" from community college, the "weird loner" from the big uni, or some sort of hybrid of both?

So now, I am going to live according to my blueprint that I posted earlier in this forum, AND be self-confident. The trick is to learn to be confident without the fake NT persona. Here's where I could really use some advice, please. How do you combine the two? What works and what doesn't?

I try to be confindent, but not over confident. Same with being self conscious. There has to be a medium somwhere that suits you. If you try to force confidence, then you'll come off as the opposite. Try to think of it as something you have for yourself, and nobody else. You're not acting confident to please people, you ARE confident because it makes you feel good. That way it's more internal and people will feel it's more genuine. And if someone questions your confidence, it wouldn't matter if it really came from within you. If it didn't, then you would probably become defensive and come off as insecure. Hope that helps.

I was more confident in my old NT-persona, though at the time I didn't think much about it. I'm way less comfortable now that I'm trying to be genuine. What's genuine anyway? My old NT-persona was flirty, different, but confident. Large parts of my actual personality were suppressed, in favor of more "acceptable" traits. It takes energy to keep it up though... I don't anymore.

the most important thing is to love yourself and know your pros and cons....we all have them(I can deal with my bad points and work on them wial focusing on what makes me great!)after that comfort is the key, if you are comfortable, then confidence will come from the fact that you know you can do something, or you are a desirable person(a game I play when I go out is I look around at all the the ladys and think that they want me and imagine the ways they would pick me up....fun if nothing is going on).
if you fake confidance people will know and wonder what horrable thing your hiding!! !
at times if you don't feel confident,try to get comfortable, if you can't then downplay yourself and be more of an observer........2ears 1 mouth listen and for god sakes, calm down .....let the war be over (in your head..haha)

I'm a very confident person. I don't let the world, or its attitudes get under my skin.

I think it is good to discover confidence. I am sometimes oddly confident ... and other times a complete wreck. If only I could just push a button!

I am confident and shy depending on circumstances. I just don't worry about it and be myself.

I decided in junior high school that I could only be myself, that there was no pretending to be someone I wasn't. I apparently saved myself a ton of heartbreak and headache by adopting that attitude early.

I never had an NT persona and am almost always very confident. When I was little, I had no desire (or knowledge, really) about how to make friends. Ultimately my strategy was to let people approach me with friendship rather than go seek it... though I never really figured out this was my strategy until very recently in life.

I also knew nothing about the autism spectrum back then... not until about a year ago.