b9 wrote:
i am on the threshold of HFA and AS, and it is not a matter of whether i get on with people. it is a matter of whether they get on with me.
i tend not to change what my instinctive responses to people are based on their requirements. i will respond and interact with people in the way that is instinctive to me.
most people consider me to be very strange when they first meet me, but most (70%) people eventually get used to me and rather like me after they are familiar with me (which takes about 2 months). i do not really know much about what is going on in their heads, but i think they reconsider their initial impressions about me after repeated exposure, and they relinquish their normal social expectations of me that they otherwise place upon normal people.
people that like me can see that i am extremely different and they accommodate my responses to them in a special way that they would not accord to average people.
some people are very rigidly set in their perceptions, and they see me as rude and aloof and snobbish, and they see me as snobbish because i never smile at them or become interested in what they say.
if someone can see past their rigid expectations and make allowances for me, then i will feel more comfortable with them and i will listen and sometimes smile and contribute to the interaction, and they feel nice about it and they like me.
but it remains the fact that everyone that likes me will say they know no one else remotely similar to me, and the people who do not like me just think i am an unfeeling and barren pr*ck.
i find your words achingly fascinating. your experiences interest me a great deal, and i respect your ideas a lot.
to the OP - i do not know if some groups have an easier time integrating (i am an aspie). i integrate acceptably well on a surface level, but i do not keep friends very well.
people sometimes think i am being intentionally difficult because in certain occasions socialization is harder than at other times, depending on factors they do not understand (i.e. a whining light fixture, the distraction of crowds, my internal tension from quieting myself so i don't say the wrong thing, or the unexpected appearance of one of my special interests, like a flock of birds flying by). i cannot always predict when i will have more trouble, and it is exhausting to try to appear normal.
i do have friends, but typically my friendships do not endure more than two years.
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