Do you avoid people?

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I've been doing it basically my entire life for two main reasons. Firstly I never know what to say to them and secondly I percieve them as obscure. They make no 'sense' to me. Its like they are of one species and I'm of another.

Can anyone relate?

Sounds like me. I often don't talk to people, when I had to go to a party in a house in Canada I stayed in the basement playing on the computer while everybody else was socialising. I just can't seem to fit in with other people.

Yes. I am shy and I am afraid I will say the wrong things or they will bore me out and I would be force to stay and listen or else I am rude for leaving. Plus people have nothing in common. Even I am avoiding my family right now as I type. They are watching a Stephen King movie down there and I don't want to watch it so I am on the computer which is what I like to do.
I would love to hang out with them but they are doing something I don't want to do. I can be on the computer downstairs so I am in the room with them like I was last night.

I can understand poeple pretty well on an intellectual level, but that's about it.

I am observer. I neither interact with humans nor I avoid them - I only observe... Like scientist in labratory...

It may sound weird but this is actually a fact - it's been proved that girls with AS are likely to observe other people and recreate their behaviours, words and mannerisms... So I do. Anyone else has it?

Yes.

People sometimes scare and confuse me.

If I know them well I feel more at ease, but not perfectly at ease.

I'm not really a people person.

I like animals though.

I used to do this throughout high school -- I would obsess on a mannerism or a vocal characteristic of someone (especially someone who got a lot of positive attention -- unlike me), and I would copy it as closely as possible.

The way I interpret this tendency is that by mimicking someone, I am trying to understand their often mystifying behavior. Unfortunately, several people who I copied in this way thought I was making fun of them (which wasn't at all my intent), and attacked me for it. I still do this behavior today, but I try to make it less obvious, or at least try not to do it when the person I'm trying to understand is in the room.

I have always been an observer, and have never liked direct contact with people. One of my dearest wishes has always been to be invisible so that I could observe people without them trying to engage me.

Yeh, I understand You well. I always wanted the same - to become invisible... So that others couldn't hurt me anymore...

Yes. I never regret being alone.

But I do regret times when I have interacted, some with disasterous consequences.

I am now in a phase of total isolation except a few family memebrs.

When I find myself surrounded by people, I usually go into voluntary exile somewhere.

Yes, all the time, including myself.

I've spent most of the last 4 years in isolation(seclusion?).

I avoid people when I can. In this I'm no different from the majority of people - I avoid things that cause me stress, confusion and harm.

...

Last edited by claire-333 on 30 Nov 2008, 6:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yup, me too. I'm the one at family gatherings sitting in a room by myself reading outdated issues of Time or Newsweek, unless I've brought my own books or lists with me.

I do have an apparently ingrained tendency to avoid people. My reasons for doing so are two. The first being that I simply would prefer not speaking to anyone else at present and the other resulting from my social akwardness. It took me a while to learn when I was expected to say 'Hi' to someone I have met. For example, at times, I would approach someone I had met only briefly with a greeting more appropriate for an old friend which would then startle them and then, as reaction to this response, I began greating old friends with a greeting suitable for an unfamiliar aquaintance. Conversely, I do have a side of my self, or an aspect of my personality, that is very needy of others' attention - that is when I determine this need, not the others. As I have gotten older I have learned to balance these two seemingly mutual exclusive personality traits. I also force myself, at times anyway to be more outgoing, inspite of the fact that I do, of course, embarrass myslef in the process. I realized that my self-induced isolation could be rather selfish and spiteful making whatever friendships I hade one-sided.