Old Soul During Youth, Peter Pan During Adulthood. Normal?

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Aspie1
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16 Aug 2016, 10:53 pm

I remember how back when I was in preschool, a few kids nicknamed me "professor", due to my ridiculously vast book smarts. (Which goes along with Hans Asperger's description of aspie kids as "little professors".) When I was 10 or so, I was very kind and gentle, like many elderly persons, a far cry from my rough, aggressive, cruel peers. While spending a lot of time with my grandparents probably had an influence, I suppose I was just an old, wise soul, like a lot of aspie kids.

Then in my early 20's, I still refused to "get with the program". Instead of going to nightclubs with my friends, where girls insulted me and threw water in my face, I wanted to take dance lessons at a studio, where the most people were 30+, and everyone was very friendly. And despite my friends' efforts to stop me (who I kicked out of my life shorty later), having taken dance lessons is now helping me meet women like you wouldn't believe.

However, now, well into my 30's, I'd have to have an AK-47 pointed at me to be convinced to get married. And by "me", I mean my genitals. I see marriage as nothing but a source of misery, abuse, and boredom. I don't want to settle down. I don't want to stay home every night just to entertain my boring significant other, and later, our kid who refuses to stop crying no matter what I do. A lot of NTs would say I'm Peter Pan for thinking that way. But I really don't give a damn at this point.

So is this weird? Ironic? Or conversely, common among aspies? To be a old, wise soul during youth, only to turn around and become Peter Pan during adulthood?



C2V
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17 Aug 2016, 2:14 am

I'm the same, and I put it down to an autistic lack of normal progression through chronological developmental stages.
Normal people go through distinct stages from childhood to adulthood, like the life cycle of the mayfly. When children they act like normal children, when adult, act like normal adults. There is appropriate disctinction.
Whereas me, I figure I have been at the same developmental level for a while now - this appeared advanced when I was a child, and appears immature now as an adult. But it's everyone else's views on what is appropriate for each age group that changes, not my behaviour. It is also a basic deviation from accepted norm that people are judging as "mature" or "immature." But to me, just is.


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