Well, I am going outside of my comfort zones here.

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I have decided to start hitting some meetup.com gatherings, basically because it would be good to have some acquaintances that I have more in common with than being a 12-stepper.

Then again, I always worry when I join a new group of people how my speech impediment will make me look. Once people get to know me, that usually becomes a non-issue, but I am very much aware that it does put a dent in any first impression I make upon others IRL. It is hard for many people to see that the lights are on inside my head when they hear me speaking in the voice of a special ed student. I just want to be a peer among peers, and this is a significant roadblock to that.

Does anybody else here have any experience with this? Where speech tonality and pattern puts most people off initially?

You should go to YouTube and watch "Shiitake Mushrooms." The father talks like Elmer Fudd, yet is married with two kids, with a third on the way.

He doesn't let his speech impediment define him.

I agree. Now I don't know if this is my fault or not (I don't have a speech impediment, at least I think I don't) but my issue is a bit of the opposite to yours. People end up hating me because they think I talk arrogantly or quickly. I don't have ADHD, Anxiety, Racing thoughts or any of that, I just think unusually fast and my mind is often quick to pick things up. When I talk I jump around a lot and people think I have some sort of schizophrenic spectrum disorder.

When I was a child I had a speech impediment that improved with therapy, but even today its still noticeable at times. It seems to show more often when i'm trying to verbally organize complex thoughts in a back and fourth conversation or when i'm excited. Strangers sometimes accuse me of having an accent and ask what country I'm from, either that or they think I'm an idiot. I've had people rudely ask "why do you talk like that?" even though I see nothing out of the ordinary with how I talk.

I've signed up for some "meetups" but haven't actually attended any because I'm nervous for the same reason plus other reasons. I did attend an adult aspergers group a couple of times though, which wasn't bad because I felt like I fit in and was understood.

I can speak normally enough but I still feel that I make bad first impressions due to not being able to look at peoples' faces - only my friends (and not my family) I can look at occasionally