Have you ever wondered if your uniqueness hurt you socially?

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I seem to have no confidence when it comes to social interaction. Every time there's a room full of people, I seem to go unnoticed, and I don't feel like talking to people, out of fear that they're just going to act like, "Why is this loser talking to me?" For all I know, it could be all in my head, but I still feel as though they've already pre-emptively judged me as not worth the time. Women don't seem to find my personality attractive, I never get invited anywhere, and in general, I tend to feel that people don't find me to be an interesting person to be around.
It seems to stem from a fight I had with a girl quite a while ago. She's not exactly unattractive, but the guy she was dating was several times better-looking than she was, and it blew my mind as to how she got with him. At the time, I was going through some really bad self esteem issues, thinking that the only girls that would ever want me were the ugly, crazy and mentally unbalanced ones, if any at all. One night on IM, I just casually asked her how she was able to get a guy like that, and she suddenly just signed off. I could tell that she was angry at me, so I apologized later.
However, not too long afterwards, she messaged me on Facebook, calling me "vain" and telling me that the way I acted in public (things like talking to myself and pacing) were keeping me ostracized. She insulted me, saying that I needed to make a change or else I would be lonely forever. I toiled in despair for over a month, until finally I confronted her over it. Once again, she told me that the way I acted made people think that I wanted to be isolated. She criticized me for not making any effort to change, and told me that if I didn't change, I would end up depressed, suicidal, and addicted to drugs, claiming that she had "seen it happen". I dismissed these accusations, telling her that she had a closed mind over the matter.
However, lately, everything she's said is proving itself to be true. People don't talk to me, they don't seem to find me interesting, and it's making me wonder: By "changing, did she mean that I need to work out minor kinks in my mannerisms, or change my entire personality? Am I to blame for my own social ostracision? Is the fact that I want to be a unique individual rather than a clone of everyone else killing my chance of making friends?

Maintain your individuality, and you will find that over time, the friends you do make will be more interesting and of higher quality...in terms of interestingness...ect...than they would be otherwise...ignore trash that chooses to judge you on such shallow terms.

Sometimes people can be cruel to others they don't understand. Things that are different can unsettle them. It's our sad lot in life to be a physical incarnation of that difference, feared and even despised for things that shouldn't really matter.

But just as no two aspies are the same, not all neurotypicals are so biased either. If you change yourself just to fit in with the ordinary masses, you could miss out on an opportunity to meet these very special people. You'll instead be caged in a living lie, forever warring against your own nature. I wouldn't wish that on anyone; don't wish it on yourself.

If I am understanding what you are getting at, I think my "uniqueness" is the only thing that's ever helped me socially. I tend to blend into the background, as I'm nondescript and quiet, but when people actually engage me, my awkwardness seemingly comes off as quirky and intriguing, and is what tends to get people interested in me. My way's not for everyone, but as such it makes it so I'm only drawn to the "right" kind of people (or the right kind of people drawn to me I guess), and ones I don't have to worry about being myself around.

In my experiences it was all just a bad mix of awkwardness, bad experiences, and self esteem issues. I tend to live vicariously through my self sometimes, and when I feel like talking to some one, like a partner in a big science project, a fellow peer in an activity I participate in I usually find it interesting that I have gotten over my past experiences. I guess my point is that in human nature we tend to over look the fact that all failures are a prelude to future success and that just because the odds stack up high against you doesn't make you, the individual, worthless over all. If you feel like your not being noticed then talk for once, even if you feel that your peers don't think your worth a salt, in the end you might have an interesting conversation about subjects you would never have thought would come up, on the other hand you might appear wired or just plain out there, but make some thing out of it. I know nuero-typicals to talk about normal stuff that you might not understand, but if you can relate, then that can make all the difference in the world. We can complain all we want about not being able to get out there because of our difficulties, but as an aspie I can say from 22 years of experience it never hurts to have a conversation with a stranger, even if it means having to deal with 30+ people around you. I just love humanity all together, I guess I can say I'm obsessed with people.

When I was a child, I was both hated and admired for my uniqueness. I always loved to paint, draw and do artistic pursuits. My parents and family friends loved how creative I was. I learned fast that grade school coloring and art projects were really just lessons in obedience and conformity. For Groundhog Day we were to color a picture of a groundhog. I colored mine blue. When I presented it to my teacher to pin up, she told me I did it all wrong and had me do it all over again in the “right” color. Brown or black were supposedly the right colors to use. I’ve personally never seen a black groundhog but I’ve seen pictures of albino ones. I suppose that would be “wrong” too. When we did the letter “E”, we were to color a picture of an elephant. My class had the basic eight colors pack of crayons and the substitute teacher that day has said to color the elephant black. I thought black would be ugly so I colored mine purple because I didn’t see any harm in it. I got scolded for that too and the teacher refused to pin it up with the others because it was “wrong” and I did not listen. My mom loved my elephant and it hung on the refrigerator for weeks. She said that what the teacher was just ridiculous and silly. I once read a book about Pablo Picasso’s childhood and his teachers gave him crap for his art too because it was done the “wrong” way. I wonder if one day I will be looked at as a famous artist and people will scoff at the criticism I was given by the people that were supposed to help me learn. As an adult I am finding that the few friends I have, despite the fact that they are either older or younger than me, are in fact true friends who appreciate me for who and what I am. Whenever I set out to do something, I totally throw my heart into it. If I did not have my autism or eccentricities, I highly doubt my artistic pursuits, homemade computer games (I don’t use Flash) and encyclopedic knowledge of zoology would be so impressive. I don’t need the approval of others to know myself.

My counselor did suggest that I hang out with others who are like me, but the problem is, I don't want to be ignorant towards everyone like I was in high school. I want to have options. I want to be with people in general, not just one certain type of people. If it's just little quirks in my mannerisms, then I would rather adapt than just assume that everyone hates be for being different.

No. I have never wondered.

I've known since early on that being "unique" wasn't always a good thing.