Too weird for the normal people; too normal for the weird people…
Hey, me too! It seems like none of the normal folks really understand what I’m trying to say, but I’m much better at fitting in with societal norms than most of my friends.
Why can’t people just be the right amount of weird?
I relate to this too, and I think I’ve figured out why. I’ve spent most of my life cultivating a normal impersonation. This has made me sensitive to what is not normal, and even judgemental of it. The problem is you can only keep up a normal-impersonation for so long, and it can be exhausting.
I developed a sort of “chameleon” skill. I start with pleasantries, let the person talk for a bit, get an idea of what THIS person is like, and then I just act like whatever they want me to be.
It helped me do alright for myself in sales, but it REALLY IS exhausting.
I’m the opposite. I realized everybody is really similar at its core. We all have struggles, even though it doesn’t look like it on the outside. Also I did a personality test few years ago, and with just answering 52 questions a computer could write a 2 page assay about what I was like. What things I find difficult, what thing I find easy. How I feel about myself. It shocked me how accurate it was. Now I realise that it is only possible if big groups of people are similar.
“Barnum effect.”
I saw the assays of 20+ collegues and they don’t have the same text
But they’ll be similarly broad I’m sure.
I presume didn’t actually read 20+ essays which were personal summaries of each colleague. But unless you spent a significant amount of time with a psychologist those papers weren’t about anyone specifically, they were about lots of us.
Chances are the questions put you in a myers briggs type category and spat out the essay for that category (or a version of). Not to say there isn’t a lot of stuff in there that applies to you, but it’s not as unique as it seems when you first read it.
People also make them try to fit while reading, and not even just for our own essays. I typically do a version of it annually with work and I fill them all in randomly and end up in odd categories, without fail the whole room tells me that’s exactly who I am and it’s a brilliant summary, people put so much stock in MB that they force the results to fit their experience.
Having said that, I’m not an expert in personality tests either so what the fuck do I know :)
Yeah I read 20+ of them. And my point is that we are alot alike , so even if there are 100 or even 1000s of different assays and the people reading them can relate to it. That means we are a like , even though you my find them broad. Means we are broadly alike
Most personality tests are horoscope bullshit.
Which personality test was it?
Probably somewhere around the age of 14 when most of my friends started doing “adult stuff” and I still prefered the things I had been doing up untill that point and now at over 30 I still prefer that over adulting.
I don’t know if I’m actually that different from other people but I sure do feel like it. I’m quite independent. I like solitude and I tend to form my own opinions on stuff instead of adopting what people around me think.
I’m probably on the autistic spectrum somewhere and I don’t think of myself as very nice person. I mean I don’t treat people badly ever but I’m not much of a people pleaser either and can be quite blunt from time to time. Surprisingly many people still seem to like me so I don’t know what’s wrong with them.
Yeah, I remember as a kid, people always seemed to be in a hurry to grow up and do adult things and I never understood it. As an adult, I still don’t understand why they were so keen on growing up so fast. I’m still very immature at my core, even if I’m able to do things like hold down a job and pay the bills.
Somewhere early In primary school. I was always the weird one, the different one, the one who doesn’t get other people’s jokes, and laughs at my own. I would do what people said, not what they meant, and I’d always get in trouble for talking them too literally.
Over fifty years later, with similar problems throughout my working life, I’ve finally come to realise in the last few months that I’m probably autistic.
ADHD here, but based on autistic friends, I strongly suspect that for me as well. The said not meant one is a big bother for my wife and I. I just CANNOT read into the secret hidden meaning hidden between the words. Just say what you want. I’m happy to help or whatever, but I don’t do hints.
When my teacher took me aside after a lesson, and told me I need to “tone down the Kyle (my name)”. Basically, “stop being yourself, you’re annoying everyone”. Has a different flavour now, over 10 years later, with me discovering recently I might be autistic.
…“tone down the Kyle…”
Harsh! But it also put me in mind of a couple kids in my daughter’s class. They are twin boys and clearly suffer from ADHD. At a recent Pokemon card game event, the instructor told them, “You guys are just like a 12 outta 5, aren’t ya…”
Since I can remember. My two older brothers, primarily the oldest one, made sure that I knew I wasn’t as good as everyone else, as soon as I was able to talk… or at least it seems that way to me. He would mock or belittle any accomplishment I made, regularly take my things, batter me for any and every reason under the sun, as long as my parents didn’t see… The abuse continued pretty much right up until adolescence. My parents divorced and I went with my dad, he went with my mom (more or less). I was still a juvenile at the time and he was old enough to decide for himself.
To give examples, if I “bragged” about anything I had accomplished, he would shut me down about how he either already did it, or does it better than I can, which was true at the time, since he was 5 years older than me, so he had easily twice as long to do things. He would make a mockery of any achievement that he couldn’t say he had already done or done better. He would belittle everything I did and said, tease me to the point of blinding anger then beat me senseless exclaiming “he started it!”.
I was never as good as he was. I could never measure up. But bluntly, it’s hard to compare an 8 year old to a 13 year old.
I came to peace with all of this a long time ago, and I’ve come to realize that while many were bullied in their youth, and I was bullied too… I lived with my bully. I’ve “gotten over it” (so to speak) and moved on with my life. I’ve realized that, compared to many, I seem to be intellectually superior, getting concepts faster than others, picking up on things more easily. Learning better and retaining knowledge more effectively… Instead of lording that over anyone, like my oldest brother did to me, I instead try to enlighten anyone that’s willing to learn, encouraging them in their own journey of knowledge. Lifting them up.
I’m secure in my knowledge, my person, my station, my sexuality… Etc. I’m not threatened by someone smarter than I am, and I’m not in need of my ego being bolstered by putting others down.
I don’t consider my parents first child to be my brother. He gave that up when he relentlessly bullied me for nearly two decades. I owe him nothing, and I want nothing from him. I do not forgive, I am unable to forget.
Around puberty. Somewhere around 12-13ish maybe.
I suddenly realized everyone has opinions about you. I suddenly became incredibly self conscious about the way I looked, what I said, and what sort of friends I had. At the same time, I really couldn’t read people at all.
I stopped being able to talk to people, which further disconnected me from others. I was also sort of ostracized from this group I grew up with because they started to notice that I was weird and not as conventionally good looking.
Also…as everyone started to grow up around me, they started becoming interested in dating. People would occasionally ask me if I though X person or Y person was attractive. I was just confused by the whole thing and never understood what they were talking about. As I grew older, I began to understand what they meant, but I could never experience and feel what they feel. I’m not a late bloomer. I’m almost 30 and I’m still this way. I remember stumbling across the asexual community years back as an older teen and I still didn’t identify with them either. Most of them to still have sexual urges and/or the ability to feel sexual pleasure. I’m the odd man out in even the asexual community.
I think something odd happened when my brain was developing that made me who I am. I’m not 100% sure why it happened, but it makes me different from others that can at times be very isolating and lonely. I know everyone has their struggles, and so humans are all similar on that front. But lacking certain key feelings that 99.999% of humans feel can sometimes make you feel like an alien.
I’m doing pretty well for myself otherwise though. I have a decent job and am able to support myself just fine. I adore most of my coworkers and really appreciate them in my life. They are the kind that makes anyone feel welcome, even an awkward weirdo like me. I’m far happier now than I was growing up in middle school and high school. It’s just those occasional moments in time where I look at everything and realize that I can’t be like the conventional human being. So it can be a bit depressing at times.
With my sexuality: When talking to friends about masturbation as young lads who just discovered our bodies and being the only one who put things up their butt because it felt good.
With my nuerodivergence: Finding out that a lot of how my mind works is not normal except with other NDs. Only was a few years ago I was diagnosed with ADHD and BPD and told to get further testing for autism after talking to a lot of people online about the subject.
I was almost forty before I realized I had ADHD. I was researching it to learn more about my new diagnosed stepson, and realized we had a lot more in common then I expected.
Watching Suits on Netflix, I’ve realized that not everyone remembers things the way I do. Mike Ross’s memory is like mine. If I read something and understand it, I never forget it. If I need to get new information about a past event, I can review the scene in my memory and look at the details I missed the first time.
Oh, that’s a helluva question.
Knew I was gay at 14, knew I was different at 8ish.
Knew I wasn’t social like other kids when I was 7 or 8.
Couple other ways I’ll keep to myself, but give ya ages. 11, 13, 16, 21.
When I realized people generally don’t point when laughing with you.
Sorry to hear that. Hope you are doing well now.
When I was in the shower in gym class.
When I stopped being able to shop for pants in stores in my early teens. Being in the top half of the 99th percentile of height has its bonuses, but also has its drawbacks.
I realized this at a very young age when I learned that my schoolmates were meeting each other every day, while I was living far away, in a bubble, separated from the country and with inappropriate education.
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