Wondering if I'm always unpopular because I'm autistic?

Not odd at all! I’m not ND but lots of fellow leaders are. I’ve joined Trefoil guild and we socialise a lot, again very welcoming and diverse.

I used to make my mum sieve chicken soup! I only realised I was probably autistic once my DD was diagnosed. I too hate the primary school gate.

I suppose I'm self-diagnosed or self-assessed. Or at least I have put together a picture based on things that were said by parents, teachers and my peers. I've had a "probably" from a GP and a MH therapist. I think based on my sensory issues alone it is highly probable that I am autistic but it would not be accepted as official.

Self diagnosis is widely accepted in autistic circles. The vast majority of those who self diagnose do so after enormous amounts of research.

I'd probably get there for 5.30 and then hang around awkwardly around the corner before heading in about five to....

It could have been me who wrote the first post on this thread. I've never understood why women don't like me. I'm kind, I'm interesting, I'm funny, I'm entertaining, I'm caring, I'm generous, I'm loyal, I'm reliable, I'm honest, and yet I literally have no friends.

I've had friends in the past who dropped me and I've had many many false starts as in I start a friendship with someone and it just doesn't go the distance: after one or two meetings they just dropped me or they pretend that they are constantly busy and cannot meet me, until I eventually get the message and stop bothering them.

There’s a school mum who is very involved in school but very few people actually like spending time with her and avoid having conversations with her as she’s just not very good at picking up cues / letting other people speak. She will go on and on and on with a story that is really dull. You could literally be yawning and she wouldn’t stop talking. So… if she asks me about my holiday for instance I’ll be polite and answer with a quick summary of the holiday but I won’t ask her anything back as it’s just painful listening to her stories. Another friend mentioned to me that she thinks that this mum might be autistic. I don’t know why but hadn’t crossed my mind before but now it has I’m a bit more tolerant of her. Do you think your stories are interesting /funny / relevant when you tell them?

I think sometimes we can struggle to identify our sensory issues because we’ve unconsciously woven things into our lives to help us deal with them.

I mean I’d be tempted to say I don’t have any issues with food (especially compared with my children who are classic beige eaters in a way that I never was) but then I realise I very very rarely eat any fruit because the texture can be icky and the flavour is unpredictable. And I used to make my mum sieve the lumps out of pineapple yoghurt so that I could eat it 😂

Surely that would be very unusual not to have sensitivities?

I scored as borderline on the online tests and the ones my GP & GMMH did, but I have light, sound, smell, taste and touch issues.

Look up ASRS which is an ADHD screener dir i adults. You only need to fill in the first section which is about 6 questions to get a score. The other questions are to let your doctor know what the difficulties you're having are, and can come in useful to see which areas to target or as a sort of comparison later after you've put strategies in place.

@FixingStuff @remembranceday212 I also found the school gate hard (I later realised several ‘friends’ used me for childcare- after they went to secondary school I never heard from the mums again)

I understand what you’re saying completely. I’ve often thought it was my bluntness or inability to enjoy (or at least fake enjoy) small talk. To some people, your differences will be loved.

Find your people, they’re out there. These are not your people.

This is a really helpful thread. I am the same. The primary school gate was especially challenging for me.

Sorry, unintentional strike-through.

I don't mean it harshly. Realistically, though, if you want to engage in some workplace chitchat, you need to learn the 'rules', which does mean masking to an extent. Though my godson put a lot of intellectual effort into figuring out the rules in his teens, and has had a far better and more sociable time at university than anyone, including him, expected, as a result. His mum and I would role play with him and perform body language for 'I'm interested tell me more' or 'I'm bored you've been talking too long' etc.

Obviously, it's up to you whether you feel this is worth it.

But you said quite a lot at the start of the thread about your difficulties in holding conversations, how you either want to understand every little thing that's being said by having it explained to you before you can let the conversation move on, or you come back with a 'mirroring story' in possibly inappropriate circumstances, or you sit mute -- I assume this may also make you difficult to have a conversation with, potentially?

I'm not necessarily going to risk asking a follow-up question of who struggles conversationally in case it elicits, as in the case of one autistic family member, a 15-minute monologue about whatever it was, from a person who is unable to read boredom/discomfort cues. My autistic godson, whom I adore, used to struggle with figurative language, and would get very uneasy if anyone used a metaphor he didn't understand, and would ask to have it explained.

In both cases, these were people I was very fond of and prepared to engage with, but the situation you're describing is in your workplace, not with people you're close to. If someone is also trying to get on with work, it's difficult to balance that with engaging with someone who's conversationally difficult.

But no one needs to invite you to volunteer information about your children, partner or holiday! It would be perfectly normal to join in a general conversation without a formal invitation to speak.

It's because they don't care but they don't have the manners to pretend they care. It is said that ND people lack social skills and social awareness, but those things aren't exclusive to ND people. A lot of NT lack them too. Either they genuinely think they are that interesting to talk to, or they just haven't been taught that it is rude to only talk about yourself all day.

There isn't much you can do about other people's deficiencies. Just be proud of yourself that despite having a social communication disability you still have better manners than supposedly "normal" people.