Do you feel like there's something fundamentally unlikeable about you?

[Astralis]

I don't really know why I'm posting. I've just spent the afternoon at a school fundraising fun day and I feel like shit. If you ever go to these things do you find that while nobody is actively unpleasant, you feel like you're just not welcome?

This is me now I’ve stopped masking. I just don’t have the energy or desire to mask but it makes job interviews very challenging indeed. Best of luck to us!

A lot of people dislike me and its become really apparent at mother and baby groups 🤣 I barely even speak but I definitely give off some kind of vibe. When I open my mouth it's worse , I'm blunt and when I talk I sound angry 🙈🙈 although I'm kind of stuck as I find dealing with other neurodiverse people very difficult some times. A good friend of mine is definitely nd but she has no idea and I find her such hard work sometimes. She's just all over the place, I can feel her emotions when I'm around her. She has this nervous energy. She's like a bottle of coke that has been shook and is ready to explode. There are just days that I'm unable to deal with that , even though I love her.

Yes.If I'm being myself I am 'weird' if I mask I seem ti be awkward. Out of the people who know me well, some like me 'inspite of' my issues and some don't like me much at all. The thing is I would love to have close friends and family but it doesn't seem achievable.

Omg following. this seriously resonates with my experience

Yes, I have even overheard someone saying it about me. It was years ago now, but I still feel the sting.

It's probably just that this is not the right group of people for you. I would likely be very similar in that situation (school fundraising event), because I feel like that attracts a very particular crowd and people behave in quite a specific way.

It's not necessarily about being ND (athough I suppose that won't make it easier), but maybe these are just not people who you have a lot in common with.

Try not to beat yourself up about being 'unlikeable' just because you didn't fit in with a specific group of people. Everyone is different, you will find other people who get you and like you.

I've read similar before. Apparently, it's a fight of flight thing, but more like a false alarm.
Some of the NTs that 'fight' (i.e. stay and chat to the ND person) eventually realise that it was unfounded. Makes sense to me!

To answer the OP, I get exactly what you said but now in my late 40s I have taken a 'so what' attitude. There's plenty of people I don't like, and still manage to remain polite when needed.

However I still have the odd wobble, and up until at leat my late 30s I've been on nights out where I've locked myself in the toilet for ages, panicking and looking for an excuse to leave, for instance.
Now I subject myself less and less to such situations and only do them as an occasional 'therapy' thing.

I used to feel like this. I went through school with very few friends, finding social dynamics impossible, and university wasn’t hugely better. I have almost no friends still from that time, compared to DH who has maintained strong friendships through his life.

I used to find small talk impossible, and had no confidence at all in myself as a likeable person. I made friends through work but groups were painful for me. Once I had kids I found playgroups very hard work indeed.

And yet as I’ve got older I’ve just got better at the whole shebang. Once I was diagnosed with ADHD and realised how much of my stress over the years has been RSD (and recognised my autistic traits too) I could understand a lot about myself, but I had already got better at it all.

A lot of it for me came down to caring less whether I was liked, more confidence in the good parts of myself - CBT and some good experiences helped, and also avoiding situations I knew I found really hard: like a PP I mostly avoid groups for example. I’m going away for a weekend soon with four other women, all of whom I like very much, and think of as close friends, but even just the preparatory WhatsApp messages are making me feel bad about myself because I feel I’m the least accepted person. I can feel it making me miserable.

I think I now realise that, for me, I need to value each interaction for what it is - the people I say a friendly hello to in the street are a nice way to feel seen, but won’t ever be best friends. The people I have a friendly chat with in the tea break at choir are nice adults to break up my day with but are unlikely to want to become my best mate, and that’s fine, because it’s not about me. And then, every now and then, I’ll meet someone I chime with, in random settings, and they might become a real friend.

I’ve just moved to a totally new area so I’ve had to repeat all this to myself a lot (and am going on this group weekend because I miss my friends despite my reservations). But I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get more from casual social interactions than we’ll ever get.

I think this is quite a divisive thing to say - putting NT people and 'autistics' (ugh!) into two separate groups.

I don't disagree with the study, and yes of course it is harder for autistic people to socialise because they don't see body language and facial expression in the same way . Of course that is going to affect the way they come across and interact.

It's obvious, but I just think it's a really unhelpful thing to point out and reinforce to an ND person who is struggling to socialise.

I am NT and I have plenty of friends who are neurodiverse. The way you said this makes it sound like there is something inherently wrong about people with autism that makes them unlikeable and that's just not true at all. They might just need a little extra help and understading, and time to find the right group of people they click with.

It was incredibly liberating to just throw off all societal expectations at just 13. I have very little patience or tolerance for the ridiculous NT way of conversing - they never say what they mean, they drop hints that I’m supposed to magically know what they mean, and because they’re so used to fudging the truth they can’t bring themselves to just say what they mean, need or want because it’s considered rude. This is especially prevalent in women.

I'm currently living with my closest friend and her family due to a cock up with rental properties; I’ll be here about 8 weeks give or take. I’m not used to having other adults around (single parent of 3), but my friend is as weird as I am despite being NT and her husband is AuDHD like me, so we’re all rubbing along quite nicely and the ability to sit ignoring each other whilst we read/doomscroll plus the actual silence when watching a movie is bloody brilliant.

I try to mask and I think I’m succeeding but obviously I’m not. DH says people can tell I’m putting it on. I think I’m smiling but he says I smile with my mouth only and the rest of my face doesn’t match. And I try to make small talk but it seems unnatural and forced. So my choices are either be weird and be hated, or try to be normal but still be hated because I come across as fake.

I have almost no friends still from that time, compared to DH who has maintained strong friendships through his life
DH used to have more friends, but once they realised we came as a pair they started to exclude him in order to exclude me. That’s how much people dislike me. Nowadays I avoid meeting his friends because I know I’m horrible and I don’t want it to reflect badly on him. And typing that last sentence has made me cry 😭

Yes, this applies to me, never fit in with girls at school, or at college, or at work. I moved into engineering in my mid-twenties and got on great with the men, but I was still on the periphery and didn't end up with any life long friends. Never had a group of friends and then had a baby in my late thirties and realised again through baby groups/school gate situations that women really don't like me. I also don't fit in with my family. I've just accepted it now, I'm pretty sure I'm ASD but no point trying to get a diagnosis at this point.

@onelittlefrog
Why are you saying urgh to the word autistics then using the term "people with autism"?
I'm autistic and "autistics" is a totally fine word to use. People with autism is not.
Don't come onto a board made especially for autistics and tell them their language is incorrect and they were wrong to share a factual study.

I can't believe I've just been pulled up by an NT about the language I use to define MY condition....
I'm not and never will be a "person with autism" I'm autistic. When my son and I are together, we are autistics.

This is really true I had a headteacher once refer to ss on the basis of ‘I can’t put my finger on it but something is wrong’ and with her notes of how she observed my ‘unusual behaviour in the playground’ (I didn’t talk much to other parents etc or looked stressed

This is very familiar to me.

I guess it's kind of like a version of "uncanny valley" for them? 🤔

Reading it all was so upsetting. I had done a SAR and honestly it destroyed any little bit of self confidence I had. I thought I’d masked ok and was functioning somehow. Maybe not on a NT level but to see it all with dates and times and how I’d acted/what I wore/etc was so so upsetting and embarrassing

Yep. Always. Always feel like I’m on the fringes. I feel like I’m doing/saying the right things but I really struggle to carry a conversation and ask questions about others so I think I come off as rude maybe? I try really really hard, but I think there just must be something a bit odd in the way I behave. It takes me a long time to build up relationships with people. I can see the same thing happening with DS (3.5) already and it breaks my heart for him.

(No formal diagnosis of ASD for either of us but very confident that we both, along with my dad, fit the criteria)

continuousbeep that’s all very familiar - I was diagnosed at 46 and said to my GP “what’s the point, what does it change?”.

true, it didn’t make massive changes to my life - but it’s meant I’ve managed to embrace the “I’m not a vile unlikeable person, I’m just me” which has brought me comfort.

I’ve also been able to leverage it in job applications wrt diversity criteria - it’s also made the PIP people give me a longer review… y’know - just in case my autism gets cured.

Oh my god, yes. I didn’t even realise that’s how these types of events make me feel until reading this but yes! I have no diagnosis but I’m looking into this currently because I’ve struggled in many ways my whole life and I want to understand myself better!

@onelittlefrog We are two different sets of people. You’ve got some nerve coming to this board as an NT person and telling us how to refer to ourselves.

@BananaShrimp maybe that's it. I mask a lot have always wondered why it doesn't work.

@onelittlefrog your post is quite patronising? We are different and that's ok. One group is not superior to the other so being different doesn't make us better or any less than nt people.