If you're still a social misfit when you're a grown up

[diggitydog]

Anyone out there not outgrown the painful teenage social misfit stage? Past the age of hiding behind being into cool bands or alternative clothing but still dreadfully lost and confused by the rules?

And how do you make sure your kids grow up with more confidence than you?

I'm INFJ and got a score of 37 on the AQ test. I also have a much younger sibling with ASD who was told "but Elend does that too!" when he was having a hard time at school, to try and make him feel better. I'm almost 32 so I don't see the point in getting diagnosed now but it does make me feel not so bad that there are others like me on MN.

Also did anyone else audibly laugh when they read

"11-21 is the average result that people get (many women average around 15 and men around 17)"

I'm finding it so funny and I don't know why 😂😂

I remember being surprised how “low” the normal number is and it suddenly making sense why I think most people are like a different species.

I know a few people with aspergers and like me on the borderline and I often feel more at ease around them than normal people.

Smeaton

I decided long ago to embrace my misanthropy, its easier to accept how I am and seek out like minded anti social types.

This made me smile in recognition. Are we long lost twins?

I tend to gravitate towards others who look equally awkward and sullen, it usually works. I like intelligent, geeky, alternative types the best. Theyre just so interesting.

INTJ here. I got 24 on the AQ test. I’m sure I got 23 the last time I did it a few years ago so clearly I’m getting worse.

I’m worse I think because I look like a normal person. People are fooled. It’s only when they speak to me that it dawns on them that I’m rather odd!

My brothers are autistic and I have been referred for assessment. I think it's quite likely I will get a diagnosis TBH.

I've always been a weird, and was ostracised by everyone when I was young. It really upset me but I pretended not to give a fuck.

Now I'm a middle aged mother I really don't give a fuck, and strangely everyone seems to want to be my friend People seem to mistake my attitude for self confidence

I'm not bothered for myself, but make the effort to be sociable for DD so she is not from that weirdo family. Fortunately, she does not seem to have inherited my weirdo genes and is very popular.

I've always been a misfit and I was diagnosed with autism as an adult on the NHS. My DS is autistic as well. I score 43 on the AQ test.

Although I have plenty of acquaintances, I don't have friends. I'm close to my partner and family and that is enough for me. I don't have the need for social or emotional support, or validation from others, so I've learned not to care so much about having friends. I used to be embarrassed about it but I think I only used to want friends to be able to appear NT, not because I actually valued their company. I think I would find them an inconvenience and often too demanding. I enjoy my own company and that of my close family and I don't feel loneliness.

My DD has recently been diagnosed ASD. There is a lot that reminds me of me when I was a child in her. There’s a lot that she is different with too, obviously because we are different people.

I have wondered about assessment for me since her diagnosis TBH. I’ve become less of a misfit with age I think or maybe just less bothered about being one I don’t know. I understand a LOT more of ‘the rules’ than I did when I was a kid, I was very confused by a lot of things when I was a kid/teen. I did the AQ a year ago and got 37 so trending down.

I used to be embarrassed about it but I think I only used to want friends to be able to appear NT, not because I actually valued their company. I think I would find them an inconvenience and often too demanding.

I relate to this. At school, I was bullied quite badly and they used to say I had no friends. It was true, at least, no female friends. It upset me until I realised I didn’t want any! I didn’t like the same things as them, I found them boring, tiring, dull.

I have a few friends now but they’re all other oddballs too. They’re still mainly men though.

I remember being very upset that it was ‘cool’ to not engage with education as that seemed to totally go against the individual’s own interests... I have heard people explain why this phenomenon now and so I understand those explanations but I cannot relate to it at all still....

All the rules about how to say things, what things to like, what things to not like, how those things changed, I just felt constantly confused and upset that everything I did was wrong and I didn’t know how to do it right or why it was wrong in the first place. So many rules even down to what carrier bag you were meant to have your PE kit in!

I got much happier when I just gave up trying to guess all the rules and just accepted I liked my own things for my own reasons....

I also find office work painful. It’s hard to describe. I need freedom and flexibility otherwise I kind of collapse in on my emotions.

This is so well-described, Cats. I get exactly what you mean.

I've got that fierce independent, freedom-seeking streak too. Always have had. It marked me out as a non-conformer growing up so that, combined with being gay, made the teens a bit tricky to say the least. If someone told me to do something, I wouldn't do it. But if I landed on it on my own, wild horses would not stop me from doing it.

I found social situations impossibly stressful, especially school, sixth form, university groups. And yet I was able to go to gay clubs and bars, on my own, in my late teens and 20s. Sometimes I'd go just to be in the room, at 2am, when most quote-unquote 'normal' people were in bed. Sometimes I'd dance, on my own, or with a handy stranger. Sometimes I'd acquire some - ahem - energetic short-term companionship. But all of it entirely on my own terms. Anything that looked like turning into a group thing, I ran away from.

I loathed working in an office. It felt so restrictive. I couldn't handle the fact that I couldn't just get up and go home at 2.30pm if I'd finished everything I had to do. And I couldn't deal with the office politics, endless email bantz and enforced jollity of the social set-up. In over a decade of office working, I made precisely one friend.

It's easier now. I get to choose my own hours and I work with people in a physical setting, one-to-one, for an hour max. I have that therapist's knack of being able to appear warm and welcoming without giving away a single thing about my own life.

I don't seek out social situations. I find them stressful. I'm terrible at small talk, chitchat. I find it pointless and I get bored very fast. I can't hide that feeling so people think I'm being supercilious and rude.

I just did the AQ test and got 42.

I didn’t have any friends for the first 3 years of high school too. Then I tried to fit in and ended up getting drawn into all kinds of things I never felt comfortable with and was aware that the people weren’t really my friends anyway, they were kind of laughing at me but I didn’t want to go back to being the person that had no friends...

Plausible exactly. I don’t understand pointless rules. At my old workplace, I asked if I could do long days and have a Wednesday off because my DS has medical appointments (he’s partially deaf, it’s an ongoing issue). I got told “not until 6 months”. I asked why and got told because new employees aren’t allowed. I pointed out I passed all my training with extremely high marks, had demonstrated competence and would be doing pretty much the same hours. They still said no because “that’s not what we do. You have to be here 6 months.”

I quit.

I find things like that restrictive, and it enraged me. I’m currently doing a course with the intent of possibly working for myself, as I really hate feeling “owned” by another. Like you, on my own terms it’s fine, but feeling controlled sets off a reaction that fills me with rage and dread.

AQ of 36 and INTJ - I feel like a huge misfit, but in the sense that everyone else is 'odd' and that there should be more people like me. I just don't understand some of the rules/societal rituals that people go through. The thing is, I don't look like a misfit (obsessively purchased and kept every copy of UK Vogue for over a decade) so people think I'm really aloof rather than confused by societal norms.

Gosh INTJ here too. This is such an interesting thread.

I was fairly normal as a teen and even early 20s. Never much enjoyed small talk but was eloquent and chatty. Now I won’t even use the village shop unless I have to because they recognise DD and I panic at making pleasantries. I am the type of person who will go four miles rather than one to avoid someone I sort of know. I’m an idiot. I make DH collect parcels from neighbours, I avoid phone calls. I hope DD is going to be more normal than me but I can’t guarantee it. Just got to keep forcing myself to take her places and out with friends when I can I guess.

I'm not sure how good the test I did is, but I got ISTJ, which sounds about right having read about it!

I got 17/50 on that AQ test. Safely not ASD.
So I'm nothing special but still very weird.

Ha ha! Being weird qualifies as special usually...

I just wanted to add that I'm not in any way on the Aspergers or ASD spectrum - I think there are different ways that people feel different IYKWIM. I don't consider myself socially awkward in any way, and I don't even consider myself 'weird', maybe unusual though. In some ways I can appear almost hyper-normal and have fabulous social skills, darling (though I find it them sometimes tedious to use unless its spontaneous!) However I still struggle with the conventional, and have never led a conventional life. I still consider myself a "mis-fit" in many ways in society and this, allied with my sensitivity, sense of excitement and lack of comfidence, has definitely made me vulnerable at times. I think it can be quite a complex question therefore ...

I was fairly popular in school and late teens, although always around the edge rather than in the middle. I got through by copying others... If my friends like a pop group so did I, if my friends went clubbing so did I.

I'm struggling now though. Just turned 40, I don't really have any friends, I've found my friendship seems to have a sell by date for others. I think I'm fun and quirky but must get tiresome at some point cause people drift off and stop ringing. I am very happy pottering about at home and find work exhausting as its full of social interaction. I come home on a Friday and sometimes won't leave the house till Monday morning. Working full time with people exhausts me.

Both my sons have been diagnosed with autism and so home is where we all feel we can be ourselves and not have to pretend. My youngest son is very sociable just like I was but struggles in other areas. I'd love to be assessed although I'll prob never get round to it.

My dad is the same as me and my boys and my nephew has been diagnosed recently too.

I feel like I'd like to have friends and not feel like everyday is such a effort with people but in reality people are far too needy it's too much like hard work.

Great thread I'm off to do those tests...

I like the idea of people more than actual other people.

My AQ test was 4.

I just found one and did it online. I answered about 50 questions.