Unlikeable no matter what I do.

[Lonelywonely]

Does anyone else appear to be generally unlikeable no matter what they do?

I don’t truly know why people take to disliking me, especially in work situations. I try to be pleasant with colleagues while keeping my head down and getting on with the work without getting involved in drama or politics. I get good results at work and I do get praised by management quite a lot for innovation but I never tell people I work with about it (so no boating or gloating), only my dog at home and my mum. Am I supposed to do a bad job just to stop people bitching about me and trying to get me into trouble?

I am a closeted autistic and am convinced people can smell the neurodivergence, I certainly pass as NT through decades of masking. Is it possible just to be generally unlikeable?

*boasting

Maybe it's because you are keeping your head down so much that people assume you don't want to make friends?

I don't think work is the best place to make friends, I have lovely work friends but they stay at work.

Most my friends are from school or we played out as kids. They accept me for who I am (I'm diagnosed with ADD but I'm sure I'm actually autistic) and I accept them. I tend to make one good new friend every few years.

What are some examples of people not liking you?
Sometimes, it’s simply misreading of situations. Baggage and confirmation bias.

What makes you think that your colleagues dislike you?

I think there are some people who are almost universally liked and people will make an effort to befriend them. With other people, they have to make an effort to befriend people. It sounds like you're giving the impression you don't want to make friends by keeping your head down and not engaging with others. Do you ever invite people to lunch or suggest to a few people about going out after work? Or maybe to start out by asking people casual questions, like what they're doing at the weekend etc (you have to be a bit careful with questions as I know I can seem a bit intrusive at times as I overdo it - although I am genuinely interested in people's lives!).

Are the majority of work conversations drama or politics? Because you can always jump into the conversation when the topic changes on to something a little more neutral.

Because if you spend the day with your head down and being pleasant ie. only talking about the weather, then you're probably not showing yourself as a personable colleague.

Agree with others, what makes you think people don't like you? I don't go to work to make friends, it's actually quite irritating when colleagues want to chat endlessly and arrange social activities instead of actually 'working' when at work. Of course I am polite and courteous but I am at work ... to work.

What sort of relationship would you like to have with your colleagues?

You say that you mask at work (which must be exhausting- I'm sorry you feel you have to do this) but you think your colleagues know that you're neurodiverse. Perhaps they feel like you're trying too hard and not being yourself/ genuine or aloof? They probably don't dislike you, more likely they just don't know you very well.

The drama and the politics are the only things that keep me interested during the working day. If you weren’t engaging with me on them, then I probably wouldn’t have much to talk to you about, unless you had a range of funny stories or jokes to keep me amused, or an interesting set of hobbies. Doesn’t mean that I’d find you unlikeable, but I wouldn’t like you either. My friends at work are the people I enjoy spending time with. You’d just be a colleague who I deal with occasionally on an entirely professional basis, that’s all. Nothing wrong with that.

Lack of authenticity is usually what makes people unlikeable.
I understand masking - I do that and mirror, too, but I have generally found that people will like you a lot more once you stop giving a shit what others think and just start being yourself.

People can smell the trying-hard, the pick-me dance, the secrets you keep.

It took me until I got to the wrong side of 35 to understand this. Now I'm much more Marmite - I've gone from people who were polite but just not that into me to a handful who love the balls I display in being my quirky self, and those who just generally dislike me as a person.

In dropping the mask you will need to be prepared for the latter - that some people will simply not like you.

It's a complex dilemma, not disclosing your autism. People can generally tell there's something "off" but not what it is. It makes them uneasy. They will often put it on you "I feel you don't like us" rather than acknowledging it as their own response to you missing a thousand miniscule, unspoken social/communication "strokes" they are giving out. They are not even often fully aware of this; they are communicating with you on a deep and unspoken level and you are continually, unknowingly, rejecting them. It's hurtful to them and they project this hurt back onto you as hostility from you. I know you don't mean this and probably can't even perceive it. It's also hugely anxiety provoking to swim through this soup of need and hurt blindfolded so to be honest it's best not to think about it too much!

In my view it's in your interest to stay closeted as the downsides of being treated as (what most people believe) autists are, are larger than being treated as a bit of a dick. On MN people will not take this view generally because there are more parents of aspies and they have taken this option away from their kids so they will argue against it. This is understandable, but not relevant to your situation, so you don't need to get bogged down in it.

I say this because this problem, of missing the strokes and not communicating on this unspoken level, can't be solved by disclosing your autism at work. It can only really be resolved in long term personal relationships where you can speak in your own "love language" or whatever and compensate in other areas. All humans do this in their own way have asymmetrical wells of competency so it's totally possible for you to do this too. So don't overinterpret difficulties with shallow, casual work relationships and think it means something serious about your relationships with friends and lovers.

In my view, neurotypicals have such high and complex needs in social communication that it's almost impossible for them to surmount it without a lot of long term exposure to different modes.

Sorry about the mistaken strikeout; I should have previewed.