How do you overcome the feeling that you "don't belong&

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Maybe it's just a self-esteem issue. I work five days a week at a good job and go to university five days a week. I have my own apartment with four other roommates and enjoy spending time with them. Lately I've been more of a recluse. When I go out It feels like everyone else in the world is in a secret club and I'm not in. It makes for a lonely existence. I had a period where I was socializing well, showing good body language etc, but it's a lot of effort to keep that up. Also, think I might be having an existential crisis. Is that common for a 24 year old? Kinda depressing.

I've had that. I'm trying to get over it now, but it's so difficult, and I'm pretty sure I'm failing. I could just be thinking that though due to paranoia.

I've just been trying to force myself to socialise with new people. Sometimes they accept me, and that helps.

Having no real friends to hang out with or do anything with allows me to hide and I know I should get out more but I'm really enjoying not dealing with people so much. It just feels like too much work these days.

I find it essential that I spend time outside, so when I go out on my rides I usually end up seeking secluded places and engaging in solitary pursuits for the most part. For me the prospect of semi-urban adventure and discovering little hidden jewels appeals to me more than the butthurt of never being invited along which I finally gave up a long time ago. It's funny though, I noticed having those feelings of "what do you think you're doing here?" walking into gym class during my soph. year of high school

Every time I let myself think I fit in and get comfortable around others I usually get a reality check by having someone get totally upset with me for doing something I thought was helpful or at the very least benign. I wind up confused and upset as to what they're upset about and how to rectify it. It pretty much happens with everyone I know at some point or another so it alienates me from everyone. It happened again today and I'm upset once more. We really ought to be green with little antennas like the the WP logo. At least people would know we're not like them.

I can definitely relate. I've been living like that all my life. I guess we (or most of us with AS/autism) are pretty much destined to feel like that because we don't have the natural ability to belong. I've given that up. Once I have accepted the way I am, it feels much better to be alone. I even enjoy spending days by myself doing solitary things.

The story of my life ever since I became aware of issues of social interaction during adolescence. And I don't think I have the ability to give up on wanting to be social and to belong, at least not without giving up on myself entirely.

I know the feeling. Even when I was a little kid, I always felt like something wasn't quite right. I had different interests and skills than my peers, and I never knew how to act around them. I dealt with a lot of rejection and isolation when I was younger. People often talked to me like I was a dog or something else not human. I didn't know about my AS until I was 10 years old. Even though I'm college, have several friends, and am involved in social clubs, I still feel different from most of the people I meet. I don't have trouble talking to people, but I can never fully relate to them. Fixing this problem would be great, but it still evades me.

Same. And seriously it would really help me if I would just stop trying, stop believing... I want to destroy that part of me that keeps trying in vain. Oh well...

So glad to read I'm not alone.

We all feel that way I'm sure. Just the other day I was grabbing a bite and saw three middle aged guys having a great time chatting and it looked like they were old friends who were always having a great time together. And of course I thought, "why can't I have that kind of a friendship?".

But who knows. Maybe they were just relatives who had gotten together for the first time in months or years. Or just coworkers on a lunch break together.

It could be all these people we see who seem to belong to social clubs, may feel lonely a lot of the time and don't socialize nearly as much as they would like to and nearly as much, as we looking in from the outside, think they do.

I have to wonder if on those rare occasions where I'm in a restaurant with others or at a barbeque or whatever, if there isn't a lonely aspie watching me from a distance and wishing he had my social life...

"You feel unloved, Arthur? Welcome to the world. Everyone is unloved. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself." -Arthur (1980)