How much do you think you stand out as different to others?

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I hope this post doesn't offend anyone. It's just that I keep noticing, especially with the aspie movie threads, that most of the people on here seem to feel that they blend into society pretty well. Otherwise, they'd not have issues with the characters that are portraying AS in movies, because they're too 'stereotypical', or 'exaggerated'.

I guess what I'm getting at is that I wonder how self aware that most of us on the spectrum really are about the way others see us, and how we look to the outside world? With the aspies that I've met IRL, it was pretty obvious that something was a bit 'off' about them upon meeting them. When I look at videos on line by other aspies, I can see that even if I didn't know a thing about them, or about ASD I would automatically know something was different about them, The ones that I find ironic are the ones that are doing critical movie reviews about how the character in a movie about AS was way more affected, or exaggerated than them.

I know that my frequency is off compared to most in society. I know that I come across as different, and that in many ways I am stereotypically aspie, otherwise, I'd not have qualified for a diagnosis. It's not a good, or bad thing, it just is.

I'm not really different from my same aged peers around the inner city of Langley. A lot of people my age, around my area are Mods, Rockers and hippies.

I think it kind of depends. Lots of people seem "off" for all kinds of reasons...sometimes they just haven't had their coffee yet. I've had people tell me they didn't believe me that my Eldest was on the Spectrum, and the kid is ultra-symptomatic. He does OK about eye contact and for some reason that seems to equate to not-autistic to them. He probably can only make eye contact because he gets very little data from it so it doesn't overwhelm him, and he has a lot of visual disturbances that he's looking through to see things...he isn't really making the level of eye contact he appears to be.

Never mind his odd gate, voice distortion, panic attacks....yeah, just a typical NT walking down the road.

There are times I see someone who is so obviously an Aspie and I want to go over and meet them, but that's generally creepy for them so I don't. It's tough because they don't often give you the same kind of social openings other people might and there isn't any way to know if that's because they don't want to meet people or because they just have a different way of doing it. Ah, well.

I can blend in with my friends, but generally not the rest of society

I actually have no idea. I'd really like to know. I've been told different things by different people. For instance, I got called a 'f*****g weirdo' by a stranger today, but when I mention it to family and friends they'll tell me I come across as normal because they don't want me to feel self-conscious.
On the few occassions I've seen myself on film, I think I've come across as very, very odd, particularly in the way I speak.

I was going to start this same topic. I've always thought I could blend in and come across as an NT, but now I think I am wrong. It has made me self conscious but not lowered self esteem or anything, cause there is nothing I can do to change it and I don't think I'd want to. I've been called weird (amongst other things), but I don't think I can get an honest/unbiased opinion out of anyone as to how I come across.

I am much different and I have always felt that way. I don't dress like anybody else, I dress how I feel like, which is a hoodie at all moments to hide from the sun. When I hung out with some other people thye get confused to why I wasn't aggressive at all. I also don't connect with people I have know for two years. I know I am different and other people know also. I don't know how they know though.

When people do notice me, I stand out. Otherwise, I tend to be more on the overlooked side of things.

Whatever my dx is, I was told by an Aspie I was the strangest person he ever met!! !

I sometimes ask others about it, and they all just chuckle and then try to change the subject, NT's know it's rude to say that. I wouldn't say that to someone either, but other than the Aspie guy, I never met anyone else that was especially weird, lol.

what part of MI are you from?

I am from GR and I saw that it said Michigan.
I was just curious.
Not trying to be weird

I never felt that I was presenting outwardly as "different", but everyone says I always have indeed appeared different in body language, and in how I say things. The only way I see my differences is to be told. I don't equate my personality to anyone on TV or in movies, who is acting to have Autism of any realm of the spectrum. I don't have a monotone voice, so it's more how I join into conversations on a tangent that nobody sees coming, I guess. Physically I look normal, I have an excellent vocabulary, and I dress in style (for someone 20 years younger, that is).

Obviously I knew I was seen as different or weird, but I just accepted it at face value, and didn't know WHY, or what I was doing that made it that way.

Charles

Here is a blog post I made on this topic. It's long so I won't repost here.

I wasn't diagnosed until the age of 49. I've known all my life that I wasn't like everybody else, but I made my best effort to fit in as well as I could and behave enough like everyone else to get along. It seemed to work reasonably well, most people didn't treat me like a total freak, and I managed to skate by on the fringes of the peer group - not ostracized, but never fully accepted, either. That was okay, I didn't have the social skills or desires to really be in the middle of the 'popular' group.

Once I entered the work force, I got on okay with my immediate peers, but the more Alpha-management type personalities absolutely hated me - I couldn't keep a job for more than about 15 months at a stretch, even though I was recognized as highly talented in my field. I had a few friends, all of whom were social misfits like myself.

Shortly before my career finally fell apart once and for all, I met a woman at work whom I later married. After I'd been fired from that job and was puzzling over what happened - I had been 'thrown under the bus' by a couple of coworkers I had thought (in my Aspergian naivete) were rather good friends, at least people I trusted. My wife then told me "I'm not surprised by that at all. When I first started working there, every time you left the room they went on about how weird you were." I had known she didn't particularly like these people, but until then I didn't know why. Point being, I think that sort of thing has probably gone an around me all my life and I was just oblivious to it. So I don't think its really possible for an Aspie to know for sure how we appear to those around us.

No matter how 'normal' we think we're acting, we are missing the capacity to recognize a lot of nonverbal social cues, so how can we ever know if we're mimicking all the right ones at the right times? How can you know the people around you aren't sending each other "What a dork!" messages to each other that you don't even notice?

When I was diagnosed, there were a few people I'd know for many years who would say things like: "Really!? Autism? You've always seemed so normal to me."But what that actually means, I've come to realize, is: "Autism? That's retardation - you never seemed ret*d to me."

The people who've known me well for a long time didn't seem shocked at all. It was as if they've always known there was something wrong with me, but didn't have a name for it, so they just said nothing. I can't count the number of people over the years who, trying to carry on a conversation with me while I swayed from side to side and stared at the floor, asked me "Do you have to do that all the time? What are you, Autistic?" Funny thing is, when they asked, they were kidding. When I answered "Yeah, I think so - lil bit." I wasn't.