That moment where you realize

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that you aren't as socially adept as you once thought.

I think I just had that moment, which is kind of surprising considering the fact that I have known for years (age 5 at the least) that I was "different". I am only realizing how different now. It is an eerie feeling.

I work at a grocery store. Minimum wage and whatnot. I am a cashier...this is a position which, needless to say, requires a lot of socialization. I find the work exhausting which is odd considering that I don't do too much. I scan items, bag them, put them into the shopping carts, and fetch cigarettes. I am also expected to be a freaking mind reader and know what kind, colour, size, and quantity of cigarettes any given customer wants...but that is a different matter entirely. Allow me to add: I f--king hate smokers that don't know how to freaking specify. Screw them with a rusty spoon.

Anyway, my job. As as cashier I am required to greet and essentially make idle chit chat with those that come into my line. It is considered rude not to. That has never been my forte...greeting people and making small talk. So this has been challenging as well as awkward...which is nothing unusual for me. But yesterday I noticed something for the first time. The ease with which others seem to do this. How NATURAL it appears. Maybe it isn't natural at all...I cannot really say. But it looks very natural. Watching the other cashiers interact and instinctively smile and "get" the customer's jokes...it had me in awe. And it made me a bit sad because for the first time I was fully aware of just how bad I am at that.

Seeing them be UNDERSTOOD by the customers made me feel this sick kind of envy. Resentment. Whatever...I don't know. The customers...they laugh at me. Never with me. So do the cashiers for that matter. It has always been like that. I make a joke, everyone thinks I am serious. I'm serious, everyone thinks I am either joking or being sarcastic...or "getting smart". But with the other cashiers...this does not seem to be an issue. I WANT that. I want that so badly! To just be able to TALK to people and not have some issue or misunderstanding.

I am also aware, now, that the other cashiers have been making jokes about me. Which, again, is nothing unusual for me but...still. It kind of sucks. Seeing them laughing with each other and casting side glances my way. I feel like an idiot for ever thinking that they liked me. I also feel conceited for assuming something like that. Like...who am I to feel like I belong to a group? To assume that I have been accepted?

Methinks I've rambled enough for one day.

I don't have much to add, suffice to say that I relate. It's one thing to be blissfully unaware of how you are perceived, but it's another thing to be suddenly made aware of it. I think I had that realization in high school, when I spent most lunches just walking around by myself. I thought everyone had these problems, but then I began to notice that no one else spent their time alone like I did, even the ones who I thought were "awkward". Even they had friends, but I didn't.

Right, syrella, and I was always aware of that to an extent. It is just that now...suddenly it has sort of "clicked" for me. I wasn't blissfully unaware so much as missing bits of the picture, so to speak. I always felt different...but I never felt alien. Not entirely and never for long. Now I feel like....not only do I not belong, not only am I not meshing with my peers and others around me, but that I may NEVER belong and these may be things that I will never learn to do with any semblance of comfort or understanding.

Hi Blackcat. I hated being a cashier too. It just wasn't for me. However, my dad worked in a grocery store & managed to survive dealing with cashiering for 25 years. He even got away with poor eye contact if any. He's never given anyone good eye contact, & he doesn't even know what I look like. I have to address him first. He may have face blindness, but I'll bet he never remembers what anyone looks like because he doesn't look at them. His other job there was keeping the deli department clean & well stocked. He excelled caring for his products & making sure that everything was fresh & appealing to his customers. Dad retired after 25 years & now focuses full time on his SI, antiques. It's possible for someone with Aspergers to work in a retail environment. if it's not something you wish to do long term, I hope you find something else that is more comfortable for you.

I think you might find yourself more at home if you meet people who aren't like that. Being a cashier probably isn't for you, just like being a waitress wasn't for my Aspie friend. I know that once I got out of high school, a lot of the pressure was taken off of me. Suddenly it was okay again to be a loner and not have a bunch of friends. In college, I found a group of girls who were into science and engineering. While I still had trouble and still felt like an outsider, at least I had something with which to connect to them with... and somebody to eat dinner with, something I'd never experienced! One of them even became my room mate later on. Mind you, she herself was very Aspie-like... she's getting her PhD in astrophysics right now, too.

Maybe there's some sort of niche that you could find for yourself?

I've been having several self-realizations lately, myself. That hasn't been easy and it's making my self-esteem sink lower and lower, sending me deeper into depression, and provoking my anxiety. I'm seeing a psychiatrist next month and my only hope is that they can help me.
I feel for you.

I told my best friend this morning that I'd done a couple of on-line Aspergers quizes and the results were that I probably had Aspergers. She never even flinched or said 'Really, I would never have thought...'. She just said 'OK'. I'd love her to tell me more, but she's too nice to say anything negative about me. If I raise it again she'll think I'm obsessing about it (she'd be right).

I never believed that I was a human in the first place. For a while I believed that I was a dog (a were-dog?), and later on I believed that I was a ghost. Nowadays I believe that I'm a fairy/changeling, and it's quite odd to find a group of you who are so similar to me.

But as far as my coworkers hating me, I know it will happen even before it does. I know ahead of time they'll like me for the first several weeks, due to my impressive acting abilities. But sometime between the third week and the third month, what I call "The Change" happens, and the bullying, excluding, and laughing at my expense begins like clockwork. Since I know to expect it, it doesn't surprise me, but it's extremely depressing nevertheless.

"The Change" is inevitable and mysterious, an immutable force of nature like the tides, yet nobody believes me that it exists.

I believe it exists. It happens to me with every job, every group I try to be a part of. It's as if everyone thinks the superficial me is just great, and then the closer they get to having an idea of who I really am, the less they like me. I constantly analyse myself, trying to figure out what it is that makes people feel this way about me. Unfortunatly, a couple of reasons I have come up with are not things I am willing to change. I don't just go along with the "status quo". I will not agree to ideas just because everyone else does. I do not feel a need to conduct my life like the majority. I am not afraid to stick up for the unpopular, if I believe that it is right. I am not afraid to question things and ideas that some people seem to see as sacrosanct. I have tried to "gentle" my ideas and assertions for easy consumption by the general public, and it has helped a little, but I despise sugar-coating. On the up side, there are a few people who tell me that they admire my willingness to speak my mind and find me refreshingly straight-forward and down-to-earth! And in reply to having the realization that my social abilities might not be as great as I thought (relatively speaking); Yes, it happens every few weeks or months, and for some reason, it's still a bit of a shock, and it still hurts.

Hi blackcat
everything you said just sounds like me but I never worked in retail I worked in a care home for the elderly,ever since I can remember I've always known that there was something different about me compared to everybody else, I never knew what it was and I felt incomplete but the day I got diagnosed with A.S was when everything started making sense to me.I don't have any friends but wish I did maybe one day I might who knows???

I don't have much to add, but that is a great expression.

A website that I've been going to for almost a decade had a worldwide get together recently and I was excited to go. After all, if I can't socialize with these people, who can I? So I get there and I immediately start to freeze up and panic. I can't say anything. After that, I came to realize that I have no social skills at all and never will. I think it's important to accept the imperfections you have. Now that I know that, I won't be set up for failure like that again. And that's a good thing.

One of the worst jobs for autistic people is cashier. Sadly, it's often all that's available. I did my time as a cashier, and got through it by utilizing a few coping mechanisms:

1. Say the exact same thing or set of things to every customer.
2. Don't panic when they say something you don't understand-just agree. Smile and nod. They are talking just to talk; the content doesn't matter.
3. Don't always assume YOU are the one with the problem, if there is one. Most people have problems worse than yours.
4. Don't always assume everyone who talks to you is a jerk. That's just as bad as the other, and you'll come off as defensive and off-putting.
5. Entertain yourself in small ways, to keep from shutting down. I once spent an entire day finding a reason to say the same random phrase to every. single. customer. That phrase was, "Let's make it a double!"
6. Memorize a set of stock phrases and responses. I learned most of mine from talking-head psychiatrists I have seen over the years.
7. Read guides for job interviews, and act like that all the time.
8. Go home and massage the cramps out of your face.
9. If you have that moment where you realize you've made a horrific and embarrassing social mistake three hours after your shift, or the next day, or a week later, FORGIVE YOURSELF IMMEDIATELY. It matters much, much less than you think it does.
10. Set aside a small portion of your earnings, even if it's a dollar, to buy a reward for yourself for getting through another pay period.

If you still have the job after six months, you can start to relax. Every workplace is a cesspit of gossip, backbiting, and is just generally a Mengelian social experiment of disastrous proportions. Remember that you don't HAVE to be the way everyone else is, and you probably shouldn't. Being able to empathize and read facial expression doesn't make people any happier. Happiness comes from doing the best YOU can, in the way that YOU are capable of.