Hi. I am new here, posted on some other very interesting threads and figured I should at least introduce myself.
My name is Kevin. I am 25 years old.
I figured that all I had was social anxiety until I just recently learned about AS. I have always had difficulty interacting with people. I have only ever had one or two friends at a time, but even then the friendship seemed to have to revolve around some sort of activity. I never wanted to hang out or chill with anyone. I feel that I needed the activity there so I could interact with people through the activity rather than directly with the person.
I went to private school up through 6th grade when my family hit some financial difficulty and my parents decided to home school me. I had always done exceptionally well in school, and still do when I don't get bored or tired of doing the work. I remember reading books in between class because my work was done and looking up at the end of a chapter and being in the middle of the next class.
I had always attributed my shyness to not having much social interaction from 7th grade through high school.
However, now thinking back I wonder if that was really the case. I played on our home school group basketball team, most definitely the worst player there, but had fun playing the game. I never socialized with anyone there. There are a few that I would be able to recognize if I saw them now, but I have no idea what their names are.
We had regular get togethers with other homeschoolers where we did crafts, went on field trips, and such. My mother became friends with the mom of another family and they are the only ones that I still interact with. Even then I have really only become friends with one of the 4 kids in the family. The one I became friends with is 4 years younger than me rather than the one nearly my age or the one slightly older. He is the only person that I could call a friend. We had similar interests and started playing role playing games together.
He has invited me and my brother to go with him and his brothers to a party several times and I always seem to come up with reasons why I can't go, I am tired, I don't feel well. I believe that I actually was physically reacting and getting upset to my stomach and tired anticipating what would happen. I sometimes feel that way just being invited to come over if I am involved in something.
I never know what to say in a conversation so usually just sit there quietly unless the subject is one of interest to me. Then I tend to want to just dump a bunch of facts on them. I bet that makes me look like I am trying to impress them with my knowledge, but really that is the only way I know to be involved in the conversation. No clue on how to small talk.
I have had a number of hobbies over the years. I usually focus all my spare time on a hobby or two. The constants through the years has been video games and role playing games. The others have just soaked up any available spare time in between doing those.
Legos, model rockets, sports card collection (even though I cared nothing about the sports or the players), collectible card games, role playing games, video games, computer programming, table top strategy games, toy soldier painting, any thing Japanese related, chanbara films, anime, manga. I would spend entire afternoons sorting my cards by card number, then the next day resort them alphabetically, then by team, etc. I would have to finish my sorting before I did anything else. I arrange all my anime and manga alphabetically on my shelves. It might be because of my several years working at libraries though.
After reading about stimming on these boards I recognize several things that I used to do when I was younger. I recall shaking my hands with my wrists bent at a 90 degree angle to my arm. I still fidget around a lot with leg bouncing, finger tapping, foot shaking, toe wiggling, pen twirling, body rocking, lip and cheek chewing, beard stroking. I like pacing and often find myself wandering aimlessly around the house. It never dawned on me that others don't do that sort of thing.
I don't like going to new places. I love Japanese food and want to try a couple of restaurants nearby, but I usually can't get myself to stop by the store and always end up driving by. Places that I have been to recently are much easier to go to.
I have not gone to the barber in probably many years, instead I grew my hair out long, put them in dreadlocks, buzzed my head into a crew cut.
I used to wear the same clothes for like a week at a time in 3rd-4th grade. I still want to do so, but know that is typically frowned on so make sure to not wear the same clothes two days in a row. When I am just sitting at home like on the weekends I typically will wear the same clothes. I have a small group of clothes that I like wear all the time and will wear them till they are threadbare. There are some clothes that I just won't wear because they are too tight or itchy.
I don't like shopping, so unless it is something that I need, I often go without.
I have difficulty looking someone in the eye. I learned that you are supposed to do so when preparing for interviews, but it makes me very uncomfortable and prone to start fidgeting and forgetting what I am going to say. I also think that I end up staring at their eyes for too long.
I took that AQ test and got aspie value 127, NT value 52, very likely aspie.
So what do you think? Please feel free to ask questions about anything.
You are very brave to have gotten this far through all that drivel.
Sorry about that long data dump on you all.
18 May 2007, 10:06 am
