Sould we 'be ourselves' or hide?

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I think if someone doesn't want to be friends with you because of your rocking/stimming, they are not worthy of your friendship. They should care more about your personality, than stuff like that. I think the only time you should feel the need to change things like that is if you are in a movie or something because that could be distracting to the other patrons.

I'd rather show my vintage stripes than hide.

Yeah, I have to be myself, because I can't handle the consequences of not.

...And in response to the thing about hiding stims, here is a classic video of Bill Gates rocking:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTfWAZVd-Bo[/youtube]

I still remember how that classmate told me about her life and that she never really got along until she just "was herself" rather than acting as somebody else.
I also remember wanting to slap her face for that, because all I knew then was that "being myself" never, ever worked for me, and that everything that was "myself" about me was regarded as higly strange by other people.

I spent my life trying to be like others and all I know is: I didn't succeed well, I never had many friends, I still felt alienated, and furthermore I had serious depressions up to the point of being suicidal.
When I got older I noticed that I had tried so hard to be like others that I had given up many of my interests, and that there were many things that I did not do because it might disturb others in some way or the other, and I tried to "dig myself out".
Ever since I suspected what might be the cause for my strangeness I have analysed my daily life. I noticed that most social interactions in groups were followed by depressions. I also noticed that many of the things that I had given up were aspie things.

All I know is: Hding myself has made me anything but happy. Trying to act NT is the main cause for my depressions

Right now I'm trying to be myself more and to come to terms with my differences. I'm trying to find that balance where I can still interact with other people, but don't need to give myself up for that.

I don't think that you should act out every aspie trait, but hiding is, reviewing my own life, not a very healthy solution either.

I'd say the solution is the proper balance, that everybody needs to find himself.

Who else but yourself can you be?

As you said, you couldn't make friends either way that you were yourself; it's the same person.

^ It means she went to great effort to change her behavior, for no effect.

Always trust yourself over the "experts".

Hmm interesting question. As I'm also bisexual, I'm selective on who I share that with too...

I'm quite good at mimicry, so I've managed over the years to "morph" into an NT. I act like an NT when with other NT's.

I have three categories:

If I'm with chavs/muslims/foreigners: I am NT and straight.
Close friends: Autistic and Bi.
Work: Autistic and straight.

To be honest it's fine as it is. I have no problems at all with it!

If I'm around people I can get along with, and the subject happens to come up: "I'm bisexual, and mainly attracted to women."

Otherwise: "It's none of your goddamn business!"

(Just thought I'd throw my two cents in.)

I'm always myself.
However, for the sake of making life run a bit more smoothly, I've learned to copy other people's body language in public, fake eye contact (even make eye contact if I need to seem really-super-duper-sincere-and-connected!), use basic social scripts, and redirect my stims to forms that are less distracting to people.
I view it the same way as wearing slightly more formal clothes in public than around the house- it's just changing my surface, not the person underneath it all.