Do you find people your age intimidating?

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It depends on my first impression of the person.

I find them intimidating online, too. That's one of the reasons it's hard for me to make friends, because even if someone my age messages me on something I get a lot of anxiety and don't know how to talk to them. Even if they're also autistic.

I've also had people online my age tell me I'm intimidating though and it confuses me. In a LGBT group I was in when I was 16 people constantly told me I was intimidating (not like, aggressive intimidating), and it was oddly kind of nice, and kind of an ego boost because I wasn't the only intimidated one. lol

I think that for me, a lot of people my age (40s), who i used to go to school with or who i used to hang out with.
All have moved on in life.

Many have moved away from the island that i live on (because they hate the island, the finance industry or the people)
Many are married with kids, so have no time for me.
Many are caught up with their work.

This leaves people in their own groups. And if your not part of their groups (i.e. the surfers, the soccer players, the rugby players etc).

As well as having ASD, I also had several other events during my life that also displaced me from friends, or broke our friendships. Things such as drug addiction (for a couple of years), going to Uni (for 3 years), getting involved with and married to crazy religious person (4 years) and several years grieving after losing my older and only brother to a drug overdose (took several years to get over), as well as some other health problems such as un-diagnosed low testosterone disorder and ASD.

So loads of things displaced me. And it has taken me a few years to rebuild a small social circle.
Phew, I guess it is a miracle that i am still alive!

When I was younger the kids I got along with were usually 1-2 years younger than me. I remember when I got assessed again I told the lady that, and she got very weird about it and just told me I needed to try to befriend people my own age, so I stopped talking to people who weren't the same age as me for awhile.

That seems super weird of the therapist, I was by default usually 1-2 years older then my classmates because I repeated kindergarten because the teacher thought I seemed too immature, and that I wasn't ready yet to start first grade.

Also my middle school and high school(in the same building) had some mixed classes with 8th graders and such, so there was plenty of interaction between kids of different ages. There were some in 8th grade kids in my HS band class. I guess the were treating 8th grade as kind of pre-highschool at that school.

There are a lot of issues with the way I was assessed that time, so now I don't really pay attention to the stuff she told me. She acted like I was creepy for getting along with kids a bit younger than me, which now confuses me because she was supposed to work with kids who have developmental issues, who often get along with younger kids... She worded it like I wasn't even trying to befriend people my age and like she didn't believe I actually got along with younger kids.

I also was almost held back in Kindergarten and was put in special ed in the first grade because of developmental issues, and got along with kids younger than me even then. I'm pretty sure she was aware of me being in special ed and having issues like that because she asked for my records from the school district I was in.

No, not intimidating. But people your age share many of your experiences and certain traits, so there's a lot of competition initially. For example, career, salary, dating... Then after the mid-30s people start caring less because they realize not everyone will or wants to follow the same path.

When I was younger I was simply uninterested in my age group. I found them immature and too concerned with trivialities.

I find people between the ages 16 and 24 to be intimidating in real life, but not online.

Not intimidating...but alien, if they are mainstream people with mainstream lives. I don't have much in common with that. People my age are expected to be not at all like me. Fortunately, I'm an artist who works mostly with other eccentrics of all ages.

Last edited by Benjamin the Donkey on 15 Feb 2021, 10:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Only ALOT of NT people & my sister. People here on WP are easier to talk to, I feel comfortable with you guys & I can be myself.

I have an over 29 years of age rule of thumb; that is it can be interesting to relate to people in the 29 to 40 age-range - an age-range which many see as that optimum age-range.

As for whether of not I'm intimidated by people my own age (mid-to-late 50s age range), I voted as unsure in this disc. thread's poll.

You are 19.
It is in your job description to be stressed out at that time.

At that age, people are often very competitive and their 'emotional brain' generally has dominance.

Do you find *me* dull and boring?

I am not intimidated by you, but I found your approach relatively aggressive.

I always found talking to people much older than me easier to get on with.
But apart from age, the intelligence of the person makes a difference, also.

Agreed.
When people are over 25, their bain is fully developed and less influenced by the more emotional parts of the brain that generally are dominant before the neocortex is fully developed.

YMMV. [shrug]