Loneliness

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This personal struggle has really gets me aggravated due to being in my final year of high school and not really fitting into any cliques that dominate the general makeup of the student body. I've had school lunches where I wouldn't know anyone in the cafeteria and just leave the room to head to my next period class in order to avoid the pile of obnoxious students that try to ignore my appearence in the hallway. This problem also extends to few classes where I wouldn't even know anyone in class, which just left me uncomferable and unconscious if I start socializing with them.

Did most of my formers have to deal with fitting in with the groups while they were back in high school?

I went to two different High Schools, during the mid-late 70s. My family had lived in the same mid-sized town and mostly within a few blocks of each other from the time I was born, then my Dad switched career paths and suddenly we had several big moves in a few years.

The first two years of High School I spent in a large sprawling metro area and the High School I went to was like a small college campus. I was a completely anonymous face among the masses the whole time I was there. I had one art class with a fellow comic-art freak that I could talk to and there was this one crazy redneck who used to bum cigarettes from me during breaks and those were the only two people who spoke to me the whole two years. Oh yeah, there was this one PE coach who bullied and ridiculed me for reading a Science Fiction novel.



At that first school, I never ate lunch, because I didn't know anyone to sit with. I just went out in the courtyard and paced until time for my next class. Sometimes other students would mock me for pacing.

Then we moved to a small town where the entire student body was about 450 students and everybody knew everybody and things were very different. I still felt like an anonymous part of the wallpaper most of the time, but I did have a handful of actual friends that I spent time with outside of school and managed to have a date or two before I graduated, awkward as they were. There was never a time when I didn't feel like an alien observing a foreign culture, but the smaller, more intimate environment was definitely the least uncomfortable of the two. Partly because the people there were just more friendly in general, but also because of the fact that even if they weren't going out of their way to include me in all their cliques, they all knew who I was, so I didn't feel entirely invisible. Mostly invisible, but not entirely.

I had to ride the school bus the whole time I was in high school. i was the only senior on the bus. everybody else drove or got rides with neighborhood buddies. i stuck out like a sore thumb.

I retreated into my mind where my music was.

High school is a sad time for an Aspie. Trust me, it does get better.

I retreated into fantasies that I had friends who accepted me and loved me just as I was and am.

I know exactly how you feel.

*hugs*

This might be hard, but you need to reach out to people, you can't just passively wait for someone to come and save you from your loneliness. Chances are they have no idea how you feel and think you are just content with being on your own. Now, you might not know anyone now, but if you don't socialize with them or anything you aren't going to get to know them any better. Try to study people and see if you can find someone who shares a similar interest or anything else you can start a conversation with. Try to approach them when you are most comfortable, but you need to make opportunities for yourself. Soon enough you may find yourself making a friend, and slowly things may change. I know it's hard, but I have faith that you can do it if you try hard enough.


Oh, and going with what Wilard said, I've had a very similar experience, though I went to the imitate highschool first and am now currently in the big unfriendly one. I still eat lunch alone, but I've managed to make a few friends, with great effort, and they've been helping me make it through.

I never had a group in high school, I just liked who I liked and was (and still am) mostly a loner.

I almost always felt lonely growing up. I felt I was different. I was not bullied very much, but I was not accepted by my peers in my neighborhood. I had acquaintances at school but no friends for various reasons. I still feel very lonely and isolated today because I live in the same town and my friends live 80 miles away. I don't connect with most people.

Same here. I still regret not having either a permitt or a license, since most of my peers are now driving when this guy believed he couldn't obtain a license due to my disability.

it feels rotten to be widely seen as "less than," doesn't it?

I never felt that.

I always just counted the seconds till I could finally go home and get away from it.

I didn't get my permit until a full year after I graduated high school, and my license until March of last year.

I would not re-live my high school years for any amount of money under the sun. "Best years of your life" most definitely NOT.

University was much, much better - especially after the first couple of years. The last two years of my undergrad degree and all years of my master degree were prime time.

Keep your head up - things will definitely get better.

True, college life was MUCH better than high school for me, though not to say that high school was miserable. I just almost never had any interaction with my high school classmates outside of school, unless you count when MySpace first became popular.

hell yes. haha, i mean, to most people i was associated with the goth kids because i had long hair and wore a lot of black. but even though i was 'cool' with some of the goths due to some mutual interests, they all knew me as a metalhead and i was basically the only 'metalhead' in my class so i never really found a place to call my own. to everyone else i was just some weird goth kid. your story sounds way too familiar to me lol

I didn't talk much in school. I would talk to my (few) friends and it was usually if no one else was around. We would eat lunch in secluded areas. I farted really loud a couple times when I thought no one was around and it was hilarious. I used to sit in the hallways alone and read; people would walk by me and ask, "Where are your friends?" I'd say, "I'm waiting for them." Even if no one was coming. I'm pretty good at drawing (I don't like to brag), but it's mostly because in highschool that was how I avoided conversation with people. My thoughts were, 'Look busy and they'll go away!" Sometimes I wish I could go back and piss more people off. I still only have 3-4 friends, sometimes I'm not sure who to call a 'friend' because in the past I have tried calling people 'friend' but they f****d me over.