Apparently I'm "cool"

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Apparently when I went to middle school people considered me cool. Even though I was a friendless nerd who constantly paced in the hallways. Same with right now. Apparently I'm cool despite still being friendless, not being able to do household chores, staying inside all day and having bad conversations skills. I guess dressing "cool" is the only thing you have to do to be perceived as cool. You can do all sorts of uncool stuff without being considered uncool. I also kept to myself, so people never got to know me well enough to know what a loser I truly am.

That's good to know. I don't remember the last time I've received a compliment from someone. Maybe because I don't dress nice, I never really cared about my looks .

Hi Devilkisses,
Clothing made you cool in some peoples eyes, in school I remember this trumped inner qualities. As I've gotten older I feel with the right people clothing can attract attention to your point of view, and in general becomes less of a defining feature.Yes its empty and shallow and insecure that you are filtered based on your visual presentation.
You say you kept to yourself, did you come across as independent in your beliefs or outlook as you do on WP?
Sorry if I've misunderstood.

Dressing kool actually makes you get f****d wit even worse if yer face is nerdy lookin. Often works that way for guys at least...

I was never cool.

Someone who was in high school with me and remembers me there as being silent and controlled, said I seemed so "cool" and that he admired me for my reserve.

What he didn't know was that this was part of one of the most agonisingly repressed and suppressed years of my younger life, in which that "cool" reserve was actually the outer presentation of crippling shyness, social anxiety, a feeling of utter alien-ness, an inability to relate to the other kids, and the cringing, crushed-into-selective-mutism result of being mercilessly bullied at the time.

Now that I'm an older adult, learned to come out of my shell, express my personality instead of feel it crushed by high school bullies, he thinks I'm less interesting and less cool. I think he's the screwed up one for that. What he saw as "cool" in me was n truth a very miserable, unhappy and mute girl tortured by her feelings of alienation.

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I had to be the queen of non-cool in school. So many non-cool kids are almost 'invisible." I wish I was! I was so picked on.

I was considered uncool when I was in high school, because I didn't identify with any gender in the 90s sense. Some of the ignorant bullies picked up on that and they kept telling me to do a dance that I made up my first two months in Grade 8. I didn't do that stupid dance past my 14th birthday and I wish I never made it up. I called it The Beatle and the memories still haunt me. I feel that if I knew about my autism before I started Grade 8, I wouldn't have made that dance up and I would have kept all of my special interests to myself and shared them with a few close friends. I also wouldn't have gone through a faux hippie phase in order to confuse my bullies and trick them into thinking I've actually changed.

Congrats on being cool!

Just to let people know, I'm not posting this to brag. It's just a funny observation I made.

Just be careful, I could go into detail on why this is but many aspies have been known to experience a "popularity mirage" that has an ugly ending to it. I had a harsh learning experience about knowing that bad attention can be deceitfully disguised as good attention.

Popularity mirage sounds about right for my experience. I dressed plainly, but up-to-date. I had trouble speaking, which somehow was often perceived as stuck up. I blame the competitive school dance team I was on. I didn't ever really talk to any of my dance-mates, but they were generally popular. (I was also on the math team and in band...).

Sadly, the way one looks is pretty important in who you are perceived.

And there is often confusion between shy and stuck up. If you are dressed well, they may assume the latter.