Earthling wrote:
I voted yes. But only because of the wording of the question. Aspies are on the lower end of the autistic spectrum and therefore are much like "normal" people in many ways.
I do try to impress people and care. One reason is that it gives me power.
People who are impressed by me are more likely to comply with my will.
People who have a bad impression of me will disregard me and I'm unlikely to get what I want from them.
I also like to have this power just for the sake of having it.
I like to impress people with what I am impressed with and share the experience.
However what I think is impressive and what I try to impress with is mostly different from what I've heard NTs think is impressive.
At work, I used to like impressing people with my computer 'fixing' skills but then I realised, they didn't really give a damn about me or my abilities and were only interested in using me to fix their computers. Since then, whenever they ask me to fix their computer, I now act dumb because I realised they weren't impressed with my abilities. They were just using me so they could get back to work faster than if they had to ring the IT 'professionals' (who'd take more than 2 days to get back to them) who are employed by our Department to fix the things I can fix in 30 seconds.
Since then, I don't care for them or how impressed they are with me.
I've returned to how I was as a child/teenager. All I care about is if I impress myself - and I do.
I've stopped caring, worrying or placing so much importance on what others think about me.
I've always danced to the beat of my own drum and I shall continue to do so.
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Your Aspie score: 151 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 60 of 200
Formally diagnosed in 2007.
Learn the simple joy of being satisfied with little, rather than always wanting more.