Different way of thinking causes people to avoid us

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I am in my mid 40s. I am married with a son (adopted). My job is very challenging and we have a good income and excellent savings/investment. I have been seeing my therapist for 14 years. As I work my a** off to learn how to put people at ease and make them comfortable, I am finding that the fact that I think different will always cause 95% of people to actively work on avoiding me. Another 4.XX% will try to use me because it is so easy to them. The miniscule percentage left over will be people I can have a relationship with, but they are rightly concerned about how the rest of the people are going to affect them. I feel like I am in an impossible situation. I have invested an incredible amount of my life in understanding how to make people comfortable around me, but I cannot seem to break through the different way I think. I stopped pushing on people the way I think and just go about figuring out how to make them comfortable. I am waiting for them at some point to start asking about me after noticing through subtle hints that I don't really think like them, but they really never do. I am getting used to being uncomfortable, but it's hard. Just wondering if anyone else has this experience. It just seems so impossible, I have nearly thought of everything, yet it just seems so irreconcilably broken that people can't tap into the depths that I have to offer and am stuck in their neverending comfortableness that they never seem to grow tired of.

Thanks for the feedback. I forgot to say but more often than not, if the normal people pick up on that I think different, they go overboard with trying to out me. I have to very carefully navigate those situations and they seem to fester for long periods of time and you have to keep reassuring them that you are normal. I have to kindof come up with a persona and script out how a normal person thinks and respond with that. Basically, unless you are a certified genius, star, or have some official public position, you better respond with that you heard X and X from someone else and I am doing what every one else would do given that I have Y and Y in my life.

I wish I had something inspiring and uplifting to post as a response, but all I can do is validate your experience, because mine has been similar.

During my working life, many people with whom I worked were uncomfortable around me because I was *not* easily fooled, and because I was good at prognostication. If someone had a really lousy idea that was going to fail spectacularly and damage innocent people's careers, I'd see it far in advance - and what with pattern recognition and all, I was right about 100% of the time. I'd ask tactful, thoughtful questions rather than being blunt about my concerns, but nothing worked, and I don't think anything would ever have worked. This was about egos, not about good ideas.(Did people in these places notice that I was a verrry good predictor? Yes. Did they, in consequence, learn that it might be a good idea to listen to me? No.)

I was repeatedly amazed at how much success in NT-world seemed to be driven by deception - of oneself or others. Still am, honestly. The biggest deception is that there are rational decisionmaking processes in business and in management. Alas. From what I've observed, it is almost all ego driven. I used to use the term "anti-learning" to describe it, it was so bad.

How I survived was twofold: I honed my skills and worked in an area that aligned with my best talents and special interests - and I watched out for "good ones" (i.e., less ego-driven) and did what I could to nurture and protect them. (That will not provide *you* with reciprocal protection or nurturance, but it might benefit the next generation of Aspies; meanwhile, you know you're "doing good", which does insulate against burnout.)

Perhaps threefold: I'm female, and apparently NTs didn't associate "autism" or "aspie" with adult females until fairly recently.

Anyway, what you're seeing is what is there, and I think this is something that only time and increased public, i.e., NT, awareness will modify.

^^ oh, if only!

“Granny’s implicit belief that everything should get out of her way extended to other witches, very tall trees and, on occasion, mountains.”

I've read extensively

Edit: I'm just a Granny Weatherwax fan. Please don't think I was being sarcastic or something, because I don't do sarcasm. I just thought that this post was possibly open to interpretation.

^^

from Wikipedia: "The Trolls of the Ramtops call her "Aaoograha hoa" ("She Who Must Be Avoided) (Maskerade), the Dwarves call her "K'ez'rek d'b'duz" ("Go Around the Other Side of the Mountain"); (also Maskerade), and the Nac Mac Feegle call her "The Hag O' Hags" ("The High Witch").

... it's that different way of thinking. Wonderful what a clear set of goals will do for a girl

(edit in too: no worries. I took your meaning as intended even before you edited.

I encountered Granny when I was middle-aged and being slowly ostracized and marginalized at work for the twin crimes of intellect and femaleness, as far as I could determine (while also being worked to death because I was good at my job); so I figured, well, it looks as though I'm having Weatherwaxness thrust upon me. Might as well embrace it. There are worse fates.)

I find that the uncanny valley hypothesis gives a close to perfect representation of why NTs are uncomfortable around us:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

I'm not sure that is our way of thinking is the reason you are having so much trouble. And we don't all think in the same way - far from it, as you will learn here!

Many of us are serious, thoughtful people. Some of us have serious facial expressions, rarely smiling unless we consciously remind ourselves to do so during our interactions with people. Ask your wife what expressions show on your face when you are interacting with people, and monitor it yourself to see if this is one factor affecting your communication.