How much do you stand out in your community?

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I live in a country of a handful million people and a city of about 1.5 million. This means I'm likely to meet people I know when I go out or at a new job.

I think Aspies are better off in big communities, where our social blunders (and resulting """ënemies""" don't come back to haunt us so often. I envy those Aspies who can go to a new job and make a fresh start without concern for who they'll find there that may badmouth them to the new colleagues before we have a chance to interact and try our luck with new social skills.

Besides, as an outcast, I always go out alone, and I often meet people from work or some ex friend, and they're never alone like me, and this upsets me because I know I'm being labelled weird for it.

Yesterday I had a tough time with this issue. I went to an amazing event that I was looking forward to, and my bliss was spoilt by bumping into an ex friend from university and her husband. Then I met someone from work and his wife and friend.

Does everyone here live in a big community except me?? And if you live in a small community, how do you manage with this issue?

I live in a big city so i don't stand out as much.

You'd think that a city with a population that large would provide plenty of anonymity - but as the example you live in proves, that's not always the case.

Ditto with the city of 1.8 million (spread over an area bigger than Trinidad!) that I live in: Brisbane's still an overgrown country town, with the conformity, parochialism and "six degrees of separation" normally associated with places much smaller! I constantly get disapproving, mocking and hostile looks when I walk around in public. As a result, I've become more and more withdrawn over the last several months. And buying a computer last month has allowed me to isolate even more than in the past.

Last edited by BPalmer on 21 Sep 2008, 2:30 am, edited 1 time in total.

I think living in a small town where everyone knew everyone would be excruciating.

My impression is that in small towns you are obligated to pretend to care about everybody. In a large city, nobody expects you to be friends with everyone, so you can just ignore all the people you don't like.

I like cities. I sometimes visit small towns that I find charming and pleasant to visit but I cannot imagine living in one.

Oh yes, I stand out in my town of about 50,000 residents. Some people know me by associating with my dad, and my dad is on a nickname basis with half of the town
I went to preschool, primary school and high school here, so there's no shortage of people around my own age who know my name and know what I was like in school (anti-social & bullied lots)
Then there's all the other types of people who know my face, but not my name. They just know that I'm wierd.

I don't live in a town; I live on the fringes of a city. The nearest town has about 2,000 people, and I go grocery shopping there often enough to be noticed, I guess. I don't know what they think of me, nor do I really care.

I'm sure I standout to some extent.

I like the fringes and rural areas; most people are weird out here to some extent (my mother says I fit in with the slow and rarely talking county folk).

blue_bean,

You probably mean you were asocial rather than anti-social (it sucks that you were bullied; it seems to be a common theme for those who behave differently to the majority, unfortunately).

If I see someone from my past, I do one of two things- hide, pretend I cant see them, or if I have to talk to them, keep the conversation short.

Hey! same with me. The only difference is that I dont stay in a town - its more like a little community within a big city. I also have no friends and when I see others who I recognize having a good time with friends or with their girlfriends it also upsets me.

Greentea I think I know how you feel, I also feel like an outcast. The funny thing for me is that my life seems bound within this little community, and only when I get out do I feel less self conscious about being a loner.

From thread about population of where one lives:

Wouldn't unilaterally say that residing in a "large" or "small" area was absolutely good or bad for any person or persons.

There are pros & cons to both, and also depend on the particular place, not all cities or towns are interchangeable-plus, there's issue of how well the specific individual feels they "fit" with where he/she is. One can disappear in the city, to one's benefit or detriment. One can "fall through the cracks" for good or ill, in any sized place. One may "blend in better" or find more tolerance/acceptance in a small artsy town than in a sprawling urban metropolis, where one might get lost in the crowd-then again, one may seek to dissolve into the throngs of people, and need a city in which that is possible.

It's not just one way or the other, is an individual decision and answer will differ for each person.

I'm very strange, however, I wasn't strange in ways that worked well in city: wasn't weird enough compared with those who were extremely unusual (I was intimidated by them), and my oddness didn't exactly find favor amongst the people there. My phobias had plenty of material to work with, especially given the likelihood of becoming a crime victim where I was living-and I wasn't gonna' wait around for that to happen. Also, guys (total strangers) would approach me on the street asking me if I was "okay"-which apparently meant they wanted money or sex from me, and not in a nice way. I couldn't handle having to anticipate these sorts of hassles daily on sidewalk, so that was part of why I eventually moved to small town.

Had seen & done the excitement of such a bustling place, and had my fill, I guess. There are conveniences & cultural aspects I do miss, but my "nerves" just couldn't take the level of "bracing" I'd need to accustom myself to, merely to walk to the grocery store. I do feel uncomfortably visible, bizarre, where I live-but I'm generally agoraphobic & negatively (pessimistically) self-conscious, so that's kinda' unavoidable. Am mostly hidden away at home, trapped by own inherent (or acquired) tendencies, but am working on trying to get out of the apartment a little more lately. Wasn't dx'd until after I'd moved here, so that is one disadvantage of being in small region: because there is an ASD group back in city where I used to live, but there's no ASD group for this sparsely-populated town in which I now live.

I rarely see anyone I know in public, have lived here for almost 13 years but have barely met people here-mostly "know" a few people who work at the clinic where I get counseling-so they don't count, becasue they're professionals so are not "friends". Get flummoxed when I see folks "out of context"-don't know what to say when encountered under unusual circumstance.

Worry that the few people (civilians) I've met remember me all too well, in an aversive way (people being warned away from getting to know me). Am paranoid about my reputation-people don't understand my dx so just dismiss me as being "mentally ill" or instead gossip about me as a person of bad character. So, I feel like I "stand out" but I also avoid going out in part because I fear that exact experience/perception, and don't want to give strangers another opportunity to dislike me, afraid of providing more ammunition (my public gaffes & awkward behavior) to those who would attack (not physically), denigrate, disdain me.
Sorry this is so lengthy...

I liev in a rural area, so my community is fairly small, but it's not the type of plcae where everybody knows everybody else. I hardly know any of my neighbors, and the ones I do know, I hardly ever see. So no, I don't stand out. I can keep to myself without a problem

I definitely don't want to live in a city. Visiting is hard enough. Too many people, too much sensory overload, not enough space.

I live in a small town but I've only lived here for about 3 years. It is the type of place where everyone knows each other and it seems to be the case with all my neighbours. But they don't know me or my family. I went to school out of the area and I don't socialise with anyone who lives near here. My neighbours just ignore me, exactly the way I like it.

I guess I should post that I want to be ignored too but is that really in my best interest? To be so disconnected? It probably isn't a good idea to be so detached from everyone else. There's all kinds of people out there, not just ones that fit the "NT" stereotype. I live in a suburb within miles of the capitol so there's lots of city nearby. I don't like this suburb. I will honestly say I don't like it much here. The city itself isn't too bad. Whenever I run into someone who knows me they just say "hi". I'm happiest away from people I knew while growing up.

A purple grain of sand topic

I live in a sprawled out commuter city of 135,000. For this reason, I do not often see the same person twice in one day, or I just act so neutral that no one notices. However, when it comes to jobs, I am well known for my eccentricities, which resulted in "dehiring", and if I go to a new job here, most of them have seen me before and the bad word gets around. I cannot commute to Toronto, as I do not drive and do not have a ride anyway. I certainly do not earn enough to pay for such travel. (I eventually would like to move back to Toronto's anonymity. )

I have a good idea what you are experiencing, Greentea. Very sad.

I keep the grass free of litter as a hobby, so I stand out sometimes on the road.

Lately I've been thinking about doing most of the cleaning on weekends.

I grew up in a small town and was ostracized to the point where I could not get a job if I bought one. I moved to a city of about 100,000 and have been here for 21 years. There are two very large universities here so about a third of the population is transient in nature. I can count the number of times I have run into someone I know outside of work or my hometown on one hand and still have fingers left over. My neighbors are okay and have never given me any trouble. In fact there is a block party every year and it is always a good time.

I live in Amsterdam (around 747,290 inhabitants, according to wikipedia)
I nearly never met anybody I know on the streets. Not going out much helps.
An here are as much tourists as people living in the city, lots of them quite freaky, thanks to liberal drug laws. So it's quite difficult to draw attention.