Factors of neurological conformity?

Post Reply New Topic

A question comes to mind right now that I think would be fair game for this forum. I know a lot of aspies have, among the things that hang them up, some very straight forward difficulties; nonverbal cues, body language, possibly confidence or other related issues - all well and good, all fairly easy to deal with when you have the determination to drill through it all. On the other hand there are other issues that are much harder to shake.

For instance, people have certain emotional styles, types, senses of identity, and the funky stuff ends up being in the gray areas where its less of something looking weak or unconfident and more just an unusual stack of personality traits that don't really fit one group or another that well. People say they like novelty but its sketchy, it feels more like just a flavor of the week - something to take someone off the usual pace their on, give them some momentary refreshment, and then they can be back on their way.

So when you are the sort of HFA/PDD-NOS/aspie who may not lack the raw social skills, may not lack the raw presence, but has an overall sense of things, sense of emotion, or style that people just have a hard time relating to - you can know full well that its counterproductive, that it practically takes you out of the game because all of that (the more cerebral your emotions the more true it is) that at the basis of what we are, you're off point and its regardless of how much your friends (guys and girls) may like or respect you for it. Motivation is the core of a person's ability to change and I think, like complex's example with all the comic book addicted dreamers out there, the toughest part about making changes is getting your emotions in formation. Its funny too because clear and obvious weaknesses, things that don't reflect well - are easy to summon it up to fix. Strengths of perspective that go too far outside though tend to change your social habits, make you a different kind of person than most people; and I'd imagine lots of people can feel their lives wasting away a bit in that situation but they can't find a form of backward compatibility that makes them genuinely happy.

So the challenge is finding means of change that fit your best self but dealing with the fact that some of your inner needs are a bit esoteric and probably always will be. I guess the big psychological and neurological question is how do you take a very strong streak of eccentricity, something that even fighting down to fit into society gives you migraines on, and finding ways to restructure from the ground up - not in order to throw away all the things you like but in general to allow a lot more of the natural law/natural process sorts of things to actually become part of your motivational groundwork (or at least the pivotal axioms aside from just the immediate superficial aspects of yourself). In other words how does someone who's naturally too cerebral for their own good actually find a way to bring their core selves to really accept their basal side and integrate it rather than feeling like they have to fight like hell just to act the part and never fully feel right with it?

Good question. I used to feel that I could dumb it down enough to intergrate fairly typically but I seem to have lost that ability or maybe the differences are more polarised now as people mature. I feel like I developed my skills, interests and self to such a level that I can no longer relate to most people, well hardly anyone in fact. I've ended up in a social cul-de-sac of sorts.

Also is this about Love and Dating or more about Making Friends and Social Skills? I've alway found that less common ground is needed when it come to sexual/love relationships and that it's easier to develop naturally because of the level of intimacy involved and the powerful neurochemisty that occurs.

I do my best to retain every single part of me that doesn't cause direct problems. Including all my eccentricities and all that fun mental baggage. I just kept it and hoped I could find someone who could relate and understand... or the very least tolerate and find me interesting.

I've found someone who seems to be on a very similar thought pattern as I am, and it's been a great experience.

Unique guys need unique girls. With that scarcity comes a lot of pain.

My feelings verbatim. I still have my anxiety problems and issues with energy level but for some odd reason those have stuck around rather independently of confidence. Its that feeling like I do need to doublecheck myself - lots of things I grasp a lot easier than other people but I'm always probing, double-checking, and hyperanalyzing the areas where I know other people have their strengths over me (and I mean in the pragmatic aspects - I understand the importance of those things and I give it my all to try and build an intuitive grip, mostly because I hate the maintenance that I'd need to put in otherwise; I'm too aware for my own good in a lot of senses).




I have friends, a lot of friends with very good social skills - I think part of that is people of that sort, after they've stood out for a while off of their social skills have time to track the other path and really get to understand a lot of people; they tend to see a lot in me and I value them greatly. I think the trouble is the fact that when you have a certain variant of intelligence and you really like to chase it, even when you try to vary it up and be as common-friendly as you can; you still find yourself almost undatable just because even if you can get along great with the opposite sex superficially you always sense what they have past the mask and if whats in you is different from what's generally out there - quite often it feels like you're playing with bombs and active C4; stressful and not enjoyable in the least (I've had a few women who were very attractive, respected me a lot, who I talked to reguarly - who wanted to me to jump to the next step, but I sensed what they were trying to be vs. what they were and I knew the second we had undivided attention and our guards were down - things would go sideways, badly). I won't say that I don't have my share of limits or gestalt concerns, but the biggest trouble seems to be what my bottomline personality is in reference to those; if I wore them like a glove and the real me fit parameters to where those things could be expected (and if my standards weren't what they are) I'd be fine. Unfortunately a lot of the things that I could change that would make it so easy - I just can't, I'd be emotionally miserable and if I dropped my standards to be with anyone I'd feel like I was wasting my time; disservicing myself and particularly (*especially*if they were cool) disserviceing them and wasting their time (and for what - the sake of conformity and experience? I don't want to burn other people to get ahead and a lot of the women I mesh with take themselves and life pretty seriously on certain levels just as I do so I hate to be the flake between the two of us).

I feel like despite my best efforts, my struggles show whether I want them to or not. I have a very difficult time not thinking in eugenic terms just because I'm a very big-picture oriented person and part of me really grips honor code whether its fair or not to myself (which, I try to cut my holes in it where I can but my own emotions do rebel quite often). My constant battle with myself though is realizing that if I want to meet a *real* person and have a *real* relationship - I still have to change myself, not so much work backward but really up my in-crowd guile and get better at things, its my only way that I could meet someone who'll be what I need. Even at that, PDD-NOS is a functioning-level rollercoaster and while I could do great with someone like that it could be over once I hit my first low and find that I need to stay to myself 5 out of 7 days one week just because my batteries are running low to the point of damage (or just seasonal changes). I do admit to myself that I have a lot to offer but its definitley scary s*** - to think that if I can't bring it up to code, to my own demands of self (which are brutally realistic) that I won't deserve anything permanent just on what the status quo is.




That and *no one* wants the last laugh to be on them; therefor many unique guys and unique girls give it their all to conform to the best of their ability to whatever place or group that they could pick up someone to their standards in. That's less a comfort and more the fact that it means that if everyone else is doing it, you get the feeling that you'll be left in the cold for sure if you can't adapt. When I have it in my nervous system to go all out I do but, unfortunately, its only in spurts and spurts don't quite cut it.

You are too much of a chameleon. How are you ever going to be happy trying to 'reproduce' every mask you encounter? It sounds to me like you are at a crossroads, or a point of 'mental stasis'. You could enter something with the wrong intentions and get your heart crushed or just try to have a little more fun, and learn more about life in the process. Don't paralyze yourself with constant self-monitoring. That's what keeps us behind, man.

Perhaps you will find someone down the road. Don't get morose.

Not even so much that. Its more like, even among aspies, it seems like at the core most people spin clockwise and I spin counterclockwise - wouldn't be bad if I was actually aware that there were other people more like myself but strange enough there aren't (and I do really give it a fair chance, I can read people very well even right off the start). I mentioned in another thread that things always feel cramped, convoluted, unnatural - and that carries with it a sense of social dysphoria that never really seems to go away. I know most people in general have only certain portions of themselves that eclipse that of most people they meet, that's realistic and just like you'll meet people you can identify with often enough.

For me though, the mask is something I seem to need to cope at all - that puts me in the funny position though where when I even have been in situations where I was dating someone who really liked me and when she had all the intelligence even in all the right areas, her style of communication and natural flow of thought, motivation, processing - still seemed to flow clockwise like everyone elses. Even when they felt like things were going well, the more they felt it the more I strangely felt the opposite - like once the veil was lifted (many times it did) that any feelings of real likeness or similarity just vanished and usually I ended up breaking it off just because I couldn't enjoy the experience and I didn't feel like we were right for eachother. Again, gave it my all to make sure they had a fair chance - I try to practice as much fairness and humility as I can on that angle, but when you get to the point where you literally can't enjoy someone's company and almost want to run in the opposite direction (especially when its huge sweeping fundamental aspects of 'you' that you can't change which have you feeling that friction) - its not going to work and you feel like your just wasting their time and yours.