Aspies/Autists who don't or have never mimicked much/at all

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I've always been fiercely independent and opinionated in personality. At most these days I subconsciously copy accents and hand gestures. I'd much rather find people like me or those who fit in well enough. That is incredibly difficult.

When I was younger, before my diagnosis, I suppose I must have copied to a degree. That mostly stopped by the time I was 16 and had entirely stopped at the age of about 19. I never really wore any "masks" and although I used to want a lot of friends, I wasn't willing to not be myself.

People don't like that. They either get bored or annoyed and 98% (roughly) of the time they just up and leave. Or, worse, "politely" ignore you until a couple of years later you take the hint.

I'm 25, recently confirmed diagnosis. Should I conform, play the role, appease, or should I remain how I am? If I do the latter my diagnosis and subsequent treatment feels unlikely to change that too much.

Anybody feel the same way? I want to hear your take on the matter.

It seems like almost every other aspie I bump into online has a desire to people-please, as does one of my diagnosed friends, and the friend who is scoring the same as me in the tests but has to wait for evaluation.

The latter has about 700 Facebook friends, has people drooling all over her and her cosplay outfits, and is always stretched thin paying attention to everybody. She's taking some alone time right now. It's a bit hard as we're sort of courting and C-PTSD gave me abandonment paranoia. People keep leaving links and such on her wall for her to come back to, as if she's some kind of movie star. That doesn't happen to me. Either I'm not pretty or she's so willing to be at the beck and call most of the time that... I don't know. That thought was going somewhere, I swear.

I don't think I want people hounding me every day but I also don't want to be a loner. The agoraphobia doesn't help. Do I have to remake myself from the ground up?

Side note: it feels like I don't fit in as an allistic or an autistic person. It's like neither group has much time for me. Not entirely sure why most of the time.

You just have to find the right people to hang out with.

And make sure you listen to what others have to say.

I have went through people like most people have gone through toilet paper. I have people who remain as I've listened and they have been the ones with something to say. They are not appeasers, they'll state when I've not been great or when something is amiss. However, they can do this sanely and they have a lot of other more positive points to make. The problem is many others enjoy this about them and have all been there long before I found these friends. Also, they tend to have an extroversion I simply can't match. Even if I wanted to hang out with them, that would require me somehow getting to their house or vice versa, with the more likely necessity being going out to social occasions. Due to this, we can connect a great deal online but I'm basically stuck behind a computer screen.

So, I listen to them. Most of the time when others are freaking out over me, these people say that it is ridiculous and shows impatience in those others. They can tell me why they think the person is angry or whatnot, but in the end they feel it is daft.

The irritating thing is that often people won't get angry or even remotely hint at anything. They appear to never have valued me from the start, either seeing me as a distraction or being nice out of pity, and so it looks like it is incredibly easy to simply ignore. Oh, it's not mean if they still have me on FB. Somehow.

I'm not exactly a social butterfly. I don't like social occasions. So I know how you feel.

I would bet that you would meet people if you went to some sort of convention which caters to whatever "special interest" you have.

If you happen to like Star Trek, I'm sure you'll meet somebody at a Star Trek convention, for example.

What are you primarily interested in?

Do not change who you are, i recommend others to 'drop their masks', and i try to do the same myself (it's hard if you've worn them for 20+ years).

A small amount of conformation is required in a professional setting (at work), but in informal settings, i try to be myself as much as possible: the only mask i voluntarily wear is the "best version of myself", where i show a happy me if i'm a tad sad at that time, but i try to do nothing more than that.

I am the same way, except for the loner thing (I'm quite happy being alone). I am a poor mimicker to boost. I am quite slow at mimicking (probably because my visual processing sucks) and really have to be trained to do it. Even once I'm trained, I forget too quickly unless I practice A LOT and on a regular basis. So I cannot mimic well at all spontaneously. It takes me so much energy that I honestly don't bother. I don't have much incentive to, either, as I've gotten along just fine using different (non-visually involving) compensatory methods like verbal explanations, flexibility, conversational techniques, etc.