Disconnected from the world?

Post Reply New Topic

Yes it's the "glass wall effect." It still bothers me after all these years. Disappears when I'm in a relationship that I consider to be good. Also disappeared for a year or two while I was living among a very friendly and non-judgemental group of people. The feeling of disconnection with the rest of the world remained, but I felt connected with the partners and friends concerned....most of my partners were detached from the mainstream themselves, to some extent, and the friends were quite nonconformist. What seems to happen is that I see the "chosen few" (or one) as pretty much the ONLY people on the planet, and the rest just don't figure in my life. So when I feel I have enough love from my small circle of chums, I don't notice the glass wall, because I don't notice the people on the other side of it, or if I do, I fell they're nothing to do with me. I'm sure a lot of them are OK really, otherwise I'd never be able to make a new friend.

OK, I love answering questions about myself

Yes, I have friends. Most of them are artistic, introverted people. I think they probably don't feel disconnected like I do, but more like the rest of the world just doesn't fit them.



You're right, I don't do that. But I also often feel like the outsider, even amongst my friends. I don't know why I feel like this cuz they are supposed to be my friends and understand me. But sometimes I feel like they can't. And I sometimes say stupid things or act socially weird. Then my friends comment on it. I know they don't care but this really makes me upset, pushing me further to the outside.



I would definitely never host a Superbowl party, or any kind of large party. I like to have my friends over to drink and watch weird movies. For example, this weekend 2 of my guy friends are gonna come over for pizza and we are gonna watch a bad Japanese movie and make a drinking game out of the stereotypes in it.

I guess I already answered that one, above.

Absolutely, yes. When I've broken the trend I've always felt very pleased with myself, but for some weird reason I can't seem to get used to it, and like you say, it just doesn't occur to me to do it, even though I know intellectually that it's often worth the effort.

I know a guy with stronger Aspie traits than I have, and he's grabbed himself the job of inviting musicians to perform at our music club, which he does very well. I guess he finds it possible because it's so simple and clear-cut - he has a very clear motivation to do it (our shows would collapse if he didn't), the thing he's inviting them to do is very specific ("would you like to perform at our music club?"), the chances of success are quite good (most musicians like it when somebody asks them to perform), he can email or contact them on their websites if he needs time to choose his words carefully, and he's on Facebook (seems most musicians are) which almost invites people for him at the click of a button.........and he's getting the chance to do the task regularly, so he's going to become more and more fluent at it. If he continues like this, he'll be dating women in a few months!


Correct, in my case.

Correct, in my case.

Correct, in my case. The social dimension of sport is as lost on me as a masonic handshake.

A small soiree with just a handful of orderly, quiet people, with some kind of genuine common interest.

This forum has been incredibly eye-opening. Things like this that I had always been aware of but never thought twice about keep popping up.

Yes, I often see myself detached from my current reality. As a result of it I tend not to be very emotional, with an almost clinical detachment from what is going on around me. Often times I laugh quietly to myself asking how I ended up in this situation which has no connection whatsoever to the one I was in an hour ago, and feel more often than not like a fly on the wall and not someone actively engaged in my setting, even in conversation.

I tend to have a very positive outlook on life and see this all as far more of an amusement than a problem.

I would say no, that isn't it. For me it's more like this:



Other people have a disquieting "otherness" about them. They are constantly changing and constantly looking at your expectantly while you are trying to hold up your end of a conversation. It's like they're doing an unfamiliar dance and you are supposed to keep up without knowing the steps or being able to gauge where they are going next. It's exhausting and it throws you off balance. Meanwhile, they are dancing away stylishly and without a care in the world -- that's why you feel disconnected from them. It's like staring slack jawed at a skilled performance, except that you aren't really allowed to sit aside and are expected to jump in with ease.

I can do reasonably well at faking it, but that doesn't mean I don't feel disconnected.

I feel like this all the time to be fair.

Yes. Some of them are NTs. Some of them are autistic. Some of them I suspect are autistic.



It's more like the opposite: My friends seem to assume I don't want to go out to a movie, or dinner with them. I initiate, and that works out sometimes (although not always as I planned - I am still annoyed about inviting one person to go somewhere and having it turn into 20 people without any warning). For some reason, when it comes to including me, I just get left out.



It would never occur to me to have a superbowl party because I do not like sports. Having a party would be inviting noise and chaos, especially for something I have no interest in.



I used to play and run roleplaying games, which are a group social activity. Rather than focusing on an external locus (a game, a television show) we are focused one each other. It's a social activity. I invited people to my own house to do this, and yes it was noisy and chaotic, but it is one of my hobbies and one of the few ways I enjoyed socializing - and it allowed me to also do something else I enjoy, which is to envision other worlds and describe them. Despite it being one of my primary interests, and the enjoyment I derived from it was worthwhile, it was still draining, still work, to interact with people for 3-4 hours, and I'd be exhausted at the end of the night.

And of course, I do like doing other social things. I just seem to have difficulty maintaining connections, and for some reason people don't explicitly think of including me in things, even when they indicate they like being around me.

Be a passer by. this world wasnt ment for us brah,