Networking 4 peer professional relationships in grad school?

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Once upon a time I thought that your actions defined who you are. Perhaps this is old Weberism studies of protestants spilling over into my enculturation, but I somehow put that idea of "actions" onto a laser point scope and assumed that it meant "accomplishments", or things I accomplish or can do. Now I understand actions to be so much more and everything we encounter.

I am assuming, diagnosis forthcoming, that I am an Aspie or HFA. Knowing that has helped me make sense of so much and has freed me from some nasty habits of cynicism about the rest of the world. I soon figured out that everyone else (it seemed) was talking and chatting just as plentifully as everyone else and that no, they were not all "Chatty Cathy's" in cliques of the shallow.

I wanted to communicate, but could not find a way. Now as an adult or post-20s adult, I am running into a problem I assumed I would not encounter in the academic world. The problem of peer netting and building relationships. The realization that social peer skills are tacitly expected, as a sign of your social communitarianness, I am suddenly like wtf...
I thought I could escape this demand. its not that I dislike people, but that I always fail at connecting and becoming an integral part of new chat groups.

So now I am failing at it again in grad school. In grad school getting the professors attention requires being the most persistently squeaky wheel. I am always the one who puts his hand down more easily or demurs to allow someone else to engage the professor in discussion, and the ones I want to talk to are always busy being inundated by the persistent aggressive students. I also tend to condense my responses and answers as parsimoniously as possible instead of allowing them to stretch out into conversation or "talk" ramble if you will. It also doesn't help that I live off campus at least 30 minutes (only 15 miles though) away and that I am not on campus as much with free time to talk.

I hate to be weak, but this issue and feeling ostracized for being different has been really painful and has resulted in some minor depression about the futility of it.


I would love to hear from others who are or have been through graduate school and especially any of you who may be Aspie Professors.

How do you negotiate developing peer and professor relationships? Are hard science fields less reliant on sociability?



P.S. - Mods. Why do the subject lines have to be so limited in # of characters?

Thanks!