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Do You Feel Like An Alien?

I do this, too. One person said I needed to wear something on my feet that they could hear approach. Started with engineer boots. Since I had no choice but to keep the job, I did. Happily, the buckle made a sound most seem to perceive before I'm up to them. Feel like the cat with a bell on its collar. But then the choice of boots at work got frowns (people - sigh). Just kept wearing them and now only like boots.

I know what you mean about the word weird. It's everything that violates expectations, social strictures, rules, etiquette, etc., but nothing is positively defined. I've been called it more times than I can remember. Also get called "loser" since I refuse the socially acceptable career paths, accomplishments, honors, etc., that guys are supposed to go after. Have taken the word on and now smile when I say it, since a life being a winner is nothing I could do, much less want, either. Creepy existence, winning, or always trying to.

Thanks for reading

Christian T said:
I always scare people when I come up behind them to join in a conversation but without immediately giving them an extroverted greeting to announce my presence. They always jump when they suddenly see me standing nearby, and I always forget that at that distance and being that quiet I will frighten them.

Forgive me if I've already shared this, but this is my overall view on being "weird" and an "alien":

The adjective "weird" is such a negative descriptor: it doesn't describe what something is, just what they are not. If someone calls something "weird" all they are saying is that it doesn't lie their often tiny sphere of familiarity, but there is an almost infinite number of places where it could lie.

The way I see it, someone just describing me as "weird" and nothing else would be like the first space explorers describing the other planets they've seen as "not like Earth" and leaving it at that. It's a word used by people too lazy describe what something is, and so they simply describe what it isn't.

Point being that if you're an "alien" that could mean countless things. There are so many different types of "aliens" and so many different types of "weird."
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How old are you, if you don't mind me asking? You see, I'm chronologically older now, but that means little to me. It only adds to the 'Other' feeling as most of the men I know my chrono-age are talking about when they retire, how they hate aging, how everyone younger doesn't look at them anymore or is out of their reach. I see all that as a sad waste. Recently went back to an unusual undergraduate program to study for a second degree in an area that will never lead to employment but enables a specific outlet for my need to experience and express beauty. Also began with a vocal coach 8 months ago and now work with a recording (studio) band. I sing punk. Super expressive for me. So, while all those "old men" (their term for themselves) my age are going on about real estate and how much longer they'll live, I can only think of all the things I want to do. This is as alien as those experiences that made me separate when I was a chrono-young guy.

mfoster said:
I did when I was younger. Now, I am too old to feel like an alien. :)
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I know this video meant to explain it to kids, but I think this sums up the feeling quite nicely.

 
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I completely agree. It's a brilliant metaphor. Funny, I didn't remember this episode, and I used to watch the show every day, but now I'm very impressed that they covered something that many people shy away from, and were able to explain it all so well to kids.

I think it's worth watching the rest of the episode too. It basically shows the ideal Neurotypical reaction from family and friends to Asperger's - making compromises, discussing it plainly, learning the facts etc.

I showed this one at a meeting of my school's Asperger's club and they loved it.
 
I have always described myself as an alien in a hostile environment. The "non-aliens" all find me disturbing, unpleasant, weird, annoying----to greater or lesser degrees. There has never been a day in my life in which I haven't wished I had never been born. I don't belong here, so why am I here? Better to have never "been."
 
Aspieistj said:
I have always described myself as an alien in a hostile environment. The "non-aliens" all find me disturbing, unpleasant, weird, annoying----to greater or lesser degrees. There has never been a day in my life in which I haven't wished I had never been born. I don't belong here, so why am I here? Better to have never "been."
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Why must it be that your opinion on whether you deserve to exists depends on what "non-aliens" see you as? As isolating as being an Aspie can be, our existence is ours and no one elses.
 
Aspieistj said:
I have always described myself as an alien in a hostile environment. The "non-aliens" all find me disturbing, unpleasant, weird, annoying----to greater or lesser degrees. There has never been a day in my life in which I haven't wished I had never been born. I don't belong here, so why am I here? Better to have never "been."
Click to expand...

You certainly not the only alien here in this hostile environment, and I'm sure you'll meet some that won't find you disturbing and annoying. As to why you are here, if it weren't for people like you the non-aliens would never have the learning experience of coming into contact with anyone outside their own cosy sphere of existence. The world needs variety.
 
"The world needs variety."

Variety within a species can strengthen that species, scientifically. However, it has been my experience that the majority usually bullies any kind of minority. I'd rather fight than switch :unsure:
 
I have felt like an alien imposter most of my life. The worse part is that my own family would contribute to this feeling of alienation. Out of all my siblings, I am the only one to hold a college degree. I remember melting down and seeing my siblings and my mother all staring at me as if I had grown scales and horns or something. I have lost track of how many people who have responded to something I expressed or did, with the now infamous words "You're weird." When I got older, I often longed to fling back, "No, YOU are LIMITED!" Once a supervisor at my job defended me by saying, "She's not weird, she's creative." I loved her at that moment. Now that I am married to my alien life-mate, it has gotten better because we can be "weird" together. But it is still a chore to don the "Human" suit and go out in public. I remember telling a therapist that social cues often felt like a being forced to participate in sports. You walk into a store and someone throws a ball at you (HI! How are you today?") You startle, flinch or duck and the ball goes rolling away. People stare at you, thinking "Well I was only trying to be friendly! Why didn't she catch that ball and throw it back? Who does she think she is, anyway!" You might grin sheepishly and pick up the ball and try to throw it back, or you might slink away in humiliation, or you might just pretend you didn't see it. Either way, you are wrong, because everyone else deftly catches that ball and tosses it back without thinking. Then you fume inside: Why is it so easy for them? How did they know that ball was coming? Why don't they fumble like I do and drop it and earn puzzled or condemning stares?

Sorry, I do tend to ramble on...
 
I've always felt like I was a strange, dysfunctional human. I've always felt very different to other people, but never really thought of myself as an alien. Freak, yes.
 
Yep. Always feeling as if I'm on the outside looking in. Even when surrounded by others.

Just weird to think I used up most of my life not knowing what it was about...
 
I have always felt like an outsider. When I see a bunch of good ol boys yukkin it up I often wonder "how do they know what to talk about." I see people who see each other every day and they are always just talking away. Don;t they run out of stuff to talk about? I can appear normal for short periods of time like in my Sunday school class I teach, but if the topic is anything other that the Bible, I'm out. No sports talk about the big game, unless it's NASCAR I can talk a few minutes, but I completely understand feeling like an alien.
 
What? Hang on a minute. You mean were the aliens ? Dam I thought it was the other way round. Thats the way I like to think of it in my head anyway
 
Well let me say this. You people are more relatable with online text than i have felt in the almost 17 years i have spent on this forsaken planet.
I have always been the odd one out. I have felt that i didn't fit in with others very easily. I tried to work out what i was missing, i watched some TV, which got me through primary school, but i was outcasted the minute i got into secondary school. I have always felt detached, and now i've found out why, it has made more sense to me.
I do have moments where i feel i'm not really 'there' and seem to daze out really often. Animals are easier than people by a long shot, because it is easy to know how they feel, especially dogs: tail wagging = happy, tail not wagging = problem, most likely bored.
Social interaction and just the presence of people really tires me out, and it seems to have gotten worse over time. Maybe we are aliens. Who cares about the cause? I want to solve it.
Even my friends, of which two of them are on the spectrum, are starting to seem distant. I push away my parents because the last time they tried to "help" me they tried to "fix" me with a half-assed "lesson" on "respect" (blind allegiance) and it almost drove me to suicide. My brother is starting to turn against me and the lesbian girl i stupidly fell in love with is "beginning to dislike" me.
Yeah. I feel like i am different. I am the one who can't solve my own problems.
 
The character on Doctor Who I identify with the most is the Doctor himself, in part because he is an alien. Wherever he goes, he is an alien; he is the last one of his species.
 
I have stated that exact thing here, and I thought it was in this thread, but after reading through, it was elsewhere. So, yes, fricking alien. Everyone else is like, "blooble bleeeble blork." and I'm like, "zupple zibble zink." And then they go for the pitchforks and torches, in very subtle and polite ways, of course. My use of black humor here as a coping mechanism tells what this has really done to me over a lifetime.
 
This is exactly how I felt as a teenager. My response was to throw myself headlong into social situations and out of my comfort zones as often as I could. Over time, I slowly adapted and while I still feel different from my neurotypical friends, its more we're different subspecies than different species. ;)
 
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