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.