In my natural state, if I'm completely being myself, I have a monotone voice, no outward expressions, and a lack of eye contact.
I've learned to mask, to include vocal inflections in my voice, change the pitch, use facial expressions and hand gestures, and eye contact, when speaking to someone else. It's to make social interactions more comfortable and enjoyable for the other person. I think that my natural state and behaviors are just unnatural for neurotypicals. The mask takes effort to keep using, so I enjoy a lot of solitude where I can just be myself.
If I was just being my genuine self around neurotypicals, with the monotoned voice and the lack of expressions and lack of eye contact, they'll think I'm just not paying attention to them, ignoring them, finding them uninteresting, boring, think I'm being rude to them, showing them attitude, assume that I think I'm superior to them, and a plethora of other negative things, and it's quite dramatic, and I'll be yelled at and shunned. Which is why I have learned to put a mask on.
As much as I wish I were a plant that can sustain myself through solar energy and water and soil, humans have to socialize to some degree, to get groceries, to earn money, to find love. It's just challenging when what comes naturally to others, seems unnatural to me, and whatever I do naturally, is unnatural to them.
we could reinstall your operating system overnight then when you wake in the morning the new operating system will take over and all bugs will have been fixed.
Sometimes. I felt like this today funnily enough. I told my new colleague that I'm enthuastic about the new job but I felt like I sounded anything but excited. Funny really but I can't help but tell myself that they all think I'm a weirdo and I'm going to be useless at the job!
