Published on 12, July, 2020
Anyone else know what I mean by this?
I generally make friends with socially awkward nerds who initially accept me as I seem to be like them on the surface. Eventually though the differences emerge.
I like to play video games alone, and tend to play a small number of them for ridiculous numbers of hours each. "Normal" nerds like to play through new games all the time, and then want to talk about them at length, or be part of the fandom around them, or they want to be logged into Discord talking to other people while playing them.
When I was a young child and didn't have a computer, I would read books (though my slow reading speed meant this could be stressful). But since then, I only like to play video games, and not consume other forms of media such as books, TV shows and movies, because I vastly prefer the interactive experience of video games. Non-autistic nerds find this strange, and I am always left out of conversations when they are discussing the latest TV shows (which is pretty much all the time since streaming services became so popular).
I also don't really like any music other than music from the few video games I play, and nostalgic pop music. This alienates me from the non-autistic nerds who have earphones in all the time and go to rock gigs and festivals.
Sometimes, I don't even want to play video games, and just want to "sperg" over some obscure topic like bus routes or weather forecasting for a while, sometimes even for months at a time.
I have Asperger's and generally function OK socially (alcohol helps a lot, and I quite enjoy pub environments), but the differences I mention above really hold me back in conversation, and I rarely get any of the pop culture references that people constantly make. So I end up feeling isolated even when I am around other nerds who have superficially accepted me, and I end up developing feelings of inadequacy compared to them and jealousy towards their superior ability to connect with one another. I can feel quite obsessed and depressed by this problem at times. It feels like I am so close to being as good as these people and having their quality of life and social relationships, if only I didn't have the big A in my head.
What makes my feelings worse is knowing that it would sometimes be possible to force myself to consume media in the manner that the non-autistics do, and indeed I did do this once for a period of months when I first went to university so that I could make some friends (that was a long time ago, I'm in my mid-thirties now), but it was absolutely exhausting to do that, exhausting in a way that only other autistic people would be able to understand!
Can anybody here relate to what I've written? Does anyone have anything that they do that helps them to deal with this?
I don't watch TV either. My preferred media is books. I often find TV shows difficult to follow as even with subtitles to help with audio processing issues, characters don't don't tell you what they are thinking and you have to recognise them based on their faces rather than a name which is much more difficult.
I often feel left out when people (autistic or not) start talking about TV. I'm not up to date with the latest music either (I listen to my favourite album from the 1990s daily and am happy with that) so that's no better.
When the conversation moves to those topics I take the opportunity to go to the loo, order a drink, do anything I need to do on my phone, or play with a toy. I bring a Rubik's cube or similar to social events that are purely chat-based so I have something to play with when the conversation is on a topic I don't have anything to say about. If it looks like the conversation is going to stay on those topics forever I go home.
When I was masking I used to nod along and copy other people's facial expressions, hoping I looked like I was familiar with the topic, but that's tiring.
If a group always talks about topics I'm not familiar with, they're probably not the group for me.
I enjoy hanging out with people at events where there's something to do besides talk, such as board game evenings, walks, swimming, museum visits, etc. Sitting around a table is only fun if the conversation stays on topics I relate to, whereas those other activities I can wander off and look at the view or swim a few laps or something else to stay entertained while the conversation is on a topic I can't join in with.
Thank you for this post, it's really interesting to hear about your experiences and how you work around the issues. I can absolutely relate to what you say about socialising being so much better when there is an activity to share besides talking; board games and multiplayer video games being ideal. It actually frustrates me when people who I met through a shared interest in gaming, when we meet, choose not to actually spend any of the time playing games, and just want to talk!
Do you ever find that people question why you "don't bother" watching TV shows that they think would appeal to you, or ask even ruder questions like "what on earth do you actually do with your time?", because I've had that a few times.
Aspergatory said:It actually frustrates me when people who I met through a shared interest in gaming, when we meet, choose not to actually spend any of the time playing games, and just want to talk!
YES. I'm not a gamer but can relate to this.