What is your biggest challenge with being an autistic adult?

A complete inability to adopt fashions or popular culture. It just felt too uncomfortable to me to wear anything stylish or be interested in any music that wasn't very niche/geeky. To illustrate this, I recently saw a photo of me and two friends, who I am still in touch with, when we were about 17, they look like Starsky and Hutch and I look like a teenage David Mitchell.

When I was young it was only "straights" that were into main stream fashion and music, all the cool people were into alternative music and clothes.

When I was young it was only "straights" that were into main stream fashion and music, all the cool people were into alternative music and clothes.

I think that if you identify with a subculture that has a particular 'look' and dress in that style, you have a certain amount of confidence, confidence I entirely lacked. I just wanted to appear unremarkable in any way, not to stand out. I think a lot of autistics spend a great deal of energy trying not to attract attention, because so much of the attention we get is negative.

I didn't dress for attention, but because how you dressed was part of whatever scene you were into. Punk and New Wave was around and in the charts then I was a teen, but I don't think it was until the 1980's that it really arrived in the town where I lived. I knew lots of young women who were into the bands you mentioned, so I guess it was bad luck on your part that you never met any.

I never had the confidence to dress for attention, I just wanted to not stand out - though I probably did in the wrong way. I was into Yes, Genesis and Pink Floyd, it did not give you much common ground with the opposite sex. At 17, Punk and New Wave was happening, I couldn't understand it. I even had a cousin who was friends with a member of the Buzzcocks, and was invited to gigs, but never went.