Burn it to the ground and start again

Honestly it depends how fundamental a do over do you mean by 'start again?' Is it like being born again but like a video game I get to create my charicter from scratch? Or do you just mean pick a difrent career or something?

I know people will probably find this controversial, but I would give serious consideration to being born a woman. I can see lots of advantages.

The first and most obvious is I think I would find it easier to form romantic / sexual connections as a lesbian. Yes it's smaller dating pool but casual sex and being overtly forward is much more normalised than for heterosexual couples. Maybe not to the extent of gay men but I could just never imagen myself as a gay dude. Frankly being blunt and direct and in your face about what I want and what I'm offering would suit me much much more as a dating style.

I think it would be easier to form social connections as a woman. I have known a number of 'quirky' girls in my time with autistic like traits who I suspect were on the spectrum. One or two of them were apparently hypersexual and traded off their flirtatious and lewd behaviour to gain male and female attention as the 'party girl.' It was actually quite effective in helping them construct social groups that seemed to revolve around them. I've spent most of my life being labelled as creepy for talking about weird things and having generally poor social / nonverbal skills. I'd swap that for the social stigma that society tends to attach to (apparently) promiscuous women in a heartbeat.

Actually, it’s been my observation that a lot of these ‘promiscuous’ women are not actually that promiscuous. Or at least no more so than the men around them. They’re just not afraid to talk about sex or make it clear that they like and want sex.

I would have felt less pressured as a child to do team / ball sports / athletics which totally turned me off and I think I would have experienced less resistance to doing things I did like as a child like dance and gymnastics. Maybe even martial arts. My parents were always concerned martial arts might cultivate violent tendencies. They might have been less worried about this were I girl. This would have had knock on benefits for my health.

Statistically assuming I didn't have children I'd be likely to live longer and earn more as a woman.

As a girl I would have had the best of both worlds. Fancy dresses or casual t shirts. If I do male type activities like engineering / video gaming I’m a tom boy. If I do feminine ones like fashion, I’m just a girly girl.

The other thing I think I would do differently is push hard to go to a state school for my GCSEs / A levels (15-18).

As dreadful as my social skills may have been I think it would have gone better for me socially that way.

I think educationally I'd probably have gone to university on time instead of 3 years late if I'd been in school. Maybe. It would really depend on the school. I had the dyslexia diagnosis by then (13) so I would have got some special support.

Actually, that's the 3rd thing I would have changed. Get the autism diagnosis at 13 or before. So, I could go to school at 15 with a diagnosis of dyslexia, autism and them knowing I have an IQ of 123. That way I think I'd have got enough leeway and assistance to excel at school.

Aside from that I’m not sure what I would change. For all their flaws I couldn’t imagine growing up with a different family. A different neighbourhood of the same city maybe. It’s not just that it was a bit ‘rough.’ As a bit of an ethnic ghetto the kids in my area didn’t always seem to speak great English and tended to keep to themselves. I might have had more friends in the neighbourhood in another postcode.

But ultimately, we will never know for sure if these things would play out as we imagine. It’s all just speculation.

I know people will probably find this controversial, but I would give serious consideration to being born a woman. I can see lots of advantages.

The first and most obvious is I think I would find it easier to form romantic / sexual connections as a lesbian. Yes it's smaller dating pool but casual sex and being overtly forward is much more normalised than for heterosexual couples. Maybe not to the extent of gay men but I could just never imagen myself as a gay dude. Frankly being blunt and direct and in your face about what I want and what I'm offering would suit me much much more as a dating style.

I think it would be easier to form social connections as a woman. I have known a number of 'quirky' girls in my time with autistic like traits who I suspect were on the spectrum. One or two of them were apparently hypersexual and traded off their flirtatious and lewd behaviour to gain male and female attention as the 'party girl.' It was actually quite effective in helping them construct social groups that seemed to revolve around them. I've spent most of my life being labelled as creepy for talking about weird things and having generally poor social / nonverbal skills. I'd swap that for the social stigma that society tends to attach to (apparently) promiscuous women in a heartbeat.

Actually, it’s been my observation that a lot of these ‘promiscuous’ women are not actually that promiscuous. Or at least no more so than the men around them. They’re just not afraid to talk about sex or make it clear that they like and want sex.

I would have felt less pressured as a child to do team / ball sports / athletics which totally turned me off and I think I would have experienced less resistance to doing things I did like as a child like dance and gymnastics. Maybe even martial arts. My parents were always concerned martial arts might cultivate violent tendencies. They might have been less worried about this were I girl. This would have had knock on benefits for my health.

Statistically assuming I didn't have children I'd be likely to live longer and earn more as a woman.

As a girl I would have had the best of both worlds. Fancy dresses or casual t shirts. If I do male type activities like engineering / video gaming I’m a tom boy. If I do feminine ones like fashion, I’m just a girly girl.

The other thing I think I would do differently is push hard to go to a state school for my GCSEs / A levels (15-18).

As dreadful as my social skills may have been I think it would have gone better for me socially that way.

I think educationally I'd probably have gone to university on time instead of 3 years late if I'd been in school. Maybe. It would really depend on the school. I had the dyslexia diagnosis by then (13) so I would have got some special support.

Actually, that's the 3rd thing I would have changed. Get the autism diagnosis at 13 or before. So, I could go to school at 15 with a diagnosis of dyslexia, autism and them knowing I have an IQ of 123. That way I think I'd have got enough leeway and assistance to excel at school.

Aside from that I’m not sure what I would change. For all their flaws I couldn’t imagine growing up with a different family. A different neighbourhood of the same city maybe. It’s not just that it was a bit ‘rough.’ As a bit of an ethnic ghetto the kids in my area didn’t always seem to speak great English and tended to keep to themselves. I might have had more friends in the neighbourhood in another postcode.

But ultimately, we will never know for sure if these things would play out as we imagine. It’s all just speculation.

I think you'd just have different problems if you were female, you'd have the hassle of periods too.