Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello,
I got diagnosed 7months ago, just before my 28th birthday. Ever since people have been telling me that all my social issues will be solved by going on forums and finding people who share my interests, but the problem is I don't really have any. I like things but not so intently that a person's negative opinion about them wouldn't make me consider dropping that interest. And I don't know lots about stuff I like. I like movies but like I've never seen most of the big ones people seem to always want to talk about. I remember when I heard my friends watched Community I was like "Oooh I've seen that!!" And then they made all these references I didn't get and I started to wonder if I'd missed half the show.
So yeah, here's me trying to join a community forum when I don't even know what I want to talk about with you
I remember someone once said on the forum, think about stuff you liked or were interested in when growing up. I think the adult world makes us lose focus sometimes, but you might just find a spark going back to things you had forgotten about.
As for films etc I always find it interesting how others were able to explain what happened in a film or the storyline for instance. Altho I don't watch many films, this is something I've always had difficulty with. (For example summarising a story or gist or maybe explaining something) but I'm going off on a tangent here.
Also, check out futurelearn - they do loads of free courses and you don't have to commit to anything. I've learned about forensic psychology, black holes, gravity, dyslexia, everyday maths etc. Theres a wide range of courses.
When I was little, I only used to be interested in and like things that my older brother liked. I remember being bought a Polly Pocket by a friend for a birthday and liking it briefly but then my brother told me it was rubbish and I took that literally so I decided not to like it anymore. It made it hard for me to make friends at school because I knew all the comic book heroes and lots about dinosaurs but no of the girls at school wanted to talk about those things. But I will try and sift through my memories and see if any childhood interests survived my brother's vetting process (I mean dinosaurs are cool and all but I really was only interested in learning about them because I enjoyed my brother's enthusiasm for them so much. I think that's a common theme for me, I like learning about what other people like. I think I would make a good friend for other autistic people to info dump their special interests onto but I'm bad at bringing anything to the conversation myself so initiating friendships is hard)
Futurelearn sounds really cool, I will check that out. Thank you for sharing that, I love free learning
One of my past interests was serial killers, Peter sutcliffe yorkshire ripper. My local library used to think I was a bit odd, but why have the books in the first place.