Evening all,
I'm a 52 year old male, who recently seriously started to consider I have certain autistic characteristics. I'm still processing all of this, there are some descriptions of autism that I don't find I experience, e.g. I love a good metaphor, I enjoy being diplomatic as a default (but direct when it comes to the important stuff), quite like to make very direct eye contact with people I'm in conversation with to try and emphasis a point I might be making / see how they respond etc. - though walking down the street, I avoid making eye contact like the plague :)
However, I really hate groups, don't really understand how social group dynamics work, find it difficult to judge how friendly to be towards people who may become friends, spend a lot of time planning conversations, feel I have to supress / hide how I might naturally choose to respond during social interactions, etc.
I understand that autism is a spectrum, and so not everyone's experience is the same.
For several years, I've been perfectly happy living on my own, mostly working from home and not really interacting with anyone - I'm not generally someone who posts on forums / things like Discord etc., though I'll happily lurk on those kind of sites and just see what other people are saying.
Thought I'd break that habbit this time around, and just say Hi :)
I'm now considering maybe trying to be a bit more social / make some new friends, but feel the need to prepare before I try that.
Planning to consult my GP about whether it makes sense to be assessed - my instinct is that it might not be that useful, it might just make more sense for me to engage in a little introspection and reading to understand others experiences and see where they resonate. However, I also think that having a second opinion / external perspective is probably going to be necessary - I suspect I have various blind spots that I might need guidance on.
Anyway, hello all, I have yet to explore the forums properly but hope to do so over the next couple of days.
Cheers
