Incoming Transmission from Austin!

[Sherlock77]

Welcome! Photography you say? Why yes... https://www.aspiescentral.com/threads/post-your-photography.301/page-34#post-395531

Would love to see some of your photos!

 

[AustinFrom1995]

What's up Austin! Welcome to AC, you're making the right choice by joining us. I live in Texas and I just loved visiting the city of Austin. I've considered myself as "weird" my entire life and so have many others, so the phrase "Keep Austin Weird" pushed my buttons in a very positive way; made me feel right at home. My psychologist thinks I have Asperger's and advised me to join an online community - so here I am. Never regretted joining, this community gives me so much insight on Asperger's, which I've been suspecting in myself all along.

I've been struggling socially throughout my entire life. I've had very few friends overall and went through many periods where I had zero. Never dated in my entire life and I'm almost 30 years old. Went through a fair (or unfair, to be correct) share of bullying and being ridiculed by other students. Tried very hard to fit in among NT's which only made things zillions of times worse, and made me more alone than ever. In college I was pretty much an outcast; I was in computer science so being a little weird is pretty typical there, but me...I was like an alien from outer space. I was pushing weird, I was even pushing alien. People thought I was crazy or on drugs, and many of them hated me. To this day I completely blame myself and just live in self-hatred and regret. Even now at work I feel like the outsider, but at least they treat me in a civil manner. And for the record, I don't hate myself for being weird; I hate myself for pushing weird and becoming annoying and obnoxious.

I've had some rather unusual interests here and there, but overall I'm a pretty boring guy; these interests, past and/or present, include streetlights, construction machinery, bottle caps, school ceiling intercoms, 4-digit numbers that start with 9, divisibilities of certain numbers, square roots, Isuzu tow trucks - and at one point I used to be very artistic and write stories, poems and songs. My streetlight and construction site interests have been some of the most prominent; I used to draw lights & sites, create imaginary cities in my mind with a bunch of imaginary lights & sites, and build a mock city in my childhood home with toy lights (made out of straw and paper cutouts) and sites. By now I've kind of lost the artistic side and write software for a living - but I do it because I'm skilled; I have no ambitions in life. My streetlight interest has indeed diminished, but it's not 100% gone. My construction site obsession however is as lively as ever. I also play an online card game where I dream of reaching Legend rank, and I get very flipped out if I go into a losing streak. I guess we can say that reaching Legend in this game would be my current ambition. Some NT's think it's a waste of time, but despite my self-esteem issues I stand my ground and I say otherwise.

Gonna end my rant here - welcome Austin! If people ever call you weird, just say "Keep Austin Weird" in a positive light. Weird is not bad, our planet is RULED by weird. Right now I'm most definitely weird, and weirder than weird - but I'm on a healthy level of weird. That college story of mine deserves its own thread, I might just make one in the near future.

Hehe, don't worry, this Austin is keepin' weird!

-Austin