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Pretending to be 'normal'...!

Skye81

Active Member
Just wondered about everyone else here when it comes to meeting up with friends..
If I had my way I'd stay home and sleep or do my own thing.. but I do try to see my children's friend's mums sometimes as I also don't want to have no friends! So today is one of those meet ups. At one of their houses (I didn't offer mine..) and I'll go along and have to pretend.... (with no diagnosis yet these situations are frightful). I will get through the meet up fairly well I think.. Inside I will feel frightened of mucking up so I will be very careful about speaking. I certainly won't ask them about anything but they will ask me and I will be happy to answer. And I will laugh and even laugh when I'm not totally sure what they're really talking about. But I have learned over time to copy others.. and that'll help me pretend. When they talking together I'll sit and smile yet my mind might not totally be listening and it may be racing ahead to what might happen next. I think I manage to act 'normal' and try to almost cover it up that I only properly talk when spoken to.. ..... But when I get home I will be exhausted.
 
I understand this totally. I found in order to be socially accepted I was required to mimic behaviours of my peers even if I didn't understand why they were performed or needed. Quite frustrating and very draining.
 
If I meet up with a friend on their own, I can follow the conversation and keep up, and appear to be more or less normal, but the constant pressure to speak tires me, so I burn out quickly. Taking a break to the bathroom helps. If I meet with a group of friends, the conversation is too fast for me to participate, I can't keep up, my mind wanders and I'm not engaged. I don't speak unless somebody asks me something. I don't burn out as quickly, but I get bored. If it's in a noisy setting, that will tire me, and if people are smoking, I leave. I have a habit of getting up and wandering about.

I much prefer doing things with people rather than just sitting round talking. It's much more interesting, you don't have to talk all the time, and when you do, you're talking about the activity. Things like hiking, bowling, boardgames, watching a movie or a live band are good activities for me to do with other people. I don't like socialising for the sake of socialising and just sitting round talking.

I don't socialise very often, but the people I hang out with me are used to me being me, and expect no different. They know that if I'm with them, I won't talk much unless spoken to, I may get up and wander around or I may leave early, just as they know that my other undiagnosed more extrovert Aspie friend will dominate the conversation and talk about nothing but theatre. They accept that this is how we are.
 
I mimic others constantly, even though it tires me and makes me hate social situations even more. I feel like I've been doing so for such a long time now---I started mimicking in high school, so...around 8 years now---that I don't even wonder why other people do what they do. I'm still lost in the situation, and just copy everyone else to keep up, but I have given up wondering what the point of the action is... I am trying to break this habit now and only keep the facade up while at work or in class, but it's a really difficult thing to break after making it a habit for coping for so long. I have finally begun to see, however, that it just causes more pain later on because of the high amounts of stress/anxiety that mimicking causes and now realize that this particular coping mechanism is a poor one at best and completely devastating to my social abilities at worst (because I only copy, never learn, and therefore never correct myself).
 
I got my ASD from my dad, whose family I've never known. All my family is on my mum's side, and the majority are literally as NT as NT can be. At family get-togethers, they will sit for hours talking, shrieking and drinking. Drinking alcohol actually makes socialising a lot easier for me, but unfortunately I also don't tolerate it very well, so drinking as much as my family do is simply not an option for me - unless I'm prepared to be horribly sick, which I'm not. I also cannot sit and talk (or, more likely, listen) for hours: I would go out of my mind with boredom. I either have to be doing something else - like using a tablet - or take a break and go on a walk. My family are well used to this, but I am not sure what I would do if I ever got a group of new friends.
 
Mimicking others to appear 'normal' must be debilitating over time because it's not how you truely are. I can see that you may want to fit in with a group and you do it because there's the end goal- to avoid rejection/feeling outcast and you go through it because you know it will be over in a few hours.
I prefer concentrating on the people/conversation a lot more, putting my energies there. Through experience I know it's better to jump in from the outset and generate conversation otherwise I'd be too worried about piping up later on during the engagement. It may take a couple of deep breaths from the outset but it'll make you feel more empowered and relieve the pressure you'd feel to contribute later. Following this, you may find people will want to talk to you more/ask you questions rather than you having to generate that sort of conversation.
 
This is the way I've always perceived it.

When I played ice hockey I would don all the protective gear and put on my blades. During the match I played by the rules (mostly, well, it is ice hockey) and at the end of the game I took it all off.

When I rode my motorbike I'd don all my gear plus helmet and go rip up the countryside before coming home to take it all off.

As a pilot, I'd prep all the stuff I needed in the cockpit and assume a neutral accent so air traffic could understand me.

As an aspie I will don whatever I need to play whatever game it is in the moment. No difference, no stress.
 
I'm changing my thoughts on the whole "pretending to be normal" thing. I assumed that I did that, since a lot of Aspies talk that up, but I never really tried that hard to fit in anywhere.

I tried to be normal, I thought I was, and when I didn't seem to be normal in certain areas, I either avoided those things, dismissed them for some pompous reason or another, or carried on and just tried to hide my eccentricities and weaknesses if it seemed to be a problem or someone made fun of them. I've really tried to fly under the radar. I do care way too much what others may think of me, which has motivated me to hide out, but I also accept that I'm quirky. I thought that was kind of normal, anyway, since I believed I was normal, just a bit different.

I do look at my life now and think that I am quite far from normal.
 
I used to try really really hard to 'be normal' and fit in, but my mimicking skills must have been pretty shoddy! I was bullied at primary and then secondary school, and both places I worked. Through my teenage years I got by due to drinking pretty heavily and my last employment ended when I landed myself in ICU for a month... my lovely husband loves me just for me, and I never stop appreciating that. I don't have friends, although I'm still trying by going to a craft group. This week's quote, from my stepson, age 12...'I've never liked the way you talk, it's weird and I find it annoying. You need to work on your tone'. Thanks fella...!
 
I agree with a lot of the things people have said here. I started mimicking in order to fit in in primary, where I had one best friend who I copied, to the point where I was able to finish her sentences for her. It worked well until secondary school where she ditched me to join the 'popular' people and I suddenly no longer had a crutch to rely on... things went down hill fast! I only began to manage to fit in again in my late teens after leaving school. I am now quite confident in my 'acting normal' skills. I realised about a year ago that I have a tendency to develop a close friendship with one person wherever I go and then unconsciously mimic their personality.

I much prefer doing things with people rather than just sitting round talking. It's much more interesting, you don't have to talk all the time, and when you do, you're talking about the activity. Things like hiking, bowling, boardgames, watching a movie or a live band are good activities for me to do with other people. I don't like socialising for the sake of socialising and just sitting round talking.

This 100%. I'm quite an introverted person, but I love doing activities with friends (especially all of the activities Progster listed aside from the live band, plus playing cards), but being invited out for coffee or over for dinner fills me with dread. Sitting around talking is both exhausting and boring. I'm naturally inclined to stay silent unless I actually have something to say (which is very rarely in non-work related conversation) but I know that it's expected to join in with the meaningless chatter about nothing, it's stressful!
 
I think that's the case for a lot of us - I notice a lot of things I do are just copied from others, it's all scripted. Sometimes I feel a bit depressed thinking that most of what I do is just mimicking and guessing my way through most scenarios in life because it doesn't come naturally to me. I feel like most of what I say is scripted and I don't know how to respond when the script doesn't go as planned. Also maybe because I am half deaf and miss most of what people say, so I end up just nodding my head or saying "ok" when I didn't actually catch what the person was saying. But I am like that not just in conversations but in other things too.
 
I see it as a façade, a pretty front I use to fit in and look good. In my career, it's required. It is exhausting when I have to do it for hours on end but, it isn't stressful, it's a game, the social game.

I find that wearing different facades, acting basically, at home alone helps me stay more comfortable doing it in public. I will choose a personality from history, a movie, book, whatever and talk out a fan fiction as if I am talking to that character. Just a way to stay comfortable using different facades and, it helps me see correct social interaction for myself since I have to figure them out for my private, self taught acting lessons. :)

I sort of trained myself to be a method actor - to become whomever I wish to portray. Then going into a social situation, all I need to do is envision my role and get into that character ahead of time and, I'm good to go.
 
Thanks for all the replies. I survived the 'mother's meeting..' And nope, I don't think I asked a question apart from pinging back one or two that were said to me.. like being asked of we were going away this summer... Ah yes, you've now reminded me to ask you..!! Honestly, I have to laugh at the things i can't do as naturally as others. A common one that comes up is when someone else is planning a party or dinner and I will just be nodding away when someone else comes along, gets a repeat of what I just heard.. and then asks if the needed them to do anything/bring anything... Ha! I always forget that one. I should write it on my hand.
Well.. now I've survived the last meet up.. tonight I have a horrendous one. Dinner at the in laws with a big bunch of their friends who don't see us much. Oh help. As usual I guess I'll wait for one couple to ask me about our lives.. I'll reply with the information I have until I have run out... and then about 6 more couples will gradually find me and ask me the same. Argh. I hate having to say this stuff more than once. I should just announce it all with a microphone and then it'd be done and I could go off to another room and read..!!
 

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