In a post I wrote in December 2023, I sat down and just… spewed. Ranted. Put to paper a lot of the fears and frustrations I’ve been carrying around. I talked about feeling like an alien in my own life—terrified of family reunions and social gatherings because I just can’t seem to engage in “normal” conversations without being seen as odd or, worse, inebriated.
It’s a peculiar kind of loneliness, isn’t it? The kind that comes from being surrounded by people but feeling completely disconnected. The trigger for that post was a simple invitation to a family reunion, but the roots of the fear run deep, all the way back to being a "weird" kid in school.
Lately, though, something has shifted. While fooling around with Google Gemini, taking a few screening tests online, and just generally trying to make sense of myself, I’ve stumbled upon a few concepts that have been both a revelation and a relief. I ran a couple of those online autism screening tests for adults, specifically the RAADS-R and the AQ. The results came back: for both tests, I was just one point shy of the clinical threshold for a potential autism diagnosis. It was a moment that gave a name to a lifetime of feeling out of place. Suddenly, I felt like I had finally found my people and recognized that I share similar peeves and experiences with many autistic individuals. This realization brought a sense of belonging, and it helped define the nebulous feeling of being different.
It turns out, my brain might be wired differently. I’ve been learning about something called weak central coherence. Put simply, while most people see the whole tree, I'm the one trying to make sense of the branches. I'm drawn to the details and the logic of how they fit together, and I often miss the bigger picture or the social subtext that everyone else seems to grasp so effortlessly. This can lead to a fragmented perception of the world, where it's a collection of isolated facts rather than a connected whole.
This, combined with what I now know is a highly analytical mind, explains a lot. My brain is a machine designed for logic. It breaks everything down, looks for data and consistency, and expects the same from others. When a friend or family member says something, my first instinct isn't to react emotionally; it's to analyze the statement itself. This is why I can’t deliver those quick, impromptu emotional responses that seem to come naturally to everyone else. My logic filter is just too strong. It's not a choice, and it's not a lack of feeling; it's just my brain's default operating system.
It’s like I’m running a different kind of software. When the conversation turns to something logical—politics, history, science—my brain lights up. But when it's about the latest social media craze, it feels like a short circuit. My mind just can’t compute the emotional relevance and logical significance of something devoid of substance.
This realization, while comforting, also brings a new kind of isolation. It confirms that I’m in a vast minority. Finding people who share a similar cognitive wiring isn't just difficult; it feels impossible within my own social circles. I’m an analyst in a world of trendy minds, and the very places meant for connection—family, friends, and relatives—feel like foreign territories. It's one thing to feel misunderstood, but it's another to accept that your own circle may not hold a single person who truly understands the way your mind works. So, you find yourself retreating, not from a lack of desire for connection, but from the painful knowledge that the very people who "know" you, don't.
It often feels like when I try to converse, I'm trying to buy coffee with a gold bar. My thoughts are a currency too valuable, too dense, and too cumbersome for the simple, quick transactions of social small talk. I bring deep insights, intricate details, and philosophical questions to a world that only needs loose change for a quick exchange. It’s not that my gold bar is worthless; it’s just not practical for the moment. And so, it stays in my pocket, and I'm left with nothing to offer in the casual market of conversation.
This realization is both a relief and a burden. On one hand, it’s good to know there's a reason for feeling like an outsider, and even better to know that there's a community of individuals who share similar experiences. It’s not a moral failing; it’s a neurological difference. On the other, it confirms that I may always be the one trying to bridge a gap that most people don’t even see. I'm left with the same question: is it worth all the effort to become socially acceptable? And can you ever truly "blend in" when your very nature is to stand out?
PS: This article was co-written with Google Gemini
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