I wonder sometimes if I had Aspergers and just effectively trained myself out of it. All I did was read when I was a kid. At recess, at home, etc. I just read. I didn't really understand social interactions and when I left my family and went to boarding school for high school it became apparent I was extremely socially behind.

Sitting in conversations trying to figure out a) what the heck people say, how do they even come up with something to say on inane topics? and b) when am I allowed to say the one thing I managed to find relevant? was excruciating during my early years.

Being too literal, to this day, is a problem. Struggling with social norms around "honesty", another daily issue. The idea that lying is A-Okay (particularly in business) and that there are some thoughts/ideas I'm not supposed to share due to social norms hasn't come easy. I'm lucky I've opted into a career where it's assumed I'll be a little weird (software engineer), so it's given a pass when I'm too honest, literal, etc.

For me, the big turning point was when I joined acting class my Sophomore year of HS. I basically just thought, "Oh, this is convenient! I'll just ACT like someone who is <x> and it'll all work out!" And, yea, for the most part that's been true. The difficulty of quickly sliding in between "me" and a "social mask" at work hasn't been fun, but overall I feel like the "mask" has become me a solid 40% of any given day to great positive effect.

I still find a social situation to be a lot of work. If I allow myself to drink or do anything that fuzzes my brain at all so I stop DOING all that work of analyzing the room and figuring out how I'm allowed to engage appropriately while still being as much "me" as I can, well, then I spend probably the next 24 hours in a shame-cycle about how poorly I must've come off because I KNOW if I don't do that work then I'm dropping the ball in a million tiny ways.

Early in my relationship with my SO anytime I had caffeine we fought...because I just stopped reading him and went off on my own happy little zig-zagging butterfly path. If he didn't explicitly say he was unhappy, I was not going to pick it up.

It'd be nice to just be able to point to a diagnosis rather than have to blame myself for fucking up another social scene by letting my attention wander or drinking or whathaveyou. But, you know, I could just be a normal introvert who has to work at being social in an extroverted world...

I sort of assume it's the latter.