The only group that’s ever accepted me and has welcomed me without doing that so far has been my local drama group (and, of course, this place :) ). There, it seems my “Golden retriever” energy is always welcomed and in fact valued. What’s been your experience?
I know your feelings, I had to learn to not overwhelm the people with my energy if I don’t know them enough.
Even my cat is like ‘leave me alone, wtf is wrong with you?’ This is the long road to becoming a socially acceptable person. None of this is written down or ever stated by anyone but if you violate social norms too much you end up quite lonely.
I took this test the other week https://embrace-autism.com/cat-q/#test
And scored 150, particularly bad in the last section which is apparently a red flag.
My wife and her cousin both scored 50
Both of them just say “be yourself” but if I was, that’s the fast road to loneliness
139 over here. The most confusing part about it is that parents are often also neurodivergent and so whacky behaviour can be normalised during childhood. Then we get out into the world and have to learn a load of nuanced social cues in order to fit in. It is very strange to find out as a 47 year old that your experience is significantly different to most people and set about unlearning those masking behaviours.