Being the "Other"

It took me over 30 years to realise why I had such a difficult time fitting in when I was in school.  I never had a best friend.  I never maintained any relationships from those days.  I never had this nostalgia to go back out of sentiment.  I never really liked attending functions and crowds.  I still do not like crowds.  It was years, and years later, reading a book about autism when I realised that one section described me exactly.  I always knew I thought differently from others, but it was a revelation to realise how much different.  It is fascinating, when I consider how I have spent my life around people describing various categories of the “other”, when I learned I was that “other”.

It sounds very strange, but as an adult, I no longer have to pretend to cry at funerals, squeezing my eyes for a few drops of “tears” to fit in.  People die.  The world moves on.  We may speak fondly of them, but ultimately, we only remember their legacy.  I do not feel that range of emotions.  I do not react well to emotions, or emotional people.  I would be a terrible counsellor.  Strong emotions tend to irritate me.  Emotional blackmail does not work on me.  As a sociopath, I am keenly aware how much people use emotions, often unconsciously, to leverage on others.  I see through this in the same way drivers read road signs.  I know when people deliberately lie.  On the other hand, I could tell terrible tales and still pass a lie detector.

I have spent much of my living moving in places, a part of the group, but apart from them.  Sometimes, people imagine I am one of them because I know how to speak language, and behave like them, without actually feeling what they feel.  But it always felt like a facade.  It is against my principles to lie, or to live a lie.  That is a sign of weakness, and the acceptance of the primacy of an external entity.  That offends the dominant in me.

I have accepted that I do not fit in, and I will never fit in.  Our greatest anguish in life is that we are taught to fit in, regardless.  We were never meant to fit in anywhere.  We are meant to find ourselves, and surround ourselves with people who understand we all have a distinct journey.  People waste their lives seeking the approval of others they do not even like.  That is emotional slavery.  This is one of the foundations of human misery, islands of despair in an ocean of humanity.  I am not one of those islands.