[thedevil]

Same here. I was able to learn social skills in my late teens and through my twenties.

It wasn't exactly a fun process though. I'd try to "act normal" and then get feedback that taught me I was breaking a social norm. Feedback = kids making fun of me or cringing out of pity and embarrassment for me. And I wasn't very sensitive to the feedback so it took a lot of feedback to learn.

Now I seem normal-ish and life is peachy and my different ways of thinking feel like a superpower rather than a handicap. But man, teenage life was hard.

Disclaimer: I was never actually diagnosed with ASD (I was just called "weird" and "nerdy" and other things), but I have no doubt I would be diagnosed ASD if I ever got diagnosed.

[cmdrfred]

My story is similar to yours except I made a conscious decision to buck the trends and didn't work too hard on acting normal. I worry about what will happen to the kids growing up in this new safe-zone anti-bullying world? That feedback was invaluable to me, in fact it was probably the most important thing I learned in high school.