In most normal social situations I feel like an alien trying to pass as human, like the people I'm talking to are really far away, or like we're reading lines off an uninteresting script. Is this because I'm abnormal, or because I'm not trying hard enough? I really can't tell.
Sounds like many accounts I've read from autistic peoples' experiences of 'masking' (includes social scripting, suppressing physical mannerisms, deliberately trying to maintain eye contact, etc.) V.little research on it & current conversation is entangled w/ identity politics.