I'm OK with going to a ball game with tens of thousands of people because I adopt a "I'll leave you alone if you leave me alone" strategy. When someone I don't know talks to me anyway, it makes me uncomfortable.

CBT

?

Not what you think. (Or, okay, not what *I* thought, at first.)

Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Not what you think. (Or, okay, not what *I* thought, at first.)

@@

Thhhhhpt.

When someone I don't know talks to me anyway, it makes me uncomfortable.

I'm fine with this because I usually steal the conversation.

All the jokes I used to make about me being like Forrest Gump ("Sit next to me long enough, I tell you my life story.") aren't so funny anymore.

When someone I don't know talks to me anyway, it makes me uncomfortable.

Dude, that's a normal reaction.

So say I, the Teppish Curmudgeon.

Not what you think. (Or, okay, not what *I* thought, at first.)

Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Hey, that's where my brain went. Quiet, you!

Buffistas need to stop scaring themselves with unvalidated internet tests. You go to a therapist if you have persistent feelings of sadness, anxiety, or anger that cause you significant distress. You go to a therapist if you have symptoms that interfere with your ability to maintain strong, satisfying social relationships or your ability to make a living. You don’t go to a therapist because you turn out to be different from the average American. For that, you need only rejoice.

I'm better at a ball game with tens of thousands of people than I am on a crowded bus or elevator.

Of course, all my claustrophobia I owe to an actual near-trample experience, so I don't think that counts toward Asperger's one way or the other.

Buffistas need to stop scaring themselves with unvalidated internet tests. You go to a therapist if you have persistent feelings of sadness, anxiety, or anger that cause you significant distress. You go to a therapist if you have symptoms that interfere with your ability to maintain strong, satisfying social relationships or your ability to make a living. You don’t go to a therapist because you turn out to be different from the average American. For that, you need only rejoice.

By law, aren't you supposed to list the side effects of being different from the mainstream when you make a statement like this?

By law, aren't you supposed to list the side effects of being different from the mainstream when you make a statement like this?

Such as, "Alcohol may intensify this effect"?

Eep.

I just put a thank-you letter in the mailbox for one of the editors participating in our conference, in which I said that I'd get the full manuscript she'd requested in the mail to her as soon as I finished my current editing pass, and no later than Nov. 15.

That's five weeks from today.

I also promised myself I'd mail my three-chapter partial (because my first three chapters have already been hacked up in the editing process) no later than Friday to the agent who requested it.

My work is going to be out in the world again.

Eep.

t teeters between fear of failure and fear of success