Surviving The Fall, 41

I have noticed similar traits in most of the people (almost all of them males) who tell me they are introverts. They're all, even just a little, socially awkward. This is very chicken and egg. Did their social dyslexia make them introverts or did being introverts make them socially dyslexic? I also suspect that some of them might be somewhere on the spectrum, perhaps with mild Asperger's. When they were children in school did they want to be numbered with the cool kids only to meet with cruel and persistent rejection? Or were they all already individually too cool for the common rabble and from the very beginning shunned the madding crowd, being themselves a superior race, inhaling rather too refined and pure an air to be appreciated by lesser mortals? I do not suspect the latter. However, gifted children often have a terrible time integrating with their peers, but I don't think it's because they don't want to have friends. I was a gifted child. I wanted friends. We were not on the same wavelength. I think that all children, unless they are severely autistic, really want to belong, they really desire to participate with others. However, we have a very nasty and pernicious Darwinist trait in our little developing human natures, and yes, especially children, who can be so cruel, sadistic and excluding. The schoolyard is a vicious and nasty place, and it is a very horrible petri-dish that forms us into the rabid mouth-breathing consumer-capitalists that the corporations expect to help keep their profit margins nice and wide. What I find problematic are all these walking wounded, now adults, mostly men, who are so traumatized and stigmatized for not being numbered among the cool, but oh so shallow kids, that they lie and dissimulate. Their macho pride, forged in the black flame of toxic masculinity forbids them from admitting that they weren't exactly introverts. They were simply socially dysfunctional, if gifted and extremely bright, geeks whom no one wanted to be seen with. It is a hard and brutal truth to have to face, and men are particularly delinquent when it comes to this kind of humiliating dishonesty. We would rather believe beautiful lies about ourselves, and even if we are smart enough to not fall for that crap, we still want others to believe them. There is no support for us. At least now, in the public school system, they are finally calling out and confronting this kind of bullying that really destroys and deforms those who would otherwise develop noble and inspiring souls. I don't know how far they'll get with it, but when I first heard of queer kids actually being stood up for and defended by their peers (pink T shirt, anyone?), I felt suddenly gladdened and hopeful. There are always going to be those small numbers of particularly and peculiarly gifted individuals among us. It isn't that we don't want to have friends. We want friends, because like the rest of you, we need other people. We might also have a legitimate need for more solitude, more alone and breathing space, because we're highly sensitive, or need time to think, to reflect and digest things, to hear the inner voice, so to speak, and to acquire the kind of wisdom and knowledge that we alone are able to contribute and without which the rest of your lives would be empty, barren, colourless and desolate. It is sad that so many of us who have survived the nightmare of school cannot be honest about what makes us introverted loners, that we were never accepted or appreciated by our peers. We still have to give ourselves time to heal, and this need for quiet space is what often defines us as introverts. It is safe. We don't have to deal with other people's crap, and usually, being more perceptive and discerning than others, we really do know that most of what binds the shallow, mouth-breathing extrovert majority together, is pure and utter horseshit.