I was born in a hospital, I know not where, same as most people. My mother said that I had continuously hit my head on the way out. I don't know if that would have that had an impact on me but I think it might have. Growing up I was average, a bit smarter maybe, with two married parents, younger siblings, and no big 'Origin Story' worthy events. We moved in the third grade and that is where I started noticing that maybe my world was a tad bit off as opposed to others. We were given a test on finding patterns and sequences, and hadn't learned anything like it before. For me it took ten minutes, for the class, forty. Nothing bad, just off because the way I saw the patterns was different. It was about then that I started picking up on my idiosyncrasies. In social interactions I would notice I have trouble picking up on tone, in games I couldn't plan ahead. Touch extremely bothered me and I couldn't be around people for too long before I ‘expire' and have near panic attacks internally. I am almost entirely apathetic to what most people would gain excitement from, while being excited by other things. Even my cadence of speech is different, I say ‘Greetings' and not ‘'Ey what up boi!'. I say, ‘Mother, Father' rather than ‘mom, dad' and am generally more formal in my speech. When I was in late middle and start of high school the words that had meaning but no context came into play, hetero, homo, pan, trans among others. The majority would talk about intimate situations and I would be left confused, why would people make themselves vulnerable and emotionally compromised for a few moments of pleasure. It just sounded pointless and sticky to me. Dating made no sense to me because we all know it wouldn't last. ‘Ace' my friends tell me. ‘Logical' I call myself. Again, nothing bad, for I am Ace and fine with that. However it was different because I know no others with the orientation I have, and didn't even know my view would be a whole separate orientation. It was a few things that didn't affect my life copiously, but it was enough to make me feel inadequate about myself for being different even if I was in the gifted programs, had friends and a passing grade. If I would ever bring up feeling different to my parents, they would pacify me with all the achievements that I had made. They would say, ‘Oh honey how could there be anything wrong with you? You have a job!', and ‘Darling you were in every gifted program, and came up with great solutions to problems there, how is that “wrong”?' I knew something was different with me though, I got into the gifted programs because I saw things differently, and if I wasn't there maybe people would be more suspicious and I would be evaluated for a discrepancy. It was as though everyone was viewing life through one lense, and me another. Like we were looking at the same object but were different distances apart. Even I would start doubting what I know is true simply because I had made it so far into my life without anyone pointing anything out. ‘High Functioning Autistic' the doctors told me, when my parents did get me examined. I asked what that meant and the doctor responded with the apropos statement of, ‘It's like you're looking into a room and you see that the objects as about a ¼ inch off from where others see them. Your sight isn't more or less correct, it's not flawed, it's just ¼ inch off from where everyone else sees things.' It helped a lot to gain that closure, and to know that I am not messed up or wrong. It's just the way my brain chooses to see things is ¼ inch different from how everyone else's brain sees things.