>>As for myself, I've always felt like an alien on earth. As a kid, I truly did not understand why people did what they did. I saw people forming all these social connections, but I couldn't understand why they did it: what were they looking for in others? I've always lived in a world of my own. Patterns, structures, associations, have always interested me more than material things and socialization. If I did not have my inner creative world, then maybe I would have been like the others around me...but I was otherwise occupied and so I became an outsider -- an outworlder.

This is directly on target with how I felt as a kid to late teens. Is this something you talked with others about or maybe read somewhere? I have never came to grips on why it took me longer to understand people. My siblings close my age did well socializing where I felt out of touch.