My smart, quirky son with a huge vocabulary that made him seem different the minute he started speaking didn't fit in with kids his age, but he did fit in with several boys that are three and four years older who share common interests like role playing games, musical theater, Mythbusters, science, technology, music, reading and lots of other things. With all these different interests I thought it would be easy to find common ground with other kids his age, but it wasn't. He didn't do sports and that is all most of the boys in our area wanted to talk about. My son turned 12 today and some of his friends are old enough to drive and have part time jobs. He doesn't see them as much as he used to. I knew this would happen eventually. At least there is Facebook and he can keep in touch that way and this online socializing seems to be working out well for him.
Only one of his best friends is still doing musical theater with him, but there are a lot of girls his age or older in the musical theater group now and he is realizing this is not such a bad thing. He is hoping to get a good part in Suessical now that he is over the shyness about singing solos. His confidence level has gone way up in the last several months, in spite of having to wear a scoliosis brace and dealing with a lot of migraine headaches, because the middle school aged group of girls tell him he is smart and funny and he makes them giggle and one of them even said he was cute.
My son is as tall as some adults now so talking like an adult doesn't seem odd to other people, unless he really unleashes his huge vocabulary while talking to me in the presence of someone we just met who he feels treated him like he is a "dumb little kid that doesn't know anything." He seems sensitive to that kind of thing. I am sensitive to the looks we get when he does this.
The neuropsychologist that tested him described him as personable and she did not diagnose him with Aspergers, just dyspraxia. A smart kid with a mild disability in a small town with a sports hegemony will have a difficult time fitting in even if he has good social skills.
