Faking Normal is a series written by guest blogger J, an adult on the autism spectrum. Her other articles can be found here.

The title of this article is something I’ve heard a ridiculous number of times. I’m what, now? We’re supposed to look a certain way? This is hilarious to me, but also a little bit disheartening. I repeated that line to a friend who is on the spectrum and he cracked up laughing, then said, “That’s just sad.” And it is.

One of the things the psychologist I saw for most of my childhood made clear to me was that part of fitting in was looking like other people. My parents let me do any odd thing I wanted to, like wearing a pink tutu over a plaid skirt with a turtleneck and jeans. I appreciate that they accommodated my individuality, but it also made me look like a weirdo. Which is the last thing I want as an adult, especially as one who has a professional career and is trying to be taken seriously as an attorney. You can’t wear a tutu to court. I’m pretty sure? I haven’t tried it, but no one else does.

It took a while, but I got sort of obsessed with clothes and makeup. I like things that match (my desk at work is obsessively color coordinated… it started with a red stapler à la Office Space and spiraled from there), so it wasn’t that difficult to transition that to my physical appearance. Nail polish is a special obsession. I have around 400 of them, and please don’t ask me to apologize for that. I am a collector, not a hoarder, regardless of what pretty much everyone I know thinks.

Right now, I’m into the 1970s glam look. That’s what I’m channeling at the moment. It’s not super normal, but it’s close enough and I love it. I also live about half my life in Sephora. That’s something of a hyperbole, but it’s probably not too far off. It’s not like the people at the Sephora near my work know me by name or anything (okay, they do).

I do spend a lot of time and effort on my appearance, and part of it is trying really hard to fake normal. There are girls with whom I work who wear yoga pants and t-shirts every day, but I feel like they can get away with it because their personalities aren’t bizarre. I have to work a lot harder at selling myself as a regular human being, and maybe I shouldn’t be so self-conscious, but here I am. There is another girl with whom I work who wears whatever she likes, including tights covered in butterflies and a necklace made of snake vertebrae. That girl does not care. She’s not trying to fit in. She looks great at all times, and I’m actually pretty jealous of her. Especially when she wears the butterfly tights. Those things are so freaking cool.

I honestly don’t try to not look autistic, because I don’t even know what that means. At the same time, how I dress and do my makeup and hair does make it easier to seem like I’m neurotypical. I hope someday that’s not a goal, but right now, it still is.

I know I’ve championed allowing your child to do any crazy things he or she wants in the Faking Normal series in the past, but it’s a lot easier to be different if you look like you’re normal, at least in public. It really makes it more effortless to fit in if you look like you fit in. That’s a sad truth, but it is the truth.

“You’re too pretty to be autistic” is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard, but many people have said that or something analogous to me. People with ASD are not all the same. If you’ve met one autistic person… Well, you’ve met one autistic person. We don’t all look the same. We don’t all act the same. We have some things in common, which is why we have the same diagnosis, but having expectations about appearance or behavior is pretty unfair. However, it’s the way things are currently, and making it as a professional means mimicking neurotypical behavior to the best of my ability.

So I’ll keep my Smashbox eye pencils (you really have to try those, they’re ahhh-mazing), Julep nail polishes, and Trina Turk dresses. I still look slightly weird (not everyone wants to appear as if they’re trying to be 1973 Goldie Hawn), but I like to think that I just look a little eccentric. At least not like some manner of Irish-ballerina-tomboy hybrid. That’s an OK compromise for me, and I’m both amused and saddened by the fact that apparently people expect me to wear my medical diagnosis pinned to my sleeve.

“I yam what I yam and tha's all what I yam.” - Popeye the Sailor