Nice post thanks, I think people find me weird more than anything else, I was called 'that weird child ' all the time when I was growing up. People were a bit scared of me as I was so old for my age. I understand the idea that - 'What others think and feel about me is none of my business' but I do get uneasy about how I relate to people as I had a very strange upbringing - its better all the time now I am just an 'auld doll 'soon to be 70.
I also have D.I.D (M.P.D)so have to watch that I am not triggered in a way that might upset others. I live in sheltered accommodation and people here have got used to me so I guess apart from the fact that I don't have a baldie about some of the ways some of my alters live my life for me so I suppose a shorter answer would be I'm sure when I am with someone and doubtful afterwards at times.

Not in my experience. Not on a personal / emotional level anyway. On a professional level, oddly, people tend to have a somewhat OVERLY charitable view of me. But on an intimate level, hilarity quickly ensues. Predictably my professional life has been wildly successful, and my relationships have consisted of way more drama and way less connection that I would have wanted. Whether you're talking about marriage or more casual friendships.

There are so many variables in play that it'd be beyond the scope of a single reply to cover them all, but at bottom, I regard my life as a gradual realization of the fact that Other People's needs and expectations are WILDLY different to a degree I never imagined possible as a youngster. To the point that many people's perceptions and responses and needs are little more than an alien cypher to me. I have learned to grasp them at least intellectually, but find them exhausting to accommodate.

I have pretty much accepted that I'm going to die with just one person knowing / understanding / fully accepting me: and that's me. I think that in that sense, we all die as we were born and as we lived -- alone. It's just not something we like to accept; it's probably right behind the fact of our mortality on the list of things we'd rather not think about. We prefer to imagine we'll live indefinitely, and that some bright shining day, just around the next corner (or the next, or the next) is that close BFF, soulmate partner or whatever, that we've always fantasized about. Our culture obliges with all kinds of soaring ballads to these notions. But it's mostly illusory.

I can't say. I don't have the most positive view of myself. Others probably have a different opinion. I don't necessarily go out of my way to as them though.

I'm honestly not sure. I'm a tall bearded dude, I imagine people think I'm scary, my friends know otherwise, but I have no way to gauge the average person in the street. Kids are easier to gauge, they see me and are almost immediately scared crapless. But then they warm up to me pretty quickly. I love kids so maybe I try harder with them LoL

Most people seem to think I'm nicer than I believe I am.

Seems I have at times been perceived as a leader - NOT. But I am a person who will speak out, unafraid. I do not think there is a big disconnect

Generally speaking, you see yourself, but most people do not really see you or even try to. What they do is judge you.

No. Thanks to an opportune constellation of happenstantial factors, the gulf is huge. Build, body language and gestures, posture, mode of speech, vocabulary, style of dress--people see more that isn't there (through their filtered glasses) than is.

Uptight and prissy, naive, innocent; conceited, superior... Oh FFS... I can't even with people. These days I don't bother.

I don't think I'm as intense as everyone else seems to. Apparently, I'm quite a force to be reckoned with.

I have no idea. I don't even think about such things. Am I a jerk?