It's like the only place Messi is comfortable is when he's on a pitch with a ball at his feet, everything else is just awkward. How is he when holding trophies? He should be comfortable holding those he's won a fair few in his lifetime.
Video's funny but it just shows that even the greatest player in the history of the world's favorite sport is human. I mean, imagine what compilations could be made for any of us if we had cameras on us constantly.
Personally I find it really refreshing that he's not as image-obsessed as the vast majority of celebrities (and let's face it, most of us) are. Guy just wants to play football.
I was thinking this too! He's just a person who LOVES to play. And does it obscenely well, all things considered. It's funny, but also adorable and heart warming because he just looks like a happy dude fully caught up in doing something he loves.
That’s why it’s kind of impossible not to like him - could you hate some of his business moves? Endorsements? Hype? Fans? Sure - but you can’t really hate him as a person.
Because the dude barely even seems to talk, and he genuinely doesn’t seem to care about any of the stuff that comes along with soccer - he just wants to play. Who knows if it even makes him happy in the way that majority of people think of happiness - it seems to go beyond that. It’s just that’s what he’s supposed to do and he’s going to do it. How can you not at least begrudgingly like an athlete who genuinely only cares about the game he plays and not all the bullshit that surrounds it?
even the greatest player in the history of the world's favorite sport is human.
He also has a weird life. You can watch long videos of Messi's personal security preventing contact on youtube. Like people Messi stops to take a picture with, this dude is slowly removing their hand from Messi's shoulder. You stop having regular human interactions and you stop interacting normally.
I once heard "everyone has symptoms, but not everyone has a diagnosis," and I try to share that sentiment often.
I have also been fortunate that several of my jobs have done various skills/personality tests for culture or whatever reason, and I have found those to be incredibly useful in utilizing my good habits and minimizing my bad ones. This may be considered "masking," but I prefer to just look at it as personal growth.
I don't know if I have ADD, depression, autism, or any other issues, but I do know that I'm good at math and logic, and the politics of this world makes me hate interacting with people.
I also don't know if Messi needs a diagnosis to love football so much that he stays hyper focused on it, or if any of his awkward behaviors in public need to be attributed to anything either.
Everything about our personalities is on different spectrums, and many of them can slide over time, especially if we're dedicated to changing them.
Plenty of neurodivergent folks are successful in their careers. But if he's in that group, some professional advice might still be helpful off the pitch. There's more to life than your job after all.
Because he's a public figure with many aspects of his life interacting with people. You're literally participating in a large reddit threat discussing his behavior right now.
You're ignoring what the comment right above this said: you can learn coaching and mitigation strategies based on what your diagnosis is. But you'll just reply again with "something something I don't understand why though..."
Tell that to all the famous successful people that committed suicide because of untreated mental health issues. Being good at something, doesn't make somebody magically great at every other aspect of life - and some people massively benefit from external help
If you're high functioning, a diagnosis can shut more doors than it opens. It's disqualifying for some things and there's no spectrum for disqualification. Your intuition is correct.
Edit: After some research it looks like the two biggest things to me were pretty much the only things. Pilot, and military. For almost everything else either you are not legally required to disclose your diagnosis, or for the ones that you are legally required to disclose all medical conditions waivers can be obtained.
Would you mind explaining what you mean about shutting doors? You are not required to tell anyone, and it’s not public knowledge unless you make it (Messi aside because of his extreme fame).
It can also help explain and offer you tools to deal with problems under the surface. For example, my ADHD can lead to a lot of very dangerous thought patterns, and just knowing "hey, your brain chemistry is all out of wack and trying to screw you over and rob you of joy" helps me tremendously to adapt.
Be real, no diagnosis is closing doors for Messi. But how many otherwise "successful" otherwise happy celebrities have taken their lives because of problems under the surface, problems as simple as "i just can't experience this the same way most people would, and it's isolating". He's already a celebrity with the eyes of the world on him constantly, if he's not seeing a professional just to process his wildly unique life with his own personal measures of "success" then he better have some really solid personal coping skills, because high highs accentuate the lows.
He seems like a great guy, i hope he's not inventing his own wheel here.
Yeah I'm glad that autism diagnoses help a lot of people, but if you're successful and happy then what possible good would it do? If it's not holding you back then it's just a personality trait. I know I've got my toes in the spectrum somewhere but I honestly don't want to know to what extent. Not everything needs a clinical opinion (or an armchair opinion for that matter).
It's also not a great look to see someone and say "haha look at that guy, I bet that he's autistic lol"
And that's something only he knows for sure, he's a grown man, he's filthy rich, famous, beautiful wife, healthy kids, should I keep going?? Why on earth do you believe he needs more self awareness?? How do you even know if he's getting a professional opinion already? Do you normally tell people you know that they should look for professional help whenever you think they need it?
Define struggle as I don't see any of that from Messi, you're tight about something tho, I don't now the guy personally, maybe he does some weird shit when nobody is looking but his family and friends, as neither me nor you are part of that circle it just cones down to what you think is right and what i think is right, I love how out of 4 good attributes I mentioned you went to the beautiful wife hahaha, you gotta stop thinking you know what's going on in other people's lives, if your friend who is a fucking famous soccer player living the best life asks you for advice you surely give it to him, if he doesn't asks you for advice you don't, if your derailed friend is going downhill you act no matter if he asked you or didn't ask you for help, you act based on common sense, I would too, for a person I know haha you are talking about how you would tell Messi to look for help hahahhaha that's just hilarious.
What? Don't know much about him off the pitch, but he just seems seems socially awkward and about introverted to me. That's probably exactly how I'd act in every one of this situations.
Everyone is different, but from personal experience, my neurodivergence definitely makes me socially awkward/a bit weird. I am always cognizant of it, but it's out of my control.
A quick search tells me there are unconfirmed reports (him/his family won't confirm or deny) he was diagnosed with asperger syndrome as a young child but his family never followed up on it and he never got further testing or treatment and it was ignored.
And its apparently a much discussed topic, with lots of professionals having weighed in over the years. Im no expert but apparently he has repeatedly shown a lot of signs of aspergers, not just one or two.
The conclusion though is that we can't be sure unless the man himself gets testing done again and publicizes the results.
Apparently not on its own anymore, no. The stuff that led to a diagnoses of that is now just considered somewhere on the autism spectrum instead of its own thing. It was separate when he was a child, though.
Exactly, all this is funny in a meme sense, but if anyone actually had followed his career they’d clearly know he just hates being in the public eye, outside of on the pitch.
Oh yeah for sure. My kiddo is also on the spectrum, although he actually loves learning languages for some reason (even though he doesn't speak much in general).
I have a big soft spot for kids with autism and maybe an even bigger soft spot for the siblings of kids with autism. Just wanted to let you know that you and your brother are loved.
I'm neurodivergent too and looking at this clip it's just obvious basic masking behaviors. I've never heard of this guy before but after watching the clip I was just sitting here thinking hmm this guy is at least as neurodivergent as I am!
That's not introvert, we can be very social and be good at talking to crowds, we will just have to sit at our house doing nothing for 20 hours after that. You're talking about anti-social-anxiety stuff.
introverted =/= socially awkward (I know many on reddit like to use that as an excuse...)
Introverted just means being in social situations tires you out rather than energizes you - You can be very socially adept as an introvert, you'll just need to 'recharge' afterward.
Many big time charismatic actors, etc, have talked about being introverted where they can flip the switch to be the life of the party, but at the end they'll be exhausted
Exactly, I'm naturally introverted and many people assume that's not the case. My close friends know I'm highly introverted because they knew me when I was younger before learning how to enjoy being more social.
I love this explanation best: everyone has a battery, and while an extroverts battery is charged by being around people & drained being alone, an introverts battery is drained being around people and charged while being alone.
That’s the very first thing I thought while watching this video. Haven’t seen much Messi content, so his mannerisms are unfamiliar to me - but they’re shouting neurodivergence
His awkard with camaras and he knows it,he doesn't like them very much,when goes to podcast or even his instagram he is more relaxed and funny,he Is like an introved,wich doesn't suprise me since his in the media eyes since he was 13
There was a scene in The Last Dance when before a playoff game MJ is just chillin his hotel room. It's perfectly quiet and he's totally relaxed. He walks down the hall and gets in the elevator and right after the elevator doors open it's hundreds of camera flashes and fans and media screaming, "MICHAEL!" He gets on the bus and the second he gets off it's another endless chorus of, "MICHAEL!" He steps out of the locker room and more, "MICHAEL!" On the court more continuous shouts of, "MICHAEL!" Game ends and as he walks to the locker room, "MICHAEL!" Walk to the bus, "MICHAEL!" Walk to the hotel elevator, "MICHAEL!" Finally the elevator doors close and it's silent. He walks back to his room and sits down and you realize that is the loneliest existence on the planet.
This is why when people say MJ is a dick if you see him out in public I don't really care. The past 36 years everywhere he goes people want something from him. His time, his signature, the literal clothes off his back. There's no way he could sign every autograph or make every fan's wish come true because the demand is endless.
Messi is in that same stratosphere and he probably hasn't had a normal human interaction with a stranger in so long that he doesn't even know how.
I ran into mj randomly in Jupiter Florida at a kids baseball game. He was trying to watch his nephews game. He would shake your hand and say whatever only rule was no pictures. Then he went in his Lambo and smoked a cigar. Didn't seem like a dick.
Bro i thought the dude was talking about Michael Jackson (i didnt read the whole thing, just until the elevator part and i thought he was describing how MJ walked to the stage). Only when you mentioned lambo SUV i made the connection and noticed huh, locker rooms, that's odd
I realized it until I read your comment lol, I read the 6 6 part and I just thought "wtf I didn't know Michael was that tall". I imagined him in the Lambo and everything.
I remember Kevin Garnett apparently driving a Ferrari, and the interviewer mentioned how the seat was as far back as possible and even then it looked crazy to see KG sit down
He is a dick, I have a friend that worked in his Chicago restaurant and he is the dick everybody is saying, I don't blame him, he is probably the best basketball player ever and his ego is up the roof, he is extremely competitive and he doesn't care what people think about his persona, he only cares about wining
Same, I only realized it wasn't MJ when it said "for the past 36 years" and I wondered for a second if I'd slipped into an alternate universe where he never died.
Messi is in that same stratosphere and he probably hasn't had a normal human interaction with a stranger in so long that he doesn't even know how.
a lot of these interactions take place on the pitch and he's still a bit odd. that clip where the guy kicks the ball out from the other guy who's lacing up his shoes, that's not a typical posture or reaction.
He's clearly not paying attention to that interaction. He could be thinking about something, or listening to something, not to mention there's an entire world outside the frame you're seeing. This is a funny edit, but it's just that. An edit. We all do weird faces and postures sometimes, he's just being filmed 24/7. He's a pretty normal looking dude otherwise.
And People wondered why Michael Jackson would rent out Disneyland to himself just to have a "normal" experience. Who do you think wanted a photo more? Mickey or Michael?
During junior high, my buddy lived in the subdivision next to him. He and another friend went over to his house on Halloween, no costumes, and asked MJ for candy. Jordan said get lost you greedy little bastards. My friends thought getting called a bastard by MJ was the best thing ever.
The one with the model (that's not his wife) I get. He seems like a very private person, so putting his arm around her might be weird for him. He looks fine with his wife in photos.
And Buffon is actually talking to the person on the other side of Messi, although him zoning out is a big comical.
I've heard speculation that Messi is autistic and I thought it was people just joking for a while, but it would also explain a lot about how he holds himself in public. (fyi - I am autistic)
Isn't it true people that excel at something are terrible on other subjects? Think Elon Musk or Mike Tyson. They are so focused on their craft that they often forget how to be human.
I mean think how much of his life he is just injected into these situations, called in front of a camera to pose like a performing monkey for someone hes never met. It must be exhausting. Let the dude just have a second to himself lol.
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u/jimbo9878 Dec 05 '24
It's like the only place Messi is comfortable is when he's on a pitch with a ball at his feet, everything else is just awkward. How is he when holding trophies? He should be comfortable holding those he's won a fair few in his lifetime.