Disposable people...

Hello

Yeah, it’s tough going.

I always found that people only stayed in my life, because I made the effort to keep them there. In recent years, diagnosis and reclusiveness has shown me that I am alone, in terms of friendships.

I don’t think I am interesting enough for people to become friends with me. I ask myself: Am I memorable to others? But obviously, people have received me, chipped at me a little by extending a social hand, and then have become repelled by my deficiencies, and haven’t bothered to stay in touch…

I constantly feel like the rest of the world has been long established in social groups- so, I will never really have friends at my age (29 going on 30).

I can peer in at people, but I can’t join in.

I read your profile. You sound interesting. (I don't mean that in a creepy way, but if I was younger I might!)

As an Autist is is hard to find good friends. I didn't really start sorting out the good from the bad until my late thirties. I had LOTS of friends when I was young, because I taught myself how to be genuinely nice and unselfish, together with always doing stuff people liked, largely by learning a bit of "Transactional Analysis".

Relationships start for all sorts of reasons just like a seed sprouting, learning how to be a more genuine and nice person, certainly seemed to work like potting compost in that way.

Relationships however need regular feeding and watering with your time and energy in order to flourish. The Normies set up their social groupings and cliques precisely to feed their relationships automatically, which is why they often fail when you lose your job, stop playing volleyball, etc. etc. 

MY bloody life has been FULL of change! So I've lost and gained friends over and over again. I've still got one friendship of fifty years going, but it has taken work on my part. Yeah, it's not the seemingly effortless friendships the normies have, and I've proven "discardable" over and over again to FAMILY as well as friends, but people change that's what life is all about. 

A lot of us Autists don't like change, which makes relationships scary and challenging and often unsatisfying. 

But your profile reveals you to be a creative person, in paragraph 2 I point you towards the tools you can use to create relatiionships mindfully!

Hello

Thank you for your detailed feedback - it’s inspiring to receive genuine, like-minded discussions from fellow autists  

Yes, change is … there. As long as there is time, it is unavoidable. But the change that takes place within people - that’s a real challenge. 
I find myself able to still remember the first and last names of people I was in primary school with. I feel rooted to the past. Yet, some ‘normies’ become defined and fully-fledged by their transformations, by their changes, by changes that happen in society, technology, etc. 

And as a result, they are changed. And the moments I became a part of their lives, has been rewritten by change.  They have not died, but change can bring about grief. There is a sense that I have died too, because a connection to someone else has become severed. I am grieving for other people, and also grieving for what I sacrificed of myself, to make interactions work.

Whoah, the world, change and other people - it sometimes seems impossible to understand…

As you say, shared interests are ways to form friendships. Sometimes, I see it like this:

Reasons for friendships:

1) shared interests - I want to find people who like what I like. But when I do, it feels as though my sense of individuality is being dissolved by the act of sharing - is the solution ‘friendship’?

2) shared environment - it makes sense to make convo with people - an environment invites a more open relationship- but, is it a reliable  foundation for a friendship - I spent a few years consumed by a local pub- it was the foundation for socialising, and in hindsight, it was the perfect place to watch ‘normies’, to gain access to socialising, and to feel like they did..  now I realise it was poisonous, untrue, full of triggers, and generally a place and time I want to forget.

3)shared academic paths- this is also a possibility, but then I find myself becoming defensive, feeling inadequate, and feeling competed against- it exposes a kind of academic inadequacy, and invites me to compare, compare, compare…

…. I then ask myself : is it at all possible for me to have friendships? Every kind seems counter productive, lol (oops, rambled a bit there, sorry)

Hello

Thank you for your detailed feedback - it’s inspiring to receive genuine, like-minded discussions from fellow autists  

Yes, change is … there. As long as there is time, it is unavoidable. But the change that takes place within people - that’s a real challenge. 
I find myself able to still remember the first and last names of people I was in primary school with. I feel rooted to the past. Yet, some ‘normies’ become defined and fully-fledged by their transformations, by their changes, by changes that happen in society, technology, etc. 

And as a result, they are changed. And the moments I became a part of their lives, has been rewritten by change.  They have not died, but change can bring about grief. There is a sense that I have died too, because a connection to someone else has become severed. I am grieving for other people, and also grieving for what I sacrificed of myself, to make interactions work.

Whoah, the world, change and other people - it sometimes seems impossible to understand…

As you say, shared interests are ways to form friendships. Sometimes, I see it like this:

Reasons for friendships:

1) shared interests - I want to find people who like what I like. But when I do, it feels as though my sense of individuality is being dissolved by the act of sharing - is the solution ‘friendship’?

2) shared environment - it makes sense to make convo with people - an environment invites a more open relationship- but, is it a reliable  foundation for a friendship - I spent a few years consumed by a local pub- it was the foundation for socialising, and in hindsight, it was the perfect place to watch ‘normies’, to gain access to socialising, and to feel like they did..  now I realise it was poisonous, untrue, full of triggers, and generally a place and time I want to forget.

3)shared academic paths- this is also a possibility, but then I find myself becoming defensive, feeling inadequate, and feeling competed against- it exposes a kind of academic inadequacy, and invites me to compare, compare, compare…

…. I then ask myself : is it at all possible for me to have friendships? Every kind seems counter productive, lol (oops, rambled a bit there, sorry)