Disposable people...

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)

It's weird but as an aspie since I have been treated as disposable for too long, I've started treating other people the same way. 

i dunno, im just tolerated, and just "there" to them i guess, but i realise thats part my problem.
i dont speak much so i may seem unfriendly to them and they may think i dont like them. also not speaking much means they wont interact or talk to me as they know i wont really have much of a conversation and only be small simple responses, so already its my own problem which cuts out the ability for them to get along and accept and make me part of the group easily like they can with others.

i guess my face always looks bored or disinterested too and i always probably seem vacant and uninterested.
all of this contributes to me never being able to really be a person in their eyes but just a robot drone that is there, a tool, a item, and probably one that they are ok with replacing with a actual person that can do the same thing but interact with them better. although i have been told i work better alone and can do better alone than what a group of them can do so i have my uses. although if they send me in to work with a group then my use scales down to the groups level like a cramping my style kinda thing.

anyways rambling here, its totally my fault i dont fit in, they are a round hole and i am the square peg.

Maybe that can give you a hint. On autcollab website I found 'definition' of how autistic make friends: 

I Sperg said:

I read your profile

I always check profile of a person I've never replied to before

I met my first friend when I was 29, I did not realise back then it will become friendship. We are still friends. I met 2nd friend 7 years ago or so, it started as a close acquiantance of me and my ex, it turned into friendship after my ex left me 3 years ago. Last year I met a guy who wants to be my friend, it's work in progress. My three musketeers: Counselor, Philosopher and a Poet 

All four of us are going for a foot trip to Bramber Catle, to escape from the city for a moment.  it's 10 miles one way only.

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

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've lived most of my life as a loner partly due to being rejected by other people, and I do feel lucky sometimes, because I don't have to deal with the stress that comes with having other people in my life. On the other hand I often end up feeling sorry for myself because I missed out on all the fun parts of being around other people.

Family is usually the one guaranteed constant, while everyone is still living anyway. Some people don't even have that, so we should be grateful. We all leave this life alone, so perhaps those of us who are tolerated only for a little while are the lucky ones. It's painful, but we're more innately primed for the end. Maybe. 

Like you I've had it pretty much all my life so a good twenty years. Happened at school and it still happens now.

Not nice, but I've got my family and I treasure them as well. You just learn to accept it happens and let it pass by I guess.

Great song love the Beatles

I feel rejection as well, and it's painful. What I learned today is that rejection shares common neurological pathways to physical pain, so the brain interprets rejection in a similar way as it would physical pain, that even taking a Tylenol (painkiller) can alleviate the pain of rejection, but that's not a solution or a fix for rejection, but it's just an interesting finding on how rejection and physical pain are connected. I mean the solution for rejection is belonging in a social group, but that's not always possible. I mean one challenge is to meet people, and the other challenge is to maintain the bond.

good one, I can watch it again, not this Saturday, I forgot to check more rota, I'll know tomorrow

Now there's a film for "film night". Galaxy Quest!

It's not my specialty, it sounds to me like: never give up, never surrender

There was an old Irish song my mum had on cassette, since 1984, and one of the songs is called 'Old Flames'.

Old flames can't hold a candle to you!

No one can light up the night like you do!

Flicker remembers of love, I've known one or two!

But old flames can't hold a candle to you! 

I like that one too

I've been at this a LONG time, and tried a lot of approaches. Ever since I was six, actually, and played the B side of "yellow submarine". I felt sorry for those people without quite realising why...

www.youtube.com/watch

I could become hermit if they left me alone, but that's not possible

so I choose to be a fishbone in their throats, just a little, so I can do it without making to much noise, otherwise they would join ranks and villainised me