As an autistic person many of us communicate in different ways; and even within the community there will be large heterogeneity / variation in the way we communicate.
I am curious about how hard it is to you to communicate to others in everyday life. At a general level it may make sense to distinguish between close relatives, friends, and strangers.
In my case, I tend to communicate by sharing information (links to articles, thoughts, or proposing a topic to discuss, etc.), and tend to find hard or rather exhausting to do small talk (which is normally most of what people talk, since that's not the purpose of interacting for them.)
It is I think common for autistic people to have intense interests, and some prefer "deep" topics. I don't think I make justice with this description, so hopefully you can complete or just think what it is like for you.
It must be -but I am guessing- quite frustrating when you realise most people -not all- will rather not talk to you given those obsessions, or intensity of discussion of specific topics.
With the internet, a door is opened for discussion to plenty of other humans like us / you. However, I tend to find the internet is frequently unfriendly, aggressive, quite censored, and does not normally tolerate anything that looks "unproductive". I suspect autistic discussions can look like that to many people as well i.e "unproductive".
So, feel free to reply your thoughts, but in case you'd want some concrete questions, here they go:
1. How hard do you find communication with others, by levels (either easy, medium, or hard) , that is:
* How hard with close relatives?
* How hard with friends?
* How hard with strangers?
2. Do you have strategies to make it easier for you, and others, or do you simply have to mask a lot?
3. How hard is it to communicate with others in the internet / instant messaging apps / email etc. ?
4. How frequently do you feel bullied in all those cases (for number 3. above)? Do you apply any strategies besides trying to stay assertive ?
