Making friends/loneliness

I've a lifetime of like strugles, am new, may be helpful. He's my post if interested. Hang in there.

80-year-old retired professor, entrepreneur, advocate for abused children in Seattle, recently diagnosed autistic, looking especially for one or two strictly platonic email correspondence friendships. I'm interested less in casual chat than in gradually getting to know another autistic person through thoughtful, reciprocal emails or private messages—sharing experiences, ideas, ordinary life, humor, difficulties, discoveries, pain and gratitude. Age and gender matter less to me than curiosity, openness, kindness and reciprocity.

Also, see if this offers any help. It's an email to a friend perhaps in similar situation:

! I hear your suffering: stress, struggle, fear and anger. It’s all too familiar to me.

Even at 80, I often see such darkness. Oddly, I have a little jewelry box to only open then. It sits where I see it daily. Opening it, I read a note: “This too will pass”.

In such darkness I also find comfort from words on my wall, words were reported found scratched on a German cellar wall after WWII:

"I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.

I believe in love even when I cannot feel it.

I believe in God even when He is silent."

Whether those exact words truly originated in a wartime cellar I, of course, don’t know,

Please know what you’re feeling will pass too.

I also hope the following helps as it has for me:

There is strong evidence that, on average, autistic people experience higher rates of:

• Social isolation and loneliness
• Anxiety and depression
• Unemployment and underemployment
• Bullying, exploitation, and victimization
• Difficulty obtaining appropriate healthcare
• Misunderstanding by educators, employers, and service providers
• Increased stress on families
• Higher rates of homelessness
• Greater involvement with the criminal justice system—most often as victims, but sometimes as defendants

It is important to recognize that troublesome outcomes are neither inevitable nor experienced by all. Outcomes emerge from the interaction between a person and the systems in which they live. Autism itself does not determine a person's life trajectory. Rather, life outcomes emerge from the ongoing interaction between an autistic individual's characteristics and the environments, relationships, and institutions they encounter throughout life. Environments can painfully misunderstand, overlook, or fail to accommodate autistic needs, hence fostering alienation and dysfunction. Alternatively, they can understand, accept, and appropriately support autistic traits, leading toward meaningful, productive, and deeply satisfying lives.

God bless you . . .

I've a lifetime of like strugles, am new, may be helpful. He's my post if interested. Hang in there.

80-year-old retired professor, entrepreneur, advocate for abused children in Seattle, recently diagnosed autistic, looking especially for one or two strictly platonic email correspondence friendships. I'm interested less in casual chat than in gradually getting to know another autistic person through thoughtful, reciprocal emails or private messages—sharing experiences, ideas, ordinary life, humor, difficulties, discoveries, pain and gratitude. Age and gender matter less to me than curiosity, openness, kindness and reciprocity.

Also, see if this offers any help. It's an email to a friend perhaps in similar situation:

! I hear your suffering: stress, struggle, fear and anger. It’s all too familiar to me.

Even at 80, I often see such darkness. Oddly, I have a little jewelry box to only open then. It sits where I see it daily. Opening it, I read a note: “This too will pass”.

In such darkness I also find comfort from words on my wall, words were reported found scratched on a German cellar wall after WWII:

"I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.

I believe in love even when I cannot feel it.

I believe in God even when He is silent."

Whether those exact words truly originated in a wartime cellar I, of course, don’t know,

Please know what you’re feeling will pass too.

I also hope the following helps as it has for me:

There is strong evidence that, on average, autistic people experience higher rates of:

• Social isolation and loneliness
• Anxiety and depression
• Unemployment and underemployment
• Bullying, exploitation, and victimization
• Difficulty obtaining appropriate healthcare
• Misunderstanding by educators, employers, and service providers
• Increased stress on families
• Higher rates of homelessness
• Greater involvement with the criminal justice system—most often as victims, but sometimes as defendants

It is important to recognize that troublesome outcomes are neither inevitable nor experienced by all. Outcomes emerge from the interaction between a person and the systems in which they live. Autism itself does not determine a person's life trajectory. Rather, life outcomes emerge from the ongoing interaction between an autistic individual's characteristics and the environments, relationships, and institutions they encounter throughout life. Environments can painfully misunderstand, overlook, or fail to accommodate autistic needs, hence fostering alienation and dysfunction. Alternatively, they can understand, accept, and appropriately support autistic traits, leading toward meaningful, productive, and deeply satisfying lives.

God bless you . . .