Want to retreat but know that wouldn't be helpful

Oh absolutely, I do have a friend who I've known for 20 years but she knows what I'm like and because we've always had non NT conversations I think I was lucky enough to just go "oh hey I'm metaphorically snowed under so lets just chat again in like 3-5 sundays from now". And it's fine. Works for her too because now she's started her own family she's also free to drop off the face of the earth for a bit and just get back in touch when she actually has a break.

Thanks Mike and I also relate to your experiences.  If you ever do need a friend - consider one right here who will accept you for who you are!

Hi!  Totally agree with you but didn't realise it was a problem before!  I'm the sort of person that once I'm friends with you, you'll always be in my heart even if we don't speak that often.  I think the problem is that everyone has different expectations and in a friendship you sort of have to figure it out amongst you what you expect from the other person and what works for the friendship.  I don't feel like many other people are willing to work on a friendship in this way and most of my friends once they moved to different towns just seemed to make other more local friends!  If a friend really needed me I would be there for them but other than that your time scale of between 3 weeks and 3 months (and sometimes even longer!) sounds reasonable.  I've no idea what other people think of this.  I hope that my consistency is that I always will reply no matter how long it is and when I do reply I put a lot of thought into it!

I can relate to this- I can be very bad at responding to messages and can go for periods where I just don't feel up to seeing anyone. Luckily a lot of my friends are similar or are just quite understanding. The downside of that is though that if I do want to see someone, that means that there is often no-one available as I barely have any friends and they are all either very busy or need a lot of downtime too... I don't think I could cope with a friendship where there is too much pressure to give etc. I like friendships to feel natural, not forced, those are the ones that last and there are a few special people that I can go for months not seeing but then when we do see each other, it feels like we've been in touch every day. 

I echo your feelings. I keep saying to my wife "this is no longer my world and I want out" she says "no,no,no,no, you can't leave me like that! (seriously though I'm not really suicidal and she knows it) I came to these shores in 1971 to a clean, peaceful, land with people who were respectful and pleasant to each other.  I can't recognize any of those attributes today. 

Culturally, financially, socially, Britain seems broken. All of this is added to my own personal struggles and causing my own wish to retreat from it all.  Oh, I could "bury my head in the sand" and pretend otherwise but reality always come crashing through.  

I have two sons, one is an artist whose head is always in the clouds being creative (he doesn't watch any news media) and doesn't have a clue or care in the world about what is going on. The other son is somewhat backward who also does not watch the news and probably would not understand it if he did watch.  He is a skilled employed plasterer and has plenty of time to think about these things if he wished to while plastering. 

Perhaps ignorance is bliss and I should relate to their example?  I do try to overcome my feelings of being overwhelmed with it all.  I've lived a friendless life for most of it and it doesn't bother me that much now at age 77.  I've never done well at parties or in groups yet I still fool myself by trying to engage, but it always goes sour for me. Only yesterday I forced myself to engage with strangers at a meeting of a group of people in my town who feel strongly against a local government proposal to implement zoned 20 minute drive restrictions. I remained very quiet and felt very uncomfortable from the outset. I left before anyone else after hearing what needed to be said. For me, this was my attempt at trying to strike a balance. I think my social awkwardness must be very apparent which must put people off.  But, never mind, I'm used to those reactions. So my bottom line to Stripymouse is you hopefully will resign yourself to who you are with acceptance and relax with it because life is too short.

I always want to make new friends, the issue I have is I suffer from time blindness and if I go through a very busy patch, even long standing friends can expect to get just a short check in at most every 3 weeks - 3 months, so maintaining friendships with people who expect a lot more or erroneously take it personally as some kind of rejection has often been a breaking point of those friendships. The plus side I suppose is I'm low maintenance and only expect the ocassional prod in return, I don't expect friends to put their own stuff on hold for me, it's just pick up the chat whenever you get time kinda deal.

Wow, that sounds like a good thing to have Desmond!

I’m glad you think so..!

I have my Artist friend's home, as a retreat, which allows me to run errands for him; as I'm the driver.

I would like to be out more, but there's so much to do in my home; plus a few Zoom commitments.

I'll be in Dublin, on Saturday, and coaches and ferries to Manchester and back next week.

Thanks DeSpereaux, that's excellent advice!

Hi Ann, thanks so much for your reply - it does help!  I guess I do need to try getting to social things again but like you said it is so exhausting!  It was definitely easier to meet people and connect over the smallest things when a student but i find people don't stay in touch.  I guess there are so many different elements and strands to it and I don't fully understand it!  I have little energy for it right now but haven't given up hope!  Good luck - what are you going to study next?

Hi, I think it's difficult to strike the right balance- I can relate to what you are writing. I am trying to be kinder to myself and let myself withdraw when I need to. But then I do also feel lonely. I enjoy social interactions sometimes but it can be exhausting and I need to make sure I get enough alone time too and that I have enough energy for socialising. However, that does make it more difficult to then make and maintain friendships. I think the key is also finding the right people to be your friends- I had no friends at all at school but at university I met some likeminded people (many of them actually are also neurodivergent though I didn't know that they were or that I was at the time). I think often the best way to make friends is through a shared interest- that's how my friendships at university arose. However since then I have also struggled to make new friends as I have struggled with burnout and just not had the energy to  put myself in a situation where I could possibly meet people- At university that happened much more naturally due to going to lectures together and as I went to scientific talks where I met people, plus the college system at my university made it easier. But since then it's been difficult... I find group situations very difficult and only really socialise 1 to 1 and do things like go for a walk together or a coffee... but to meet people it's somewhat hard to start off with just 1 to 1 usually... 

Maybe you just haven't met the right friends yet. There are some people that you just connect with and socialising with those people also feels easy and takes much less energy. I have one friend that is very close- funnily we didn't even spend that much time together in person and have mainly been in touch over phone (as we live in different countries now), but from very early on it just felt like we have known each other for years. I have recently struggled a lot and this friend has been there for me all throughout. More so than other people. Though most of the few friends I have seem to be true friends... 

You say that over time you always end up on your own- I think it happens that people grow apart over time. I don't think 'it's something about you'. 

I am not sure if any of this is helpful- but maybe think about what interests you have through which you could maybe meet people? It doesn't take much sometimes to make a connection (one of my friends and I ended up friends as we both always turned up 5-10 min late for lectures and slipped in late together or one of my other friends that I met when I was locked out of my student room at 1 am in the corridor and somehow we had a shared interest in image analysis...). With the right people, making friends feels relatively easy in my experience and it somehow just happens. The hard part is coming across those people. but I think a shared interest helps- I do very well with socialising on hiking trips in mountain huts in the evenings as that is my special interest and there is common territory from the start. It can be hard though to put yourself in situations where you could meet someone... I am also not sure how I would go about it... at the moment I am lacking energy anyways and soon I will be a student again which will probably help. 

Sorry, I don't think I've really given any advice, because I don't really know myself... I just thought I would share my experiences in case that helps. 

Depressive attacks go as quickly as they come; The sun will come up again if you wait for it.

A good idea was to find a means of distracting yourself, we can do that here, but it helps to have a couple advisories as a backups:
- Engage in your special interest;   
- Try to remove yourself from the source of the trigger;   
- Seek help from a person you trust to stabilise your emotions;   
- And most importantly, don’t increase the offensive-against yourself (In this case, going into hermit mode, is definitely not something you want to normalise).

This trusted person is usually going to take the form of someone, with the most of these traits:   
- Calm;    
- Distracting, who does not cause relapse;  
-  Stays with you;  
-  Doesn’t try to fix it;    
-  Respects your personal space;    
-  Listens and doesn’t appease;    
-  Reminds you that it will pass;    
-  Minimally engages you in conversation;    
-  Creates a sanctuary from your environment;  
-  Avoids eye contact;  
-  Encourages your special interest;  
-  And let’s you rant.  

It is however a rare individual who embodies all of these traits, the online community embodies a-lot of these, which is likely why Autistic Individual are so inclined towards the internet. I hope this helps..

Thanks for replying - good suggestions - I will definitely attempt to answer those questions too :)

I can relate to what you have described here and it's similar to how I've been feeling lately. I'm not sure I'm the best person to advise on any of this given that I'm still muddling through, but some things I've been asking lately are: is there a pattern as to why people move away and leave me on my own? Is there anything I want from the other person/people that would make socialising 'easier' for me? What specifically do I struggle with when socialising?

I know they are tricky to answer but might be a starting point. Sorry I can't be of more help - looking forward to what others suggest! :)