Struggle to connect with other women

While your feelings from relationship trauma is valid, shallowness is also ramped in men, hense men have such fragile egos that they can't order a cocktail instead of a beer when any guys he knows is around.  Shallowness and superficiality is actually a neurotypical thing due their overdeveloped emotional part of the brain with underdeveloped logic and rationality.  Women are just bitchier about it because they're wired to be more emotional.  However what you said as a man seemed to be very emotionally charged.

Hey, Ive recently been diagnosed late in my 25th year of age.  I seeked a therapist about depression, anxiety and processing the drama that happened at my last work place before I returned to a new work place in the same industry.  I've taken heaps of time off to do this internal work because returning to a new place is a waste of effort without addressing changes in yourself too.  Even though the therapist and I did agree a lot of the drama was at the fault of my ex boss and her toy boy manager, we also agreed I could've done little things differently that could make my life easier if I found myself in a similar situation again. 

Another reason why the drama there affected me so much was because it wasn't the first time it's happened to me in the industry.  At the first studio I worked at I was forced into a another dramatic ending and both these dramas seemed to come out of nowhere.  I've actually never been bullied as badly as I have been in these studios. 

At the first studio there was a tattoo artist who hated me so much for idk what reason that she even willingly ruined her relationship and reputation with her clients and all the other artists there in the pursuit of tearing me down.  The boss at my last studio wanted me fired or to quit so badly (but didn't have much ground for firing me) so she also started acting psycho.  She felt like I didn't respect her (I really tried but it's hard to respect a tattoo artist that doesn't know which layer of the skin the needle goes to, when that was one of the first things I was told when I started apprenticing), so you know what she does?  She starts yelling and being nasty thinking that'll get her respect and when it doesn't work, she doesn't have the introspection to realize that being nasty and mean actually has the opposite effect on someone who's not so insecure.  Now not only am I struggling to respect her as a boss, but now I'm struggling to respect her as a person in general.  She even went to the extent of pointing out my weight loss and linked it to me looking like a meth head in front of clients and another co worker, but you can't look like a meth head if you have perfect teeth so I have no idea what her problem was.  I also didn't understand why she had such a problem with it since she was always vocal about her underweight issues.  Unfortunately karma got her and she ended up miscarrying the twins she was pregnant with due to her being severely unhealthy and underweight herself.  Anyways, you know what these two psychos had in common?  They were both women.  

I managed masking quite well due to one of my special interests in psychology and the human condition.  I achieve passing by analyzing people like a psychologist to then mentally construct the best way to respond according to my researched knowledge of human behavior (which I now know is neurotypical human behavior).   As a result I usually don't have a hard time making friends.  In fact if anything I find it way too easy to make new friends and they usually start calling me their best friend quite quickly even though I never felt that level of connection before.  My only issue is maintaining them for more than a year without just fizzling out because it's a lot of commitment to a specific mask for someone meant to feel like they're getting close with you.  However just because these relationships fizzle out doesn't mean I'm on bad terms with these people and if I bumped into them again it wouldn't be a bad experience. 

Because these patterns didn't match up, when these women went psycho I knew there was something I was missing because it's also happened in 2/3 studios I've been at (the second studio I was at was all males, but it ended due to financial and business issues, nothing personal).  Well thank goodness I got the therapist I have because she's been the first one to see my autistic traits and address it when I've asked her thinking I might be autistic.

From what I've learnt in my experience, it's ok to not be normal.  It's also ok to be weird and quirky, but you're only going to find acceptance from people who are also secure with their genuine selves.  If neurotypicals are severely miserable and insecure with themselves, most of them aren't capable of proper introspection and resort back to their unevolved animalist instinct of tribalism.  Because they're used to being accepted easily, their attitude to self reflection is severely underdeveloped.  In other words they have the sense of self responsibility of a child.  After all it's much easier on the ego to blame everyone but yourself, hense if something isn't working they just give up and choose to delude themselves, even if they have a pattern of these issues happening to them with neurotypical people as well.  I theorize this is because while neurotypical people have a strong sense of social identity, deep down a lot of them lack a personal identity.  They have an overdeveloped emotional part of the brain, but their logic and rationality REALLY lacks.  These are what I've coined as low functioning neurotypicals.  Since this seems to be the opposite in autistic people, I really think that as long as autism is considered as a disability then so should low functioning neurotypicals.  The only reason the term hasn't already been coined in psychology is because the majority of the human population is neurotypical and therefor have culturally indoctrinated us to accept all neurotypicals as "normal", even the low functioning ones.  This is also why I refuse to look at autism, or at least high functioning autism as a disability.

If you're going to make it possible to connect with high functioning neurotypicals, I highly recommend watching youtubers who have a strong connection with their fans, reality tv shows and comedy while also watching videos on psychology.  I would also highly recommend researching narcissism, sociopaths and psychopaths so if you do get bullied you'll know how to spot it, handle it or leave.  I'm still unsure how to spot the difference between a narc and just a low-functioning neurotypical (just like they sometimes confuse autism with narcissism), but for you it doesn't really matter because they can both be toxic or have ill intent. 

I'm still figuring out how to maintain friendships, but doing this will at least help you in making friends.

I don't know if this is your type of thing, but there's a Geek Retreat in Yorkshire. My husband went there on the way to Scotland with the children and they absolutely loved it, and told me we HAD to visit the one opening in our town. 

They were 100% right. 

It's an amazing space full of other adults who like games, which tends to be a lot of autistic folks, but also they host evenings where you come and have structured play with other adults. It's really easy to make friends and get to know people because the same people tend to go to events regularly and almost every woman I have met there is autistic and desperate for friends too :-) 

They do board games sessions, RPG dungeons and dragons type stuff, card games... all sorts. But the staff are really good, so if you arrive and say you don't know anybody, they buddy you up with a regular and help you to join in. 

It's a bit daunting to walk in on your own at first, but now it feels like home from home. Various combinations of my family are there at least four days a week now, and my son even started working there because he loved it so much - which is amazing because he's a total introvert and really struggled with making friends before, but now he has TONNES. 

Hello Nic, you may be interested in contacting a local National Autistic Society branch to see if they offer a woman’s group. Our branches offer support to local autistic people and their families. If you interesting in checking if there is a local branch near to you, please follow the link below:

https://www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/local-branches

Our branches are volunteer-led, and as such every branch and group is different. Some are parent support groups, some provide support and information to autistic adults, while others have office premises and run their own a drop-in service. You will need to check with a branch directly for more information on whether they are able to provide a particular service that you are interested in.

If you were interested in starting a branch or group, please email branchservices@nas.org.uk.

I hope this help.

Best wishes,

Anna Mod 

Humans aren't designed to have too many close friends. Maybe 2-3 tops. My long-standing friendships took at least a year or two to build/invest into and then intentional practice - there's an Art to Friendship. 

Most non-autistics have a significant amount of acquaintances. And due to 'feeling like everyone else', which is a bit of a default mode for their neurology, they easily mirror, mimic the group and can appear to easily be connected, but I think it's important to note that this can be a facade and superficial. Many are simply just on the 'same wavelength' if you think about similar brain patterns producing similar brainwaves - there is some new neuroscience on this.

Friendships require a responsibly for the other, similar to a partner. And a degree of separation so at to not expect others to carry more than they are capable. Balancing can be difficult too, as an other cannot be a 'special interest'. It's overbearing - I say this having made that mistake a few times!! LOL What I withhold can be just as difficult as what I divulge. Intentional kindness is always effort, but shouldn't cost us, as it should also present boundaries. Individuals who care about growth and protecting the self, tend to care about another's growth and being mindful to not betray friends. Really, these can be summed up with just the practice of good virtues. Being mindful of my control issues (we all have them), taking notice of small matters of importance, being patient and someone others depend on, taking care to work through my emotions either with a therapist or mentor so as to not expect friends to carry emotional weight if they're also taking on too much.

When I started really thinking about this I hadn't realised I wasn't like everyone else. I'm quite intense. Eccentric - and I love this word. And I needed a lot of work on becoming a more integrated person (aligning my deeper truths, actions, words so to not need to apologise or regret a thing excepting a genuine mishap).

I did find a few older women who mentored me along the way. I found certain things helpful, like learning principles don't come before people. This doesn't apply to abuse or toxic situations, but it meant I needed to allow others room to grow at their pace, not try to force them to understand a thing that seemed dead obvious to me. there's a matter of being graceful and allowing room for another. And then there's the matter of understanding who I found myself at ease in friendships with (a baker, a jeweller, an engineer - all makers and crafters) and who I needed to watch out for (usually the ENFP, the immature ones who found my Jungian Type mysterious and interesting, but these would always wear me out and become intolerable). 

It's good to find a group of interest and join it. Finding community is necessary for us to hunt down. But practicing caring for, or focusing on and listening to an other can take a good amount of brain-power. I can so easily sink into my own little world and find almost anything but other humans incredibly interesting. But it's not good for the soul. We do actually need relationships. Genuinely focusing on another and expressing interest in them while maintaining some emotional and psychological distance is just a practice. I can honestly say I don't ever have a work/life balance. But I manage. Human relationships require a great deal. I can engage with those OR I can work, so I need to be aware of my limits.  

It won't be your fault it hasn't worked out yet. It will be because in this country as well as some others I can think of there is little to none places you can go to do example speed dating for aspies  for example. In Australia they are way ahead and have a lot of these events and it has proven successful for a lot of people. But you live in the UK so it's more difficult. Do not begin to feel that the fault is with you as it is not. I do know that it tends to be as with most things the more popular areas and bigger towns cities tend to have more variety available when it comes to meeting people..so maybe broaden your area to see whats on offer.

Women tend to be shallow, and superficial. But there are those who break the mould. 

Meetup is probably your best bet.