How do you cope as an older aspie?

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I am in my late fifties. Sometimes I feel just a bit lonely, but I still shy away from social contact. Is this dilemma common, and if yes, what do you do?

What I do is:

I spend a lot of my time at a community mental health centre (many older people 50+ hang out there).

And I play the music instruments there, so I regularly jam with other people.

Even though I'm only 34 and not quite considered "older", I cope with being alone by just playing computer games. It passes the time while I'm usually feeling lonely.

I'm 56. And I admire you for riding a motorcycle. I'd probably get killed riding one because of my perceptual difficulties.

YouTube has been a godsend to me----and a curse at the same time.

I've learned much about autism through watching vlogs of people and parents with autism. Productivity within a passive framework.

Yet I seem to have no time for anything else---like housework LOL

This old Aspie is 42 and I've come to accept the fact about myself that I need a great deal of time alone away from people especially NTs. But for many years I had a problem with being alone but then I discovered I was simply having a problem with the stigma that society holds on people who spend a great deal of time alone. That notion of being a loner. Pish tosh.

Once I dispelled that ridiculous notion that I should be concerned with other people's opinion of me then I begin to relax and accept myself for who I am.

In the future I plan to spend a great deal of time with my dog, when I get a dog, and far less time with NTs. And I'm okay with that, in fact I'm elated.

That's a great idea! Thank you for this inspiration because I'm going to look into spending some time at my local Community Mental Health Center. Apparently we have quite a few in the city I live in Canada.

Yoga helped me! Many people who go to yoga are highly sensitive, if not on the spectrum themselves, so socialising goes way better for me there than it does anywhere else.

I’m 70+ gone through the early Fire’s of AS
All the usual flap, when you have met one
aspie you have met them all.
Now I am proud to be an AS

On social contact I socialise well with individual’s.
But not with the individual when in a group, I find
that when the dynamics of the person changes to a group
mentality, I find it very hard to cope with.
I have two close friends I can relax with.
If it jumped to three I would make an excuse and leave.

I have many associates at a club, which I have learned to
make small-talk with.
I kind of walk round and do a series of small interviews with them.
It keeps them happy and oils the wheels.
This keeps them in boxes so to speak.
Not to close so I can make contact when I am ready.

Most of the bad bits of AS: or good, depending on your own stance.
Have faded away over the years, leaving me thinking what the Hell
was that all about.
If there is a Creator the first thing I will ask now is “can I go round again”

Found a new thing, am volunteering at a wildlife centre. I help feed them and keep them clean until they are well enough to be returned to the wild. I'm not supposed to socialise with them, just enough to help them get well again. Maybe I shouldn't be tamed either. But then again, I come home to 4dogs, 1 cat and 5 ducks. I'm pretty lucky I suppose

Excellent idea, I used to do a lot of yoga many years ago and it helped a lot. But I have trouble getting motivated. Anyone with ideas on how to calm the black dog of despair anough to actually get out of my chair and away from my iPad?

As a yoga instructor, I always tell people the hardest part is getting there! That said, I've found the less hard a yoga studio is trying to be hip, the better I've fit into it. And if money is an issue, many studios will let you work a couple of hours a week in exchange for free lessons, which I've done before I became an instructor, and it's a great way to have an even better social experience than you would paying for classes.

Over the years, I have discovered that I love to be alone. I love the quiet and the simplicity of it all. The more space between me and others, the happier I am. I used to think this meant something was wrong with me and NTs certainly made it clear something was wrong with me. Now I am content with this facet of my life.

For social situations, I am most comfortable when I have a specific role to play, one that is helpful to others. I have found I am good at specific kinds of communication in which (I now realize) I have seen the patterns often enough to be able to function in them comfortably. This has expressed itself in the work I do.

I can "pass" in an unavoidable social situation, but at great emotional cost which can leave me exhausted for days.

^^ Welcome, blazingstar.

I don't think I necessarily find socialising etc. any easier than I used to, but I do seem to have found a compromise that I'm fairly comfortable with. I'm much better now at regulating the amount of socialising that I do without cutting myself off to the point of completely losing touch with people. Mostly, that has come about because of being diagnosed - I feel I can be more honest with people about the impact that too much social contact can have on me. I have found that once people understand that my reticence isn't a reflection of how I feel about them, they are usually quite understanding.