Who am I, exactly?

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A few years ago I was blissfully unaware of the things I had been missing out on in life. Before I even knew what Asperger's was, before my diagnosis, I realised that there was something affecting me, but I couldn't work out what it was. I was unable to bond with other human beings, and I felt little to no emotional attachment to other people. Those that I did end up caring about became my new obsessions, my special interests, and thus when said interests drifted away from my life, never to be seen again, my emotions ran wild, my self-pity consumed me and still consumes me to this day.

Sometimes I believe that had there been earlier intervention, if somebody had taken my issues seriously, then I wouldn't have wasted so many years of life in solitude, utterly alone in the darkness, whilst my neurotypical peers lived successful and healthy social lives and relationships. I was left in the nothingness where there existed nothing but my imagination, completely oblivious to the fact that I was oblivious to social cues. I wish I had some inner-strength, some self-belief, but now what little there is of it left is dwindling. Sometimes I feel there is no place for me in society, that I am destined to live the rest of my life alone, which I fear.

Many of you aspies enjoy your solitude and feel no emotional attachment to others thus not missing their company. And it's safe to say I was one of them, and still am to an extent. However, once you finally do develop feelings for someone, and when you learn those feelings may never be reciprocated and you learn of the things that they have that you probably will never have, then it dawns on you that you've been living in a dream your whole life whilst everyone else had been succeeding in their social lives. They have people who love them and would miss them if they were gone. It gets even worse when you taste the things you've never experienced before, the things that your peers have gone through long before you had, and once you feel those things for the first time, then it becomes ever more depressing. It feels like you never matured past the age of fourteen.

Even to this day, I feel no human bonding with others. I do not relate to them. At worst, I'm only considered an acquaintance and at best I'm only considered second-class friend. Though there is a glimmer of hope. I have experienced intimacy with others recently. I kissed a girl for the first time a few weeks ago. Now I'm old enough to understand what it feels like, and it's a beautiful feeling, but I have yet to feel love and be loved, at least not conditional love anyway. Many of these experiences a few and far between, but it's all that I have besides my dreamworld life.

Maybe I should accept myself for who I am. Maybe I'm a solitary creature and not a social one. I am not an asexual aspie, that's the problem. My sexuality was triggered long ago and now there's no stopping it.

I don't have an answer for you. I just want couple really good friends. Other than that I don't care about the social world. Except, socially/ politically. I care about people being given dignity and treated fairly.

Hoy, mon ami. Until I was about 32 odd old, I made do with [most years] minimal, mostly postal association with a handful of level 2 friends. [notwithstanding a marriage to a level 3 which survived only because I do not surrender easily and the alternative for her was unthinkable - that, by the way started at about age 24].

I now have a circle of about half a dozen 1st level friends, including wife and son.

A few level 1 friends - most NTs I know don't have that many that close, just a lot more level 3 and 2.

I'm barely starting to figure out who I am. my advice wouldnt help you

but go on, do what feels easy and natural for you. going through life roughshot is hardly a blast