Is everyone incompatible, or just us?

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I've started to dwell on just what makes it hard for most of us to seemingly find relationships.

Perhaps it's because due to our social difficulties and, sometimes, different or alternative views of the world, we may simply find it extremely difficult to connect with most people.

What I wonder is, is this the case for most people, aspie or N.T., or simply something that's mostly limited to just us?

In my experiences and observations, at least among people my age, it seems most have lower standards for friendships or relationships than I do, that, or they simply find it much easier to connect with a much higher amount of people than I do.

I wouldn't say this is because of my social difficulties, as I can be quite friendly, charismatic and social and did fine in high school and seemingly do fine in online messaging (don't come across as boring, or creepy, etc. just casual and down-to-earth), I've always thought it's just because of conflicting interests.

Without trying to sound 'unique' or 'special', I will simply say my hobbies and interests I find it extremely difficult to find others who share these interests, or, even if we share interests, relate and connect with them in the way I want to.

A minor example is even if I am interested in music, as an electronic musician in a town where pop and indie rock or rap/hip-hop is dominant and electronic is practically non-existent, it's hard to find anyone to relate to. And, even the people who also listen to electronic, usually don't make any. And, even the people who DO make electronic music, usually make the mainstream kind that isn't to my taste.

Perhaps my standards are high, but I do try. I try to discuss music with fellow musicians of any genre, I try to discuss electronic music with other fans of it, I mentioned my interest in Existentialism, a branch of philosophy, to a girl who claimed she apparently values 'deep' conversation, only to get bored and change the subject to a 'weird simpsons dream' she had. The laidback people I meet who claim to be all chill and relaxed, I discuss methods to be calm with them, me taking tea and meditating and using isochronic tones, they dismiss it with just saying 'I like, smoke weed, man' and then change the subject.

I feel like a jack-of-all-trades guy, never too much of anything to relate to people who are far more consumed in a certain sub-culture.

Interestingly enough, I do find it difficult to relate to people who's interests I share, but those who have different interests to my own, it's a little easier to have a conversation, even if I know less about it than they do.

What I wonder, is that if our lack of ability to connect with others, if finding a relationship is so hard because we only relate/get along with the 1% minority of people, is this a common or universal issue for most people, or only for us?

Maybe it's just because of my age, but I do find other teens my age to get into relationships or connect with others far more easily. Then again, I even observe this among young adults as well... It's still a mystery as to me as to why this might be so.

In short: They 'fit in' pretty quickly, but I do not.

If having higher standards than average is certainly part of the problem, my opinion about this is that our interests are rare. And extremely rare in NTs, especially when we're looking for the same level of knowledge and understanding, even worse when they're physically unable to use some specific kinds of very abstract thinking. So not only we may have higher standards sometimes, but most important, we're looking for people who not only have rare interests, but worse, have a combination of them (talk about trying to win the lottery ha ha ha) ; and who have the same level of knowledge about them than us. A needle in a haystack to say the least... Even for finding simple friends.
This is my personal perspective anyway, as a person who also finds it extremely difficult to make something else than just shallow connections, but who craves so much more.
That said, the interests you just mentioned are relatively similar to some of mines, and even though I'm not open to dating (I already have someone special in my life), I'm always looking for new friends and intellectually stimulating conversations... So if you're looking for potential friends too, you can PM me if you want

Thank you.

Finally someone who can agree and relate to what I'm saying.

It's just, there are some people in my life who suggest it's hard for everyone to make friends, and most people have to go through a lot of people to find 'the one' or just to make good friends.

But I don't believe this at all and in my experiences, it's just those who lack extremely popular or common interests, as they have rarely anything to talk about with others, and shared interests is one of the most important bases for developing connections with other people.

Some interests are so common they've gone on to develop entire sub-cultures, so it shouldn't be too hard for those a part of it to meet others who are similar in more ways than one.

I do believe those with 'pop interests' find it easier, logically it makes sense to me, but still want to question to other aspies here if it's an aspie thing, or common for everyone?

Simply put I do not watch tv, I rarely watch movies, I play video games sometimes, but never online, which prevents me from playing with a potential new friend unless I actually go to their house. I like casual sports with friends though. My interests are creating music, reading philosophy, Wrongplanet and strength training, and this is usually all I do in my spare time and everything I've done/am doing today.

Like I said, sometimes it's easy to find people who share interests - musicians aren't too rare, but once one gets specific, all relativity seems to end there. A few fellow musicians I could make some brief small talk about if they compose their own songs and if they have a website and such, and once I mention my stuff, some will get excited and say it's cool and listen to my stuff and compliment me on it, others will quickly get bored as they just don't listen to that kind of music.

Hopefully more people comment in this thread, because I would like to see if anyone else goes through this stuff too.

My problems are quite simple:
I have literally nothing to offer a potential partner,
I'm extremely shy,
All my interests are more solitary activities,
I don't have any real "passions", merely passing interests in things,
My personality doesn't really gel well with people, especially females,
The idea of dating strangers really doesn't appeal to me, I prefer to get to know people platonically before I consider romance

Not really sure how I'm supposed to become 'compatible' short of completely altering my core being.

I also have very unusual interests and I always had. In addition to that, most people that share my interests are guys. Already in my 20s I realized it would be a bad (even impossible) idea to try to find a girl with matching interests. On my MSc education about 90% of the students were males, and the few females around were extremely picky (and could afford be so too).

I find the idea that you should match a lot of interests with a potential partner odd and unrealistic. My nonverbal approach to relationships also kind of excluded this possibility because I already had a crush on a girl long before I knew if she had matching interests or not. About the only matching I did was which activities we attended.

I think it's far better to make friends (or even professional contacts) in your special interest area(s) instead of trying to find a romantic partner with those interests. That's what I've done in the operating system area, and also in the neurodiversity research area.

I agree, Outrider.

It seems to me that many NT geeks or ND geeks can bond about a specific video game, video games, comics, and other fandoms. I see many friendships start because of a TV show or other "geek" hobby. The rest of us, who are not into a popular or cool subculture, may have trouble.

Also people who are like Sabreclaw or myself, without strong specific passions, may have trouble.

I also have seen that many Aspies will change their special interests over time. If you bonded with someone over your past special-interest, what happens when you tire of it and don't want to discuss that anymore?

I also find it frustrating that people tend to have multiple interests that group together, which exclude me. As a hypothetical example, say I am into knitting. But I find that most knitters are into it because they are knitting for their baby or friends' babies. This is just a hypothetical. I am not going to refuse someone's friendship only because of babies, but I find that it's usually bigger beliefs and their passions and personality that make us incompatible as friends. To them, the knitting is only a smaller thing, whereas spending a lot of time with the babies is more of who they are, and they would find it silly of me if wanted to discuss the knitting a lot.