Alone in Anchorage

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Hey, I am a high-functioning male Aspie in my early 30's. I try to stay pretty fit, 5'7" 158 lbs., and I have a middle-class professional career in my field of study. I moved to Anchorage a year and a half ago.

I have not had any luck finding someone special here, or even really friends. I am an extrovert, I've joined Meetup groups, tried online dating, hang out with coworkers and even organize social events.

The difficulties I run into is that it looks like many of the people in my age range are ignorant, out of shape, uneducated, and/or introverted and I have no way of meeting people. Yes, I have tried the bar scene, but that's not a good way to really meet who I'm searching for. None of my coworkers around my age will let me into their circle of friends, even though we hang out outside of work occasionally. Many of my coworkers who do make the effort to hang out are old enough to be my parents, and others who are my age typically have family commitments.

Does anyone else on this site live in Anchorage, Alaska, and know how to overcome these barriers? Or are you looking to make a new friend, a nice, safe, understanding person?

To elaborate more, I am interested in writing, photography, and I love to travel. I like the outdoors in the lower 48, but the environment in Alaska overwhelms me so much that I feel anxious usually on any trails outside of Anchorage. So not an outdoors person in the Alaska sense, although I love going on trails in Oregon and Ohio.

I don't have any ties here; all my family's in Ohio, and most of my close friends are in Oregon.

I look forward to hopefully seeing some responses.

Hi there, good luck on your search. I don’t think I know anyone there, but will let you know if I come across anyone.

I'm in Anchorage and have lived here many years, but I'll be honest: I don't meet people IRL who I met online, anymore. No offense. Got burned way too hard doing that.

Do you have special interests or fields of expertise? Perhaps doing things that have to do with that could help.

Most of my friends are in the musician scene here, because I've done a lot of live shows and been in a lot of bands. Music is one of my special interests, so it greatly facilitated me meeting people. I have played at most of the bars in town, so I will say they don't really attract the best people lol. I also have a lot of friends from when I went to UAA. I think getting friends just comes with time, and involvement in things. I will say I did meet a lot of them at house parties when I was in my early 20's.

You really should get more into the outdoors up here, especially if you're into photography and travel. Don't be intimidated by the conditions or the wild animals. Just bring bear protection and you're set, and that's not really an issue in winter. Moose aren't really ever going to bother you unless you outright are trying to make it happen or startle them.

There are many groups for outdoorsy people here, perhaps you could find someone you're more interested in being friends with in such groups, and they could show you the ropes of hiking in Alaska. People who hike a lot do tend to be in good shape, at least. Most of the ones I've known have been great people.

I don't really know how much help I can be for you to be honest. Most of my friends were gathered naturally from me growing up here and just doing the things I am interested in for years. I haven't even made any new ones in a long time, lol.

Thank you for replying! The real issue is, I am NOT an outdoorsy person up here. The environment just simply overwhelms me too much, and I really am not comfortable leaving the city much. I'm not much into either the music or bar scene.

I have actually joined outdoors hiking groups, but have not had much luck really meeting anyone in my age range who attends consistently.

A thing to know is that I've had to leave Alaska already once because of the anxiety and social isolation I experienced. Now, that was in Sitka, pretty remote, and Anchorage is a much bigger place, but I feel isolated and alone all the same. And I was very proactive in meeting people, joining groups with common interests, and such when I moved here. I just simply didn't connect with people.

This is very frustrating because I have no trouble connecting with people in Oregon, Ohio, and people I just meet at random when I'm traveling, which I do a lot of. So I am definitely a people person, and while having Asperger's, can easily relate to people from different walks of life. There just seems to be some kind of cultural incompatibility here I can't put my finger on.

And don't get me started on the dating scene here. Really bad to be a guy in Anchorage

I don't date at all anymore, too traumatized to do so. Yesterday I practically freaked out just having a doctor check out my knees (turns out one of them has the kneecap in the wrong place, which explains my knee pain - bones are grinding together).

I could understand there being a difficulty dating as a guy in Anchorage - there are more guys than girls in this state.

Have you tried hiking in the summer? The conditions aren't too bad at all. Perhaps doing more of it could get you used to how it is up here. The views you can have are unparalleled in my opinion.

I personally rarely hiked in winter, or spring. It's a pain to wade through deep snows that are still lingering, postholing to your destination.

People here are pretty independent - even our constitution grants quite a lot of independence and privacy to the individual. It's been legal to possess or grow marijuana since 1975, purely because of the privacy clause in our state constitution. Think about that - our politicians were very red, very anti-marijuana, yet we still got decriminalization in order to preserve our constitutional rights to privacy. In regards to healthcare, everyone here has the right to refuse medications - nobody can force medications on you here.

I can totally see there being problems connecting to people in Sitka - I once lived in Ninilchik, a village of like 700 people. It was on the road system, but Homer and Soldotna are still a decent drive away, and are pretty small themselves. I had an easy time connecting to people there, but only because of the people I lived with. Alone I wouldn't have managed connecting at all.

Are there any really Alaskan activities that you think you could get into? Hunting? Fishing? Kayaking? etc.

What's your living situation like? Do you live on your own? Do you have roommates?

Where is it, in social interaction, that you feel things are going wrong in regards to connecting with people?

I have gone hiking in the summer. Yes, there are beautiful views up here, but that doesn't really keep my interest here in Alaska like it used to.

I live alone, 2 bedroom apartment. I have a guest bedroom, but nobody will come and visit me, not even my own family. I cannot have pets in my building.

I'm not into hunting, fishing, or kayaking. Not really an outdoors person in that sense.

In terms of social interactions, I think I'm a bit too mainstream in my likes; I'm a suburbanite, from the Midwest, like my big cities, like my urban conveniences. To give an example, I was in Washington, D.C. last year for 3 months helping out at my agency's national office with new administration stuff and such. I loved the malls, I loved the people, I loved the warmth, I loved the area. I loved looking out at a flat, boring, everyday landscape. I feel claustrophobic with all the mountains here, and I know Anchorage isn't even enclosed when compared to Sitka.

Sorry, I got off topic. The point I was making is that people here react oddly a lot when I mention how much I loved D.C. When I mention I loved the malls, being around people there, loved the social scene and the restaurants, so many people react like, "Yeah I don't like groups of people." "I didn't like D.C. (for one reason or another." "I din't like Ohio when I visited." My own identity as a person is frequently alienated here when I just like things that many Americans and people around the world also like. I'm tired of my identity being treated as an oddity here when, down in Eugene, Oregon, my friends and their friends are very understanding and just accept me for who I am.