Becoming MORE isolated as an adult?

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As children, we don't have to make much effort to be around other people: it just happens. We live with and spend time around our immediate family members & relatives. We go to school & school related activities. Not to say that socializing is EVER easy for someone with autism. It's not.

It's just that as we get older, we move out on our own, we graduate from high school and/or college, and these circumstances require us to put more deliberate effort into socializing. If we are lucky, we remain close to family and friends we grew up with. However--especially for those of us with autism--those relationships are usually complicated, or they fall away.

It's trickier for us on the spectrum to cultivate and maintain relationships at any point in life. And when we are living independently, we usually have fewer built-in opportunities to connect with others, and fewer people around us in general to help us navigate the social waters of life.

For me, it has always been hard to make friends and even harder to keep them. I just don't behave the way people expect (i.e. I don't like calling them up all the time, and prefer to spend time alone, or with people I know very well). Therefore, new and old friends alike tend to fade away over time.

I am fortunate to be married to a guy who is very outgoing (although for me, that trait in a partner does have it's downside---a subject for another post), has lots of friends even from childhood, and is very close to his family. I have two kids who are sociable, and involved in outside activities. My husband's and kids' social connections naturally benefit me. I also have a job that exposes me to people I like (though I don't really socialize with them much outside of work). Also, I live in a friendly neighborhood with lots of families, and that's helpful.

I do have a few longtime friends I've kept in touch with, but I am all too aware they have closer friends they talk to more often and spend more time with.

Seeing how close people around me are to each other, I often feel like someone looking in from the outside, and it can be intensely lonely at times. This has been my experience since childhood, though. However, as long my relative isolation is not in my face and I'm not thinking about it, I'm quite content.

In general, my social life revolves around my husband's and children's connections. My social connections are there, but sparse, and that has not changed much over my lifetime, so far.

In the last several years I have become more isolated. When I was in high school I had a couple of close friends but we went our separate ways for college. Since then I have no friends. I have my family that I do things with sometimes but I feel like a loser and a freak not having any real friends. I see people I went to high school with who seem so happy; they are in relationships, starting families, have good jobs, and have a lot of friends. I wish I could be more like them but it scares me at the same time. Anytime is seems like someone is getting close and may become a "friend" I get scared and want to run.

This is somewhat common for neurotypicals too. Especially people who are middle-aged and elderly. I think it's getting more common now. But it's also increasing among people in their twenties. It's more to do with society. There aren't as many strong communal bonds as there used to be. Of course it's probably quite pronounced in people with autism.

I did spend quite a lot of my adult life hiding behind closed curtains.

It was because I finally found a safe place after having no security.

However, what started off as heaven did eventually turn to hell.

I reckon I wasted about 15 years of my life in isolation.

When I was young, it was hard to avoid social opportunities, and the assumption that I would be developing normally. At a big school, I could find another misfit to share the rejection, at least. Part of becoming more isolated is just realizing how irrelevant I was to many groups I thought I was in, and how poorly I was understood in others. I've even had a support group treat me badly.
I had hopes that the 'net would have a wide enough cast to find the friends I wanted, but that didn't work. When I had a chance for face-time with the best prospect, I was too upset by the process of getting there, and seeing so many other people that day to even say "hello."
Recently, I realized that part of my social problem is from complications of AS, rather than the condition itself, but that does not make recovery much easier after long patterning. With age, I got better at self-sufficiency, and more disillusioned with other people. Now, they are dying about as fast as I'm meeting them, and I'm living where I have almost nothing in common with the community.

I'm more isolated as an adult because I primarily have to socialize with strangers instead of people I'm familiar with. And I don't know what people want from me. And because we are so individualistic, if I don't guess right, then I'm wrong and I do not win the approval I so clearly am looking for. People are too highly verbal.

This is exactly how I feel. I'm totally on my own which sometimes is fine but then I go out and see people chatting and doing things together and I wish I had someone I could talk to and share my life with. I've sadly still not found the answer as I'm in a vicious circle with depression where I feel low, I'm terribly shy and can't work in the cold for health reasons. So I can't volunteer for pretty much everything and then I get down because I'm lonely and really want to mix with people. I'm quite happy to just listen and be the quite one as part of a group. Just to feel wanted really. Now summer is on it's way though I'm going to try and break it but no idea where to start or how.

I am not actually sure. People I know including my family tell me I have become very isolated, but I don't feel like it. The thing is, I am happy not to have family around me as they mostly just make me feel upset, and other people too, tend to tire me out and exhaust me, even the ones I like. There is literally not one person I know that I could say I'd want to spend a whole day with them and that I know I would enjoy it.
I do have a lot of people I know and some that I meet on an infrequent basis but nobody I call up every day or even every week and nobody I would feel comfortable calling in the middle of the night. I've never had that, even when I had friends in school; and once or twice I was in a bind and called on friends to help me - they did, but then they dropped me as a friend soon after. It's like, you can rely on people in theory, but you'd better not actually rely on them in practice. Besides, I don't make emotional connections the way other people seem to, most of the time when I meet someone, we have a couple of interesting conversations but then there is nothing to keep the relationship going and after a while it becomes clear we have nothing in common.
I have nothing in common with most people.

Point being is I feel happy and relaxed when I am on my own and stressed and anxious when there are people around me. So it's obvious what option I'd go for most of the time.