Feeling like I dont belong anywhere

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If this works for you, great. But please don't assume that what works for you will work for everyone.

Some of us just aren't capable of just "having a good time with friendly people in general." And please don't assume this is just due to a lack of "open-mindedness."

For example, many autistic people, myself included, have difficulty with multi-tasking and rapid shifts of attention, making it difficult to have conversations that jump too rapidly and too often from one topic to another, especially when talking to more than one person at a time.

Also, for me, common interests are much more than just an "excuse." They are an actual, significant source of enjoyment.

Another issue: Many people, autistic or otherwise, don't have enough time, energy, and/or executive functioning ability to stay in touch with friends on a regular basis, unless there is some regularly-scheduled activity that they both participate in. And that's another essential role of common interests for many people.

For some people, the regularly-scheduled activity can be just a bunch of friends who hang out at a pub or bar together, talking about nothing in particular. But that doesn't work well for everyone, for various reasons. Furthermore, it seems to me that most informal cliques of friends typically do have some common interests, usually sports or something similar.

I don't follow. Your idea of "having a good time with friendly people in general" is very specific and weird to me.


I don't see any contradictions with what I said. Yes, interests are source of enjoyment, I didn't say they are not. Yes, regular scheduled activities based on common interests are a great excuse to stay in touch with friends on a regular basis to maintain relationship. That's what I said.

Hey wildom People above have been making some great points. I just wanted to say I can absolutely relate, and I'm sorry you're going through this. I don't have very autism-like interests either, and this does make it harder to connect to other people in the community. (This might also be a gender issue to some extent - those "autistic interests" are typically more common among autistic males than females.)There is this idea that if you're autistic, at least you'll find autistic friends, and when this turns out to be not that easy it can be quite disheartening. One thing though - if you didn't get on with the people at your uni it doesn't mean that you won't have autistic friends, it just means these specific people happened not to be your kind of people. So I wouldn't give up hope yet

Hope you'll feel better soon!

Me too.

Definately!

Hey, I'm Kate.

I'm sorry you feel this way and you experience this stuff. I go through the same and at 31, I know exactly how you feel. Its hard. But it does not mean there's something wrong with you. I know that can be hard to believe because it's hard for me to believe when I try to remind myself of the same thing. I think the important part is that we keep trying, like you have done here so bravely. Now, I'm very new here (joined yesterday) and not sure how well I'll be able to keep up but I have hope. And I wish you the best.

Well can’t you just meet people doing activities you enjoy? Most people just have friends from work or uni? I have no interests. I hate everything. Hate sport. Hate art. Cbf with everything.

Just find someone to hate and make a conversation about them. You can use me to break the ice and form a lifelong bond. Enjoy.

I once tried book club cause they were handing out chocolate. Join a club just stay away from religious ones lol