Nobody likes you when you're 23

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Yes, the title of this thread is a totally lame joke and absolutely shameless rip-off of a blink-182 song. But it fits what's going on in my life right now.

I moved to the town I live in now in June 2013 for work. I spent a lot of time high school and college learning how to make friends in that type of setting. By my senior year of college, I was finally surrounded by people I could call best friends. Just in time to move. Awesome.

Now, the only people I know are my coworkers. I'd say 3 of them are people I could actually call friends, and I live with one of them. And that's really all the people I know in this town. I think a big part of the problem is that a majority of people I work with are older than me and have things like mortgages and spouses and children... all things that sound like infinitely more trouble than they're worth, to me. Me being the baby (or at least, one of the babies) of the office at age 23 and never having been in so much as one long-term relationship or ever having even rented a house with it's own laundry room before the one I live in now, I can't relate to these people at all.

A normal 23-year-old wouldn't care and would just hit the bars or whatever. But I'm only comfortable doing that with people I already know. Which never happens, because I work at a 24/7 business, and all the people would do stuff like that with me are working either the night I have off, or ridiculously early the next day. So, here I sit on another Saturday night, in front of my computer.

So, how the hell does one make friends and meet potential dates as a young man with Asperger's? I'm not even sure this is exclusively an Aspie issue... my NT coworker/roommate seems to have trouble with it too (although she may be NT in name only... I wouldn't be at all surprised if she were an undiagnosed Aspie). I can't do it through classes and team sports anymore, and online dating has turned out to be a clusterf**k of awkwardness. It all comes down to me not having a clue what to say to anyone who doesn't have an extremely obvious shared interest with me.

Not sure if this would be of much help, but perhaps finding groups/clubs that share your interests would help?

I'm sure you've already been told something like this, but it still can help.

It's better to be spending your Saturday knitting at a knitting club or reading at the book club or playing with your plastic cars at the hobby shop or playing some sort of sport at the YMCA or whatever you like to do with your time.

Whatever interests you have, find ways to incorporate it so that you end up surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals in some way.

I'm not sure how big your town is, but I'm sure there's some sort of opportunity out there for you.