A question for my autistic friends. Many autistic people struggle with social interactions and forming relationships, which is why they often feel lonely and isolated. I’d be interested to know how you usually go about making new connections, whether they’re friendships or romantic relationships.
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#ActuallyAutistic #Autistic #Autism #Neurodivergent #Neurodiversity @autistics
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Iron Pencil Statue
in reply to Arthur • • •honestly? The internet.
I made a friend in school (because they immediately realized I was also autistic) that I keep in touch with, but the rest of my relationships have mostly been internet-based.
It's scary to reach out, but it can be rewarding too
Arthur
in reply to Iron Pencil Statue • • •Iron Pencil Statue
in reply to Arthur • • •I am still in contact with my friend from school as I said 😀
We don't see each other in person much, due to the fact we're both disabled and conflicting schedules, but for example sometimes my friend will make a run to LUSH and bring me some lotion or soap on their way home 😀
And I have met some online friends in person though of course I Would stress being careful with that.
If nothing else, online I feel if you're in a good space is a great place to start.
Hedders
in reply to Arthur • • •honestly? Pretty much all of my connections are superficial, or work-related. The exceptions are:
1. My wife - she basically did all the running as I was utterly oblivious to the fact she was interested.
2. My children - that’s just a different relationship all round.
3. One old school friend who for some reason has just always “got” me.
Arthur
in reply to Hedders • • •Hedders
in reply to Arthur • • •Murdoc Addams 🧛🏻 🇨🇦
in reply to Arthur • • •My best friendships all came from the same source: the local Star Trek club (which was a long time ago now). That's not to say that this specifically will work for others, but being able to share common interests is a big plus for us. And in my case it had the added benefit of meeting people with similar values as well. I'm sure that this combination resulted in a high proportion of the members being ND of some variety, which also helps.
Beyond that, yeah, it hard as hell. Even with my little friend group it's hard to do things with them any more due to various circumstances and I'd really like to find a few more such friends.
Sean C.
in reply to Arthur • • •honestly, after so many years of being treated badly, i just don’t
if something forms on its own naturally through no effort, great, but i do not go out of my way anymore
that said, i’m not typical in that i do not mind being alone all the time
@autistics
Pete Ashton
in reply to Arthur • • •All this is in hindsight (I got my diagnosis in my 40s) but I realised in my 20s I was introducing people to other people to avoid talking to them and had accidentally become quite good at facilitating networking within my niche interest groups, so I leaned into that and became the person who knew stuff and mapped the networks. In short, I made myself useful. (See also, working at events rather than just attending them.) This allowed me to filter for friends and I still have some close ones after all this time.
To be honest I have no idea how I made friends or why people wanted to be my friend, but they did and having a shared interest to bridge the fear of small talk nightmare helped a lot.
Romantic relationships I was fucking terrible at. 😀
Alfred Chow - Maker of Things
in reply to Arthur • • •The internet.
Forums at first, and then Twitter when it was still 'normal'.
Now Mastodon.
I can take time to process the interactions, and decide how I might want to respond. I can then respond, even after some time has passed, and my response will be perfectly acceptable.
Also, I can deal with one voice at a time, and there is often a thread to follow so I can go back to see who said what to whom and when. That is so much easier than in a pub, for example, where people are speaking partial sentences, speaking over each other, and sharing unspoken information that might change the meaning and context of the words spoken.
I have made a few connections and friends from IRL contact, but they have been specific 1-1s for a purpose that then experienced 'mission creep' beyond that initial need.
abby
in reply to Arthur • • •Arthur
in reply to abby • • •Quester 🌤️🌈
in reply to Arthur • • •All of the IRL friends I have currently I’ve made all thanks to a shared hobby. As in we all met in person, plucked up the courage to see how a joke might land and went from there. Now we hang out at least once a week thanks to the shared hobby, and message each other almost daily.
I did meet my partner online, but that was almost 20 years ago, when times were a bit different.
I do have friends around the world, too, thanks to the Internet and in the past few years Mastodon specifically. I have even met face to face with some of these fedi people I’ve made friends with.
But for more personal and deeper connections, I prefer making friends in person.
Mx. Eddie R
in reply to Arthur • • •Kasanwa-Solane are hugging its Octo Friend
in reply to Arthur • • •Regarding friendships, I formed some through the traumatic experiences of middle school and high school (made friends with other similarly neurodivergent queer people though some of us didn’t know about being queer at the time, myself included). I’ve formed other friendships through college, with student organizations aligned with my interests and/or identities.
And nowadays I build physical reality friendships through a network effect, of them being a friend of a friend and hanging out through that before eventually being friends with them directly, along with attending hobby-based spaces and hobby-based events
Regarding romantic relationships:
- my first good one was very strongly by chance. We met at a 2 day learning workshop in a physical reality space, and were among the few young people there. We conversed during the breaks. Exchanged contact info at the end of day 1 and messaged a lot that evening. on the evening after day two, we went on our first date. We still keep in touch on occasion, but each time feels meaningful
- my second good o
... Show more...Regarding friendships, I formed some through the traumatic experiences of middle school and high school (made friends with other similarly neurodivergent queer people though some of us didn’t know about being queer at the time, myself included). I’ve formed other friendships through college, with student organizations aligned with my interests and/or identities.
And nowadays I build physical reality friendships through a network effect, of them being a friend of a friend and hanging out through that before eventually being friends with them directly, along with attending hobby-based spaces and hobby-based events
Regarding romantic relationships:
All the spaces that I make these meaningful connections in are ones where my autistic camouflage is down, either deliberately or accidentally in a good way. I’m not necessarily dropping the camouflage for every interaction in all of the spaces I’m trying to make friends in, I try to feel the vibes of the space and people first
cybervegan
in reply to Arthur • • •Work, online and community work.
I met my ex and wife online (AOL back in the day, and a dating site in the mid naughties). As I moved 300 miles to live with my ex, I lost touch with my childhood friends, and ended up with no proper friends, other than work colleagues for about 10 years. When I moved again to be with my now wife, I was still without other friends until I joined a club, and later started up a makerspace. Although that fell apart, I'm still friends with some people, though I haven't seen most of them much since my burnout started.
eestileib (she/hers)
in reply to Arthur • • •I've met lots of asd people in kink spaces, in furry spaces, trans spaces, and in hobbies like amateur radio and rail modeling.
I think kink, furry, and trans spaces are friendly because people are used to communicating far more forthrightly. All the secret coding and implied hierarchies that are so frustrating get expressed verbally.
I feel like neurodivergent people often love talking about specific stuff, they just hate small talk.
eestileib (she/hers)
in reply to eestileib (she/hers) • • •Oh, and, possibly surprisingly, if you can handle the noise and close people, football fan sections can be good.
They will tell you what to dress and how to behave, when to show up, teach you the words of the songs. My experience is that if you show up and actually do the thing for 90 minutes, they'll let you in. It's clear what to do (the capo tells you), you know when to cheer and boo (everyone around you will be), there are flags and scarves (and eventually pyro and audio stuff if you go deep) to fiddle with, they always need more drummers, and everybody knows when it's time to go home.
My friend with social anxiety loves it, that environment just wipes everything he normally hates about get togethers right off the table.
Plus, if you're a memorizer, you'll be around people who think it's awesome that you remember what number the homegrown substitute left back from eight years ago wore on his national team appearance.
Watching the game is fun too, but optional.
Arthur
in reply to eestileib (she/hers) • • •SkipfordJ
in reply to Arthur • • •Arthur
in reply to SkipfordJ • • •⁂ Fish Id Wardrobe
in reply to Arthur • • •i don't have any trouble being friends if we have autistic traits that match (and, non-autists can have autistic traits!)
the trick is, finding such people. there's no science to it; it's just luck. But the internet helps *a lot*.
NuclearSquid
in reply to Arthur • • •Ángela Stella Matutina
in reply to Arthur • • •Slowly. Masked. I don't initiate contact but instead let random collisions do their work.
If they're NT, I handle them like potential abusers until they show they can be trusted. If they are able and willing to do so: most don't even understand what is at stake for me.
Vereesh
in reply to Arthur • • •Alex, the Hearth Fire reshared this.
Steveg58
in reply to Vereesh • • •Any group that re-creates a time when social interactions were more formalized (including Steampunk) may help.
Mael Eoin mac Echuid
in reply to Vereesh • • •100% agree; we aren't as diverse as I'd like to see but _so many_ SCAdians I know are ND to a greater or lesser extent. So many. (I've been a member for 20 years.)
It isn't the case for all SCA groups but many that I've encountered in 5+ Kingdoms are welcoming, aware and patient with ND folks.
Vereesh
in reply to Mael Eoin mac Echuid • • •Janis
in reply to Arthur • • •I don't have any trouble walking up to people (after being in the same space with them for more than a minute--too fast is creepy) and articulating in the form of a question something I noticed about them that they probably want noticed, something self-expressive vs. necessarily appearance-related. They put it out there on purpose, and I'm indicating it was safe with me to do that.
The problem is when they recommend a follow-up thing I can do, I'm just not there.
@autistics
DFX4509B (Joshua Mason)
in reply to Arthur • •If you're a creative, there's plenty of art or craft-related groups you could hang out in, or even go hang out at a local painting class or something along those lines.
Actually come to think of it, those types of groups tend to be a somewhat common hangout for the neruodivergent crowd from what I've seen scrolling around on ATproto and such, the art and craft hobby scene in general looks to have a lot of neurodivergents in it, I bet probably because a lot of people on the spectrum, myself included, tend to be better at expressing themselves visually than through speaking, so drawing or painting or whatever is a genuine outlet for them.
No, but I tend to suck at talking to people, but give me a blank sheet of paper, a big set of crayons or oil pastels, and no restraints, and I'll go to town generally. There's also the sensory aspect of it as well as some media, eg. chalk or oil pastels, or clay, are particularly fun to play with, or even any sort of paints for that matter once you get to let your inner kid out a little bit, eg. by incorporating fingerprint art into a g
... Show more...If you're a creative, there's plenty of art or craft-related groups you could hang out in, or even go hang out at a local painting class or something along those lines.
Actually come to think of it, those types of groups tend to be a somewhat common hangout for the neruodivergent crowd from what I've seen scrolling around on ATproto and such, the art and craft hobby scene in general looks to have a lot of neurodivergents in it, I bet probably because a lot of people on the spectrum, myself included, tend to be better at expressing themselves visually than through speaking, so drawing or painting or whatever is a genuine outlet for them.
No, but I tend to suck at talking to people, but give me a blank sheet of paper, a big set of crayons or oil pastels, and no restraints, and I'll go to town generally. There's also the sensory aspect of it as well as some media, eg. chalk or oil pastels, or clay, are particularly fun to play with, or even any sort of paints for that matter once you get to let your inner kid out a little bit, eg. by incorporating fingerprint art into a given painting such as with bees and flowers and such.
IT-related groups also tend to be a common hangout for the neurodivergent crowd because of the tech aspect of it.
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J. R. DePriest :EA DATA. SF:
in reply to Arthur • • •For friends, it is usually shared or overlapping hyperfocus interests. Anything we can "geek out about" helps build kinship.
For romantic interests, because one of my hyperfocus hobbies is writing, I typically started with writing poems and short stories for them. They are either about them or about something in which they are interested. I would take time to learn about the things they like first just by listening and observation. And if we didn't end up romantic, we could still end up friends.
I used to do Tarot readings for people as a way to make friends but I'm extremely out of practice. I did natal charts twice by hand but it was far too much work.
Nowadays, I haven't made new friends in a very long time. I have acquaintances from Fediverse and work friends, but that is all. I would like to know what works today, in our extremely online but also still in a pandemic reality.
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Aware-wolf
in reply to Arthur • • •Actually Autistics reshared this.
Robot Diver 🌊🌬️🍃🌿🌸🌱🌱🌱
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Robot Diver 🌊🌬️🍃🌿🌸🌱🌱🌱
in reply to Robot Diver 🌊🌬️🍃🌿🌸🌱🌱🌱 • • •