Why is it hard for me to make "close" friends?

I love the term "neurospicy". I considered in the recent past changing the name of this blog to "The Neurospice Must Flow".

I've been trying to figure out for about thirty years, if not longer, why I have so much trouble making and keeping real friendships. I have a ton of acquaintances, and I'm lucky to get to see some of them a couple of times a month at events that are too loud for me to socialize properly in. But I can count the number of people I could truly call close friends on one hand. The only neurodivergence I've officially been diagnosed with is Central Auditory Processing Disorder. It tends to overlap a lot with ADHD. These can definitely affect your social life, but it doesn't stop everyone. There's also the fact that I'm an adult child of an alcoholic. Being from a dysfunctional family alone can fuck you up as an adult, having some kind of neurodivergence on top of that definitely doesn't help.

I have not been tested for autism, but I think there is a good probability that I'm on the autism spectrum, so I'm self-diagnosed. It would explain a lot, like why I feel constantly drained, why I feel overwhelmed by big crowds and sensory overload, and why just getting through another day feels like a victory. Possibly even AuDHD? I've been watching a lot of videos from people on the spectrum, especially people diagnosed later in life, and one thing that comes up often is having very few real friends, and people just plain disliking us. I've noticed that a lot of attractive women with ASD Youtube channels have partners, but attractive women tend to have an advantage over mediocre looking guys in the romance department in general, that's not limited to neurodivergence.

One thing I've observed is that neurodivergent people in creative fields seem to do better socially than those of us who are not creative. This is especially true for people who work in live theater. I can think of one person in particular who I have known for 21 years who works on tons of projects, and has tons of friends and no trouble dating. She's also super hot, which helps with the latter. I actually love performing. My performing these days is limited to singing karaoke, where I can just read the words off a screen. I'm not a great singer, but I'm not terrible, and I have far more confidence on stage than off. I've had people tell me that they love seeing me perform because it's obvious how much fun I'm having up there. I actually had a lead role in a play when I was in 8th grade. The other kids were amazed at how good I was at memorizing lines, and I really worked on my character. But boy, was it draining! I think I'd rather do film acting than live theater. Doing voiceover work has crossed my mind, but I wouldn't know where to go to see if I'd be a good fit or have a future in it.

Trying to make friends since 2021 has been very strange. Seems like most people I meet in real life and then connect with on social media have plenty of friends already, and no real desire to get to know me beyond a superficial level. I think some people would like me if they got to know me on my terms, which would be one on one at a place that's public, but not too noisy. But I can't make anyone want to get to know me. Hell, a lot of people I'd love to get to know better are homebodies like me, getting them to meet up is like pulling teeth. I'm better off just making new friends on dating apps! 😆

I'm a little too close to 50 for comfort. I thought I'd be much more socially advanced at this age than I actually am, like I was going to find the key to unlock the secret to having a normal-ish social life that seems to come naturally to neurotypicals. Young me also thought I would've done a lot more dating and had more sex, but that's a story that may or may not get told another time. It occurred to me last Summer that I was never going to "people" properly, but knowing this doesn't make getting rejected or shunned hurt any less. The purpose of this entry is really to be a prologue to the next episode, "The destruction of a person builds character!"