I’m not sure if anyone can relate to this, but I still wanted to get “my feelings out”, so to speak. I’m a psychology student from Germany who’s in a Erasmus+ year (basically an exchange year during university) in France. I think the topic of loneliness has accompanied me my whole life in one form of another, but right now I think it strikes extra hard. Generally speaking, I think I’m pretty socially competent - I have friends, a girlfriend, I’m member of a Nightline back in Germany. I know a good amount of people from uni, in Germany and France, and can have a nice smalltalk with them.
However, I don’t feel included in any specific group, here or back in Germany. I am not outright rejected, people are still nice when I e.g. sit down with them for a meal. I went to a bar with some fellow exchange students, or talked with them during lunch. But these activities drain a lot of energy from me, and I can’t go to the nice places where people bond as a group. I can’t go to parties or concerts, having lunch with other people already drains my social battery for the day. I hear them telling how they will go on a trip or a party, how they went to the city and had a nice time. Last time I was in the city I nearly had a meltdown when I got home.
It just feels really lonely, as if all the people around me have fun as a group and I stand at the edge of the party, watching them as they enjoy themselves. I could walk up to them and have a drink, but I still wouldn’t be part of the party, no matter what I really do or try, because I wouldn’t be able to get in the same “fun mood” as them. This feeling of not belonging holds on the entire day right now.
However, that doesn’t mean I’m not happy or I can’t do fun things; I absolutely can. I love it when I can sleep out and watch a nice movie, when I have a walk next to the river and listen to my podcast. I love exploring the city (with headphones!), or watching a dog play with a ball, playing PC or writing in my diary. There are nice things in my life, which I appreciate and value. However, all these things are things I do on my own or with another person. And whenever I’m in a group, I very strongly feel that I don’t really fit to the group, that they are different than me.
I already thought about joining up a group here, but my language barrier makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to do so. And with my fellow exchange students I don’t really fit in, for the reasons outlined above.
Overall, I just feel very lonely here. Like a little alien watching the others have fun, while I’m on my own somewhere different. Of course I still have fun, I do great things, but I do them on my own. I feel that I’m broken or wrong for not able to enjoy group things as much as others do, that some part of me which is supposed to function correctly doesn’t work.
I’m 47 in the US, and I have felt this way most of my adult life. In my teens and 20s, I always felt like an afterthought. I’d ask to be included to group events, and I rarely remember ever being invited. I’d try to chime in when people were talking, but what I’d say never quite seemed to land right. The microexpressions on people’s faces indicated to me that I wasn’t a social equal but that I was simply being tolerated.
It didn’t even occur to me that I was autistic until I was 39, and it took until I was 46 for me to get myself diagnosed with ASD1. But I’ll tell you…something happened in my 30s. I don’t know what it was exactly that changed things for me in this regard, probably a multitude of things, but I am no longer the person I was in my 20s.
Maybe it was the fact that I got two degrees. Or that I was married for 17 years (now divorced, but it was my decision) and have two great kids. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I developed a career as a teacher and have felt pride in the accomplishment I’ve made in my vocation. Or maybe it was just the passage of time that allowed me to develop coping mechanisms thya work for me…time that tempered my worries about myself and my place in this world among others.
Whatever transpired, I’m no longer the sort of person who cares what people think of me. Of course, I always aim to be the best version of myself, someone people will admire and recognize as a safe, consensual, trauma-informed person, so I do want people to consider me a good and decent person.
But I can never control their perception of me as an autistic person. I’m different. Everyone knows it when they get to know me. When I discovered at age 39 that I was likely autistic, I told my colleagues, and they were shocked that I didn’t already know that about myself because they all clocked me as autistic pretty much immediately after meeting me three years prior.
So, instead of trying to hide it better in order to fit in. I wear my autism right on my sleeve. I tell people “When I’m in a group and say something awkward, and I can see the awkwardness on their faces 🤨, I just respond with ‘🫤😯…I…I’M AUTISTIC. 😬🙃’ And then everyone goes 'OH! Okay, that’s what it is, gotcha…I knew it was something like that! 😁”.
By telling people this, it let’s them know my sense of humor about my condition and sets them (and me) up for awkwardness in the future. Because it’s going to happen. Not all my jokes will land. Sometimes I’m gonna chime into a conversation and my comment will completely flop. But my out can always be “'🫤😯…I…I’M AUTISTIC. 😬🙃”. They’ll remember that my awkward comment isn’t my fault, that it’s this wacky thing about my brain and the way it works, and they won’t just sit their with a weird look on their face trying to figure out how to move past what I’ve just said. They’ll laugh, because I can laugh at myself! And I don’t feel so alone any more. I get invited to parties, and I’m included in the conversation.
Beyond having a sense of humor about yourself, the best advice I can give is to learn how to really listen, ask questions, and care about the responses and the people who give them. Low self-worth was been a constant companion in my life. I rarely felt valued, so I tried to create value among others by providing them with entertainment…being the funny one, or having off-the-wall talents (developed through periods of hyperfixation). I know now that my worth as a person can only be evaluated by me, and I know that I am as valuable as a human being as anyone else is, regardless of what I provide others.
That being said, what brings me great joy is being considered a friend and confidant, someone people value as a companion. And I foster that by caring about them, their experiences, and their feelings. I listen to them…really listen…not just waiting to say what I want to say in response, but thinking of questions I can ask, considering how their experiences make them feel, and proferring up advice when it is requested.
Anyway, that’s a lot. Off to work. Good luck to you!
I sincerely appreciate your response, thank you! I think it matters a lot to me that I’m not alone with this and that it will change (I’m sure it will also change for me, goddammit).
For me it definitely is an open question of integration vs. letting other people know I’m autistic. Rn only a selected number of people know, but it definitely is an unsolved problem for me if I want to be more open with this part of my identity. In the end it is a bit like what you said, that then people can also understand one better and won’t wonder ‘why is this guy behaving weirdly?’
Listening is definitely a great skill as well - I want to become a psychotherapist, so that will kinda become my source of income :) Always good to cultivate this skill though!
Actually now that I think of it, maybe I’ve neglected it a bit. Listening for me is something I claim to be able to do well, and something where I can use the autistic part of my identity well. And also that brings me to a thought. We all like and love people who can listen well and who will be there for you. I know that a few years ago, I read Carnegie’s “How to make friends and influence people” (honestly, how I didnt realize back then already that I was autistic is beyond me), but the main message of the book is that people like other people who listen. And listening to other people actually made me friends with a lot of other people. Being focused and attentive and going deep into a subject is an area I can perfectly integrate my hyper fixation and care for details, while also making the other person feel appreciated. Of course, there needs to be a fine line, but now that I think of it - I don’t feel connected going to a large party, I feel connected sitting next to a friend and listening him talking about his breakup. That’s what gives me a feeling of being part of the party, because that’s a party I choose and a party I can be damn good at.
In the last few years however it feels that I’ve neglected this a bit; it feels to me that I don’t really listen how I did earlier. I’m gonna reflect on why that’s the case, and maybe I’ll reread Carnegie. But I have the feeling that maybe, just maybe, this is connected to my feeling of feeling left out. Maybe I don’t only feel left out from the others, but also left out from myself, because I no longer practice the craft and art of listening like I did earlier.
I’ll need to reflect upon it, a lot. But thank you for the input! I sincerely appreciate it. Maybe I’ve written a lot of dumb stuff down, but at least I’ve a new thought to go with, and that’s already worth a lot. Thank you!