My existence is very isolated. There are very few people in my life that are not paid to be there, be they co-workers, service workers, whatever. When I do find someone that I consider a friend, or a potential friend, I tend to think that they will never accept me. That I have to mask in order not to push them away. Even before my self-mask finally broke, I was well aware that my brain was the cause of my isolation (now that the self-mask fell away, it is even more important that I find people that accept me for me, not a mask). But that is one of the primary paradoxes for me. I understand that I just cannot relate to the neurotypical world because of how my brain is. I understand that it is not my fault. But I also understand that the neurotypical world cannot relate to me because of how their brains are. I understand that it is not society’s fault. Where does that leave me? Isolated.
In addition to fearing (or knowing) that people will reject me because of how I am, I also just do not understand how social relationships are supposed to work. When I do meet someone that seems to have a positive bent toward me, I have no clue how to make a friend and am terrified that I will blow it. As a result, I try to appear aloof and stop myself from behaving at all how I actually behave. I try to remain in their orbit while not encroaching on their time. Despite the obvious flaws in that plan, I am powerless to change it.
I know that people have varying response times to texts and that. I rarely get upset (I do not like it, but I do understand) when texts are not responded to as quickly as I would prefer (though when people take far too long (weeks), I do get upset and assume that they just have no interest in me). But I also have no clue how often I am supposed to text them. I do not want to impose on people by spamming them. But if they do not respond for a couple days, there are other things that have since come up that I want to discuss so I am at a loss. If I send another message, then they may not (probably will not) respond to each separate thread, either picking the latest topic or the most interesting topic to them (I guess).
If I knew more people, conceivably, that could be mitigated by putting less on each individual person. That does not really work for me either because I would need to find a way to parse out pieces of my life to various people. What happens when I am talking to person A about a topic but they become busy, so I want to try person B. But person B knows nothing about the topic because I had only been discussing it with person A. So now I must give all kinds of backstory and I am just not good at giving any sort of extended exposition (verbally, but people also do not seem to like lengthy texts). But if I reach out to all the possible people, I would have to keep track of where in the timeline everyone is, and it would just get too confusing. I do not want a large circle of people to keep track of but I do not think it is fair to impose all of me on any individual. I am a lot, I know.
The end result is isolation. In addition to not knowing how to maintain relationships without bombarding them with all that is me, I have always been really bad at making friends, bad may be too judgy let us say ineffective instead. There are just no rules and no straightforward, consistent path. Historically, the only factors that I have determined are time and proximity, and for me, the length of time has been very, very high. That means that the odds are so vastly reduced because there are not many people that are forced into proximity with me (I am long out of school and work from home), and definitely not with enough time to enable me to build any sort of relationship. Why time is so critical, I do not understand. People talk about love at first sight, but if I walked up to someone (even if we sort of knew each other superficially) and said, “Hey, you feel that we were friends at first sight, yes?” I do not think it would go over well. But I do meet people that I am absolutely sure I could be friends with, even from the first meeting.
Plus, it seems that so many people are focused on finding a partner that they automatically assume that any attempt at friendship is, at best, a cover for trying to hook up. My assumption is that because making and maintaining friends are so easy and natural for people, they are confused and distrusting of why anyone would be actively trying to be “just” friends. Especially someone like me that does not understand social cues or niceties. I must then either bulldoze my way with bluntness or try to find a way to stay in a person’s periphery until they see the potential of a deeper friendship. It seems there is no middle ground. If I try to be sure that someone knows I like them and am interested in a friendship, I come on way too strong. If I try to be subtle, I come across as way too aloof. All or nothing. I definitely do not have it all, so that leaves me with nothing. Except isolation.
Note: The title of this post, Isolation Grind, is from the song “Born Again for the Last Time” by Corrosion of Conformity.