Will we always be delayed?

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I just had a very demoralising string of experiences that really make me question if I will, always, be delayed. If we all are as autistics, essentially, and can never overcome it to a level of "normal."
If I'm just too impaired to understand or keep up. Didn't help that it ended up in an almost-meltdown (completely lost control for a moment and threw things around / smashed things / broke a few hundred speed laws) which hasn't happened with me in years and I had thought I had got over. Not out of rage, but certainly out of frustration and humiliation and the inability to process the information and impulses, and respond.
All the topics recently about being high functioning and mildly affected - that's not me. Not today.
First was a discussion about relationships I listened to, but couldn't contribute to, with a group. I am just now, as an adult, beginning to be able to conceptualise this, though I still cannot understand the complexity of this between people - the social, emotional, psychological, physical - just the whole of a mature relationship. The underlying understanding of any relationship that I just don't have. Some of you here are married - I honestly don't think I would be able to manage this. I have just enough understanding now to see the simplicity and shallowness of every connection I've ever had, or have. Or am able to have?
I have for a few months been associated with a religious group and formed a loose acquaintance with some of the people there, but it has always been in a specific place, for a few hours only, in a very formatted setting for which I was very well prepared, and I was very careful with what I revealed, and avoided revealing as much as I could. Essentially, giving them only the most highly polished, vague, generalized view. If I was not functioning well enough I wouldn't go and they wouldn't see it.
But now, we are at a point where I cannot keep up my facade and it's beginning to be obvious that I'm fundamentally different to them and as such, things are beginning to degrade. This always happens. This is part of the reason I am unable to understand what a real human connection is.
The other reason was I exerted myself and attended an unfamiliar group in an unfamiliar activity I vaguely recall being good years ago. I was the only person there unable to do the activity, even when it was the first time someone else in the group had ever tried it. Everyone else just did so effortlessly, even the first-timer - it was just me who couldn't adapt and pick it up. Just me, standing there like an idiot when everyone else could do it easily. And people started to stare. I tried to ask if there was any other group that might be better suited to a beginner, but couldn't because my speech abilities started to disappear. The group formed in a socially cohesive way that was automatic and instinctual to each individual, except me.
This at a time when I am making decisions that affect the future. And I have zero confidence in my ability to actually do anything. Most autistics have some saving grace - they may be impaired in some ways, but they're extraordinary in others. But it just seems all drawback with me. I want to have a full life and succeed like everyone else, but it seems impossible with my limitations as an autistic.
/rant.

My being "delayed" hasn't really mattered all that much, though it has had some impact.

I have a civil service clerical job, rather than a professional position, even though I believe I have the intelligence to be a professional. I lament that sometimes.

I intend on making it matter less--by having fun in my retirement.