social life expansion failures

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About a month ago my wife invited a small gathering of coworkers and their husbands to come over for a dinner party during the upcoming weekend. A few days ago, one couple decided they can't make it. This morning, perhaps upon realizing the first couple couldn't make it, the other couple suddenly presented some ridiculous excuse for not being able to come over. Maybe they had a legit reason. The thing is, we were supposed to have this dinner party a month earlier but it got postponed due to the same sequence of events: first couple decides they can't make it followed by the second couple pulling off a ridiculous last-minute excuse.

Stuff like that happens to everyone, right? The thing is these occurrences happen far more often than not. Many a couple have jumped through hoops to avoid such meetups. I can't help but take it personally when someone agrees to a social occassion but it turns out their willingness to attend is contigent on the presence of other normal people. My wife is very social and likeable (and NT) so I'm pretty sure she's not the repellent here. I imagine those husbands telling their wives, "what, I have to hang out with that awkward guy?! No thanks!"

And yeah, I'm a bit awkward when I'm out of my element but when I do actually get to that comfortable place, people do really have fun and seem to like me. Couples who have successfully meshed with us in the past have moved too far away or split up. Unfortunately, getting to a comfortable place requires time and multi-dimentional folks who are willing to make an effort and aren't scared off by the presence of an aspie who isn't very hip on the jovial small-talk. I feel like all the futile efforts in this endeavor have been ours and the incessant rejections are starting to become humiliating. At this point in my life (late 30s) I'm thinking of finally giving up on this social expansion experiment. I'm not interested in second-guessing interpersonal performance and feeling like roadkill.

Anyone else been here? Should I just accept this as a natural consequence of my disposition?

try a different tack, but keep trying. you will eventually succeed.

It's time to stop asking those people over and ask some different people.

Destitude, if you're correct in your assumption that the husbands didn't wanna go because of you (and that is a big if, there might have been other reasons they cancelled), then maybe your wife should consider giving you a free evening and have a girls' night with her coworkers (if they are people she appreciate).

My mother works in a pace where there are both men and women, yet she's been invited to some get-togethers at some of her female colleagues and they have been girls only, no hubbies or male colleagues allowed.
Likewise, my father worked in a place where there were just men and they got together at times and that was just the men working there, no wives.
That seemed to work well in both places. Several of them were married.

Just a thought.

My experience is slightly different seeing as I am still in high school however it does have some similarities. I often had (and have) trouble trying to branch out, my social skills aren't exactly brilliant (they kinda suck) but I did eventually find a way to make it work at least mildly well. My shtick was mildly self depreciating humor, it wasn't super harsh and I never carry it on for long but just at the start of conversations to get past that awkward part and make people more comfortable around me. maybe my approach isn't always the right one by maybe you should try to find something similar to try to break the ice and get more comfortable with your coworkers. i don't know its worth a shot.