Not finding your/my/our people

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Most of my social isolation comes from being teetotal and not being interested in getting drunk at all. Western society worships alcohol, and anyone between the ages of approximately 18 and 60 who don't get drunk are seen as a threat or not worth being friends with. Obviously some NTs are open-minded and just like you whether you drink or not (even if they drink a lot themselves), but most just don't like you if you have no part in getting drunk on alcohol or high on weed. Any ND person who is into drinking and weeding is more likely to fit in than those that don't. My friend has Fragile-X Syndrome but is incredibly lonely because she's not interested in getting drunk or high either.

Fragile X syndrome is rare in women, 1 in 4,000

1 in 8,000 women
Getting drunk and taking drugs to be accepted.
Let's just say that in many countries, the post-work happy hour is used as a group ritual.

Other things: this is obvious because just checking the drug metabolites in sewage discharges reveals something shocking.
Huh!

I've always refused to use drugs, partly because I've seen a lot of my peers die.
So I've never taken any.
I don't even get anesthesia at the dentist.
I should have an endoscopic check.
In the first three sessions, I refused Valium.
They asked me yes or no three times?
It was always no.
Just stay calm and that's it.
Now they use Fentanyl, which is about 80-100 times more powerful than morphine.
I have to take a test, but I don't want to take that crap.
I accompanied someone, and they ask for a companion, they don't let you choose.
So, in that case, I won't take that test.
Alcohol: with a meal, maybe a small amount of non-red wine is okay: if we're eating lunch, for example.

On its own, it disgusts me.
I've seen people die from that too.
It crosses the blood-brain barrier.
It also tastes horrible to me: it tastes like turpentine (paint thinner). I don't know why, a classmate of mine invited us to his house when I was around 15.

The parents weren't there.
He got some whiskey.
He poured a good amount for everyone.
I tasted it and put it back in the glass. It disgusted me. : A lot of our spirits, like Amaretto Di Saronno or various other things, arrive in the US. Now they've added a lot of sugar to it. You use an immense amount of sugar in your drinks.

Here I see boys and girls drinking non-alcoholic beverages.

They're not unusual.

In the region where I was before, Italian beer is very popular; they drink a lot of it, so much so that the Dutch have bought up all the beers with our brand.

Well! It depends on who you hang out with.

You don't like them.

They disgust you.

A friend of mine is on the waiting list for a liver transplant.

Which we, as a state, will have to pay for, I mean.

The same goes for those who smoke: and who tar their lungs and cough like hell:
That disgusts me too.

Everyone is free to feel as bad as they want.

And there are a lot of people who can't quit.

That too: they get sick and we have to pay for the surgery and treatment?

Here, everything is free, healthcare first and foremost.

I wouldn't accept them unless there was a clear intention to try to quit.

The US ones would never sell here. Except for Coca-Cola, which still sells something: but with less sugar than in your country. A bitter drink will break your liver in the long run.

For the moderators, I think Cornflake: hey and welcome back.
I owe you an explanation.

The reason I deleted it is because the post I replied to no longer appears to me.

His post was mentioned.

Maybe he doesn't like it appearing.
And anyway, I can't reply to a ghost, that is, someone who feels embarrassed by what he/she or I write.

Out of respect, I preferred to remove everything.

Putin is a dictator and does horrible things: this needs to be clarified.
But it's not that other politicians are better than him.

Leaders, I mean.

Putin is popular in Italy.
As are the Russians.
Perhaps because we know each other so well as nations.

They've never waged war against us; we have!

But there's never been any hatred.

Only extreme sympathy.

Maybe Donald Trump likes him too, at least that's what it seemed to me in their conversation.

I'd only seen him behave like this with Silvio Berlusconi.
They were, as it were, very good friends.

Let's just say I saw a person less false than many others.

He says what he does.
And he does what he says.

I remember Berlusconi forcing his hand to put his hand on Walker Bush's.

I think they had a hard time touching hands.

But it was a nice gesture.
Now, I hope our English friends, who are so keen on waging war against him, will change their minds.

Also because we would respect the agreements and I wouldn't want to see missiles launched at other human beings.

I find it illogical, senseless, and truly bad behavior, even ours.

I don't understand why they take different positions from the US, which has chosen dialogue.

We are seeking the same thing.

And if Putin came to us in peace, he would receive sympathy.

Praise to Spain because it has very clear ideas about what it does.

As usual, they say few but clear words.

I don't drink alcoholic beverages either, nor do I do drugs of any kind except on VERY rare occasions.

However, in the various oddball subcultures I've participated in over the years, at least here in New York City, I've only very rarely felt any pressure at all to drink alcoholic beverages or do drugs. At the various dinner meetings I've attended, usually held in a diner, usually no more than half the people ordered alcoholic beverages with their meals. And a mind-your-own-business ethic prevailed, with no pressure either to drink or to not drink alcoholic beverages.

I'm not sure to what extent this is/was characteristic of the oddball subcultures themselves vs. to what extent this is/was a New York City thing. I suspect it's a little of both.

Thanks for the welcome!

There's some topics on this thread that nearly trigger the writing of my life story. I don't want to write about it on an open forum.
I'll just say that I gave up smoking over 15 years ago (I didn't do anything to massive excess, but was pushed into drinking alcohol at uni and frequently was sick because of it). I don't drink to get drunk any more. My main stimulants now are coffee and dark chocolate digestives. I enjoy various forms of alternative/experimental leaning electronic music which stimulate my mind. Riding bikes and other forms of exercise also stimulate me.

This is difficult to address. You're not wrong. But having a partner is the exception to the rule in my life. I spent a lot of my young adulthood still living with my parents long after my newly-wed friends (I've since lost) were starting their first mortgage.

Oops! Apologies to both frollpoff and StickBugette for getting the two of you confused with each other in a post earlier in this thread.

No problem!

I've smoked and drank (I still drink), played sport, have an outgoing personality and never really had any friends or belonged to any subculture. Personal habits/lifestyle don't necessarily equate with a sense of belonging or being accepted by others.

thinking back to school, a lot of being accepted and "finding your people" happened organically. You just knew if you "fitted in" and trying to find reasons was pointless.

For example if I suddenly dressed like a goth, listened to goth music in school, I would know deep down other goths would have laughed and called me a "try hard". Nothing worse than applying to join a social club when you know your application is never going to be accepted. On the other hand if you sincerely are passionate or have interests that overlap with others, then naturally people are drawn toward to you, and you to them.

I don't have much to contribute to this complicated conversation other than: I agree, Astrid et Raphaëlle is a great TV show, as is Patience, if you can get it. There is a more discrete representation of Autism in The Bridge.

Is this thread about:
a) being autistic and finding fellow autists? OR
b) being autistic and finding your people ?

This is pretty much exactly how I feel too. I've never once found a group where I've felt like I belong, neither in real life nor online. Even in communities centered around something I'm interested in I always end up feeling like an outsider. And when I've finally found people that I'd considering calling my friend they either disappear (groups disband or slowly fall apart, individuals keep in contact less and less and eventually not at all) or they change (we stop having things in common or they end up becoming the sort of person i'd rather not associate with, etc.). In the end I'm generally the last one still there. I always end up being the one that gets left behind.

I feel the same way!

The more I think over human nature in its original context of hunter-gatherer, the more it all makes sense. There's a rhyme and reason to NT behaviour in the context of small bands of nomadic hunter-gatherers (with perhaps one strange animistic shaman). They prize emotional harmony and conformity as a survival strategy. Uncomfortable truths have little value in such a wild, might-makes-right, brutal world. Same as today - nothing's really changed there. Emotional vibing was always the "main dish" of the human experience, not some objective and perhaps embarrassing quest for truth, as though truth itself were magically sacrosanct or something.

A tough lesson for me - what with the Autism - to learn has been this: truth was never really meant to be more than just a lightly-sprinkled "spice" on the "main dish" of all the chimpanzee-like emotional algebra which NTs by and large live by.

Problem is...they run everything

One of the characteristics of autism is that we are all different.

It is like the genetic mixing of several species creating distinctly different hybrids.
A good example is hybrid roses. You can buy hundreds of distinctly different roses!

Maybe if you were to create an online community for a subset of autism traits you may be able to do that.

There are rare disease groups that have parties to get together from around the country.

I have only met 2 or 3 people in my life who I could think of and say were my person. Mostly I am alone in crowds. I've noticed that some of my radical views set me apart from others, I have noticed that some autists don't have those kind of views and I've wondered if maybe they do better than me without them. Probably not. But I argue a lot with folk. Even on another autistic forum! I have fallen out with half the people who use it because of my views.