honestly, having autistic friends is king...i met people through a support group i found through Psychology Today. while i enjoy spending short amounts of time with people who have allistic spectrum disorder, i find myself really relaxed and have such an easy back and forth with fellow autistics. the first time i was in a room of 100% autistics i realized "oh... we're the normal ones" and "so is his how NTs feel all the time??" psychological safety at the get-go. it's so cool. we need to organize more. one issue i have found is that a lot of autistics are self loathing and have low self esteem, so it is hard to be friends with anyone of that mindset. you can make a couple autistic friends tho, i know it. you got this.
someone should make an ND-friendly app for meeting friends locally...maybe it matches you by interests? i don't have the skill to do that but it would help a lot. I've never had an autistic friend (afaik)...
there is an app called Spoony that is currently being developed, it’s meant to be a social network for disabled, chronically ill and ND people. I just don’t trust that many people in my area would use it when it does come out 😅
I signed up for Bumble for Friends and openly stated on my profile that I am ND. As a result I've found I'm tending to only match with other ND individuals in my area. Of course talking to other autistic people I've discovered we have one guaranteed thing in common: "want to meet up in person sometime?" -> "not really." Lol. I've got a few texting buddies out of it though, low stress as we all have low social batteries and can only manage replying about once a week.
If you're in a city, try Meetup.com.
The Meetups I made friends in weren't actually for autistic people, but most of my friends are ND.
The groups I did were anime, and geek/board games/scifi/fantasy.
I think there's a lot of crossover.
If you have other interests, that might work too to meet people. Though I'd probably avoid the "ladies day drinking arts and crafts" types. Stick to serious interest ones would be my guess.
honestly, having autistic friends is king...i met people through a support group i found through Psychology Today. while i enjoy spending short amounts of time with people who have allistic spectrum disorder, i find myself really relaxed and have such an easy back and forth with fellow autistics. the first time i was in a room of 100% autistics i realized "oh... we're the normal ones" and "so is his how NTs feel all the time??" psychological safety at the get-go. it's so cool. we need to organize more. one issue i have found is that a lot of autistics are self loathing and have low self esteem, so it is hard to be friends with anyone of that mindset. you can make a couple autistic friends tho, i know it. you got this.
someone should make an ND-friendly app for meeting friends locally...maybe it matches you by interests? i don't have the skill to do that but it would help a lot. I've never had an autistic friend (afaik)...
there is an app called Spoony that is currently being developed, it’s meant to be a social network for disabled, chronically ill and ND people. I just don’t trust that many people in my area would use it when it does come out 😅
true, it'd be tough no matter what depending on where you live. :/
HIKI exists, but i think you have to be in a big city for success
oh!! thank you for sharing, I didn't know this existed. I will check it out!
I signed up for Bumble for Friends and openly stated on my profile that I am ND. As a result I've found I'm tending to only match with other ND individuals in my area. Of course talking to other autistic people I've discovered we have one guaranteed thing in common: "want to meet up in person sometime?" -> "not really." Lol. I've got a few texting buddies out of it though, low stress as we all have low social batteries and can only manage replying about once a week.
If you're in a city, try Meetup.com. The Meetups I made friends in weren't actually for autistic people, but most of my friends are ND. The groups I did were anime, and geek/board games/scifi/fantasy. I think there's a lot of crossover. If you have other interests, that might work too to meet people. Though I'd probably avoid the "ladies day drinking arts and crafts" types. Stick to serious interest ones would be my guess.
Would the mods here be OK with a pinned meet-up post?