Normality is relative. What is fine for you might seem odd to others. With autism you will likely encounter plenty of people who can be rude because of how you behave. This can then be turned inwards and you start playing the blame game - convincing yourself you're defective or abnormal.
A lot of us will mask in a bid to appear normal and try and reduce the friction that our behaviour can cause. Stimming, verbal tics and suchlike can be alarming and unnerving to those who have little to no experience of autism.
I know there are some on here who struggle with finding someone right for them. I have dated a lot over the years, but I'm single now - which shows that even those who do end up dating might struggle to find someone who is right for them.
There's plenty of knowledge to be found on this forum. Friendly and understanding people with experiences and stories to share. As for socialising - it's different for everyone. I personally found I had to stick with it, practice more and more. It was sort of exposure therapy I guess, because it made me feel uncomfortable or anxious - but the more I did it, the better I got.
I'm no Casanova, but I find it less stressful these days. I still find I don't get on with most people, but the mask is to be polite and helpful, even around those I'm not keen on.
Therapy is an option too, as is finding local groups which play to your interests or talents etc. For me, I enjoy staffing - so I go out to parks and staff a lot. This year I made a simple change, I started staffing closer to footpaths. This enabled me to start talking to lots of random people who were walking through the park, this also helped build confidence.
With negative experiences it's very easy to turn this in on yourself and blame yourself and feel stigmatised, traumatised and downtrodden. A lot of progress in life comes down to managing your expectations and working on changing your beliefs. We often live with a lot of overly critical and false beliefs about ourselves.
Anxiety and depression is particularly common with Autism as well as catastrophic thinking. These issues can make things like socialising and dating difficult. Sometimes it feels like our brains are just wired to worry or obsess more. Fixate on stuff until we feel utterly overwhelmed by. it But, as the saying goes "practice makes perfect" and if you keep at it, and approach socialising or dating with a more open mind, as opposed to assuming you might make people feel awkward, or assuming that people might lie to you or treat you badly etc. then you might see more fruitful results. The main issue is how to process when things don't work out how you wanted it to. You have to pick yourself up and keep trying, rather than wallowing in the past or replaying traumatic events etc. Easier said than done, I know. I struggle with fixating on the above a lot. I know it's unhelpful behaviour, so I really have to push myself to let go of previous issues. As a for instance my first gf cheated on me - so I assumed others (if not all) would. In the end another 2 did. But oddly enough I don't do anywhere near as much fidelity scanning and obsessing over whether or not someone would cheat on me. I find worrying about events can actually make them an anti-climax if they happen and that is a big if.
I posted this on another post recently, but with regards to not feeling normal etc, this might shed some light. It's a book written by a therapist who is Autistic:
The Trouble with Normal
The trouble with "normal," as Bruce Coburn tells us in his distinctively Canadian socio-political folk song, is it always gets worse. So-called "normal" people struggle to become "better than normal," and those who find themselves set apart by their uniqueness and/or challenges torture themselves because they wish they were "more normal." "Normal" is an exclusive club whose membership is based on an illusion. It's easy to pinpoint the "statistically average." Insurance adjusters do it all the time. "Normal" is everywhere and nowhere. It is normal to fall into different ranges of diversity in different areas. it is normal for some people to be outside the range of conventional social expectation and be outrageously different. No one is completely "normal." It is a target that doesn't exist, yet we hold fast to this precarious ideal and beat each other (and ourselves) up over it.
"If only I could be more normal," we say, and treat the blessings that make us who we are as if they were some kind of pestilence. Yet is it not all our fault. Mainstream society, the statistically average and dominant, hold on to social expectations and conventional standards as if they were membership requirements. When a person does not fit the image of what the majority expects everyone to be like, there is a harsh judgement of unworthiness. Membership in the clique of the "normal" is denied. A person who isn't careful can internalize this judgement and stigmatize themselves as not good enough. Stigma does untold personal and social damage.
Rather than basing trust on acceptance on meeting "normal" social expectations and conventional standards, we can ground ourselves in curiosity and allow other people's uniqueness to speak to us. It is natural to reserve trust until it is earned, but that doesn't mean we have to reject others on the basis of certain qualities. When people don't meet our expectations, it is expectation itself we need to release. Philosophers and spiritual leaders have long been telling us how expectations get us in trouble. Beating ourselves up because we don't meet "normal" expectations is a sure ticket to Ghost Town. It is normal to experience anxiety and depression. It is normal to get caught up in narrow self-absorbed prejudices, coping mechanisms and quirky habits. It is normal to panic when we feel distress and think it will get worse. It is normal to have challenges to contend with in life. It is especially normal to not feel "normal."
[...]
Let's be different proudly, keep learning who we are, and do what we have to do to take care of ourselves and each other. Let's flow with what makes us different and explore the differences between us rather than pushing each other away and not feeling good enough. What a silly bunch we are."
Ed
