Dealing with intensity

Making friends and finding social networks can be especially difficult for me as an Aspie. As I use vast amounts of mental energy in order to communicate I find myself only able to interact with people when I can and feel up to it. I struggle with forming friendships and find that the process of making friends and forming relationships can be simply overwhelming.

As I work very hard at just doing the simplest things, I can put a lot of energy and enthusiasm into wanting to make a friend or have friends and this can often cause issues of intensity in others. What society does not really understand is that some Aspies work very hard at forming friendships and even more so relationships. Often just wanting a friend or being accepted by younger people can often be misconstrued in many incorrect ways. People can have issues with Aspies invading privacy, over stepping boundaries and simply by being too intense to force others away.

I find relationships especially difficult and cannot understand how two people can constantly share space without getting mentally exhausted in the process. I also get frustrated with society's expectations that if you are not in a relationship that there is something seriously wrong with you and you are perhaps dysfunctional. I think a lot of people are either largely homophobic or fearful of others they do not understand. Why does a person have to continually defend or be conformed into some kind of box so that people will feel more comfortable? People also seem to think and feel that because you imply the word homophobic that I myself must be homosexual myself. There is nothing wrong with diversity and however a person lives their life is their own business. It seems that with sexuality that people seem to think that there is a black and white answer. Either you are in a relationship, homosexual or dysfunctional. It becomes such a restricted way of thinking that I find as an Aspie that the pressures of fitting into some kind of box or stereotype are just so pressuring.

I think that Aspie wiring effects the way we think and feel as people and society should really mind its own business and not make assertions which sometimes people make even though they are not aware that they are doing it. I think Australian society is especially rigid for Aspies and rather than be accepted we tend to withdraw into social isolation or our own comfort zones in order to survive. Our often intellectual curiosity tends to work against us for if we try to talk and are open minded people either tell us to shut up, not look more thoroughly at what we are talking about or just dismiss us as some kind of weird freaks which they are unable to comprehend. Intensity in friendship is because Aspies work harder at forming friendships because they don't always come easy to us. We also have to work hard at most things unless they are an obsession in which we can invest all of our energy. Even in our obsessions we can become so obsessed with our special interests that we can also turn people away so it is a never ending scenario. You need to closely understand and careful examine all people on the Autism Spectrum for we are all different. We just see things differently to you and for that we should not be wrongly judged.