I primarily ask this, because for a large part of my life, I have found it hard to build meaningful friendships with neurotypicals. I don’t know any autistic people in real life, but wonder if it would be easier for me to build friendships with them?
Or maybe this has more to do with general struggles of being autistic, rather than how alike I am to others. However, I always find neurotypicals don’t really go deep in conversation, but they enjoy small talk. Yet, I’m the complete opposite.
What has been your experience?
Depends. Other autistics with no overlapping interests can be very annoying to talk to, and it makes me cringe realizing that’s exactly how I appear to NT people.
On the other hand the lack of inane smalltalk is very refreshing when there’s at least some shared interests.
Some of the most enjoyable conversations I’ve had with other ND people have been described by other people who were present as appearing to be absolutely vicious arguments.
This reminds me of my own experiences. Overlapping interests are 10/10 for me.