Anxiety spike. One of those existential "my autistic ass is alone, my main socialization is work and online, what is my autistic ass going to do when he's out of work" attacks.
Similar situation, but instead of anxiety I've just had a nice bout of depression.
I've essentially given up on my longtime friend group. For the last 2 years I've been the only one initiating social gatherings. I'm the only one who reaches out, I'm the only one who makes plans, I'm the only one who seems to care. This wouldn't be horrible if they weren't so fucking flakey, for a long time it was just one friend who was like that, but over the last year all of them have become flakey. I've learned the hard way that soft commitments to hang out just mean no, and that if I expect them to show up I need to reconfirm like three times. Over the last few months I've completely stopped asking them to hang out, and surprise surprise none of them have reached out besides like once a month asking if I'm gonna be online to play games(Which I haven't enjoyed or played for years, which they know.)
Work is just as dismal. When I first started, and for about the first 2 years there, I would spend half my shift just walking around to the different stations to bullshit with people; now I just sit at my station and read the entire night. Most of my coworkers are fine people, but none of them are interesting, all of the fun people gradually got different jobs. I can go an entire shift without exchanging a single word with my partner for the shift, something that never happened before.
If not for my brother I would probably have zero social life outside of visiting my parents. He invites me to parties he throws, and I have a good time there, I'm awkward as shit, but I can manage to socialize with his friends because I've known most of them since they were in middle school. About every other time I go over my brother says something to the effect of "You should invite x-friend or y-friend over." and its painful because I know how futile that would be, but I don't have the words to explain what happened with my friend group.
I have no clue how to make new friends. I have no hobbies that would set me up for making connections; I read, and watch the NBA, that's about it. I've attempted to go to the local casino to watch NBA games and maybe talk to people, but I have no clue how, for whatever reason there's always a disconnect. The only person I've ever had a good conversation with about the NBA was a diagnosed autist(who I don't associate with for other reasons), with everyone else the conversations just fall flat.
I probably have a touch of the tism, and I definitely have social anxiety(though I'm miles better than I used to be). I suppose I've just accepted life as it is, I don't really know what I'm going to do in the future. Hopefully I figure something out I guess.
