meeting friends through Facebook or in person

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I dont know how to meet people in person who have the same interests as me...on Facebook its easier because theres so many groups but every time i try to start a conversation on Facebook on private message or try to start a social group that meets in person and ask if anyone is interested i dont get responses. Idk what to do

My sense is that facebook is really geared toward keeping up with friends and family from real life, and following celebrities or other public figures/groups. As a non-celebrity, my initial reaction if someone I don't know tries to friend me on facebook is to think, "Do I know this person?" I ask my wife if she knows the person. If not, I tend to ignore the request. My assumption is that this person is some sort of scammer or is otherwise trying to bother me.

If I meet someone, perhaps through a mutual friend in person, or at a party and they send a friend request to me on facebook, then I take that to mean "This person thinks I'm interesting. - Perhaps they would be interested in being my friend (maybe a possible romantic interest? - although quite possibly not), at this point it would be appropriate to invite them to hang out some time, perhaps with our mutual friend or not." If I send a friendship request to someone that I just met in person, and they accept, then it could be that we have a mutual connection, or it could also be that they are trying to be polite. So the act of sending a friend request clearly communicates some degree of interest in friendship (or possibly romance), but the act of accepting a friend request is more ambiguous.

If an old acquaintance or friend that I've been out of touch with sends a friend request on facebook, it could be many things, but most likely it's 1 and 2:
1 - This person just thought of me for some reason, perhaps they saw me in a picture and were curious about what I'm up to.
2 - They want to be my facebook friend as a sort of loose connection and an exercise in nostalgia but nothing more.
3 - They wish we were closer friends and maybe would want to hang out (I think this is rare, and unless you were very close with the person, I wouldn't assume this unless they also sent a message explicitly communicating this).
4 - They may have a romantic interest in me, perhaps they used to like me, and now are out of a relationship and want to see if dating is a possibility. - Again, I wouldn't assume this unless they also sent a message saying as much.

So I think overall, facebook is a good way to maintain relationships and keep up with people who you don't see regularly. It's also possible to use it to ratchet up relationships from acquaintance to friends or romantic partners, by friending people you met in person and then getting to know one another and going from there.

I don't think it's a good place to make new friends simply because I don't think people on it are usually open to making new friends that they don't know in person. It is possible to meet someone through a mutual facebook friend, but I think the only way that that could work is if you both frequently participated in discussions on that mutual friend's posts - so it comes across as a happenstance meeting of the minds, and not trolling through your friend's friends...

So I think the second part of your question is how does one meet friends if not through facebook? I think meetup.org is much more geared for this. It is a site dedicated to meeting with people based on shared interests and you can get a sense for the parameters of each meetup. I think the best bet here is to join existing meetups. Similarly, if you're looking for romantic partners, I think the best bet would be dating sites. The bottom line is, people on dating sites are actively looking for romantic relationships so it is more than acceptable to communicate romantic interest in that context. Similarly people on meetup.org are actively seeking people to share in activities with them in their geographic area with shared interests, and so they welcome requests from strangers. One last thing about meetup.org - sometimes the people are more interested in the activity than they are in connecting with people. For example, I went with my sister to her hiking meetup. The people said hi and then just started hiking, with almost no socialization occurring. So it probably depends on the group and the activity - some people are looking to make friends, some just want to do what they love and maybe they want to carpool there...but it's totally appropriate in those contexts to show up and try and make friends.

Also, don't forget about the many organizations geared toward people on the spectrum. In my state, NY there is a great organization called ahany (http://ahany.org/) that has regular social outings for people on the spectrum to meet and get to know one another. Obviously you probably want to meet and talk to people who share your interests and not just the spectrum, so there's limits to this, but it might be nice - if only to have people to commiserate with, or give you advice.