All the socialization tips thrown here don't really work...

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...or at least don't work after a certain age or for total loners perhaps.


There are a lot of such tips being thrown here when someone loner asks about increasing chance of meeting someone and maybe even having new friends , such as the overused typical "join a social club", "join a Meetup" , "join a cooking class" ..... they all revolve around joining X.

In my experience, those very rarely work for forming new friendships, let alone relationships - these only make you have new temporary acquaintances - who will all disappear after you finish/stop the activity/class.

For example I 've been in extensive 15 months programming courses, the guys were approachable , we even formed a chat group to communicate and hanged out to somewhere nearby the classes...but once we finished the courses finished, pfff .....nothing, even i even attempted to revive some outing ideas in our chat group but nothing.

And this wasn't the worse case, typically when a class finished (whether it is gym class or skill class...) everyone just rushes to leave home - there's no socialization in any form or shape after class.

As for social/activity clubs, people usually join with an already-established group of friends; they never seem to be interested to really know new people from the club itself, and make them part of their life outside the club at least.

Even if you succeed to obtain their facebook and add you or even their numbers, it leads to nowhere except more feed to your page - there's zero effort from over-25 or so people to form new friendships. I am not just talking about the opposite sex. No one really follows through.

The only thing that I've witnessed to work (to form new friendships or relationship) is mutual friendships, and not those activities/clubs many of you WPers keep talking about....but one should have an active social life to have that to begin with.

Who told you these things work? They actually don't, really.

so, what does his all-knowing majesty suggest, instead?

don't forget you're on a site for autistic people. obviously a lot of people here are gonna have trouble telling others how to be more successful socially.

For me it's exactly as Boo says.

I am gradually feeling like I have made some friends in my exercise class. If I wanted to see more of them, I could. It's the same group of people month after month, year after year.

Maybe the trick is to get involved with a hobby group or special interest group and stay involved for a long time. Or participate in a neighborhood association and keep doing it for a very long time. I once started a computer users group and made some good friends in that, by putting a lot of energy into it.

Actually, there are times when they DO work.

It's better than giving no advice at all----don't you think?

I feel that it's just a myth that these tips are effective in forming friendships/relationships.

Chances are as low as 1% perhaps.

the meetup tip is a real deception, pages of hundreds of smiling faces (with teeth) is really the asd thing to go for,

meeting isn't really the point also, plenty aquintances but friends is different, there's always an expectationpackage with that, or that turns quickly into abuse of a sort, they feel you owe them something?
by vague insinuations (that hurt my head)
i heard the hint, or two, but what's the expectation, it grows over my head, fix a day and it can
but its too broad, as an insinuation, i have work'n'obligations too, but its wishfully expected i can just undo that

oh oh offtopic-me, easily distracted, where's my blinkers ?

A lot of friendships seem to have an expiry date. Most of my former high-school classmates don't seem to see most of their former high-school friends often anymore. An astonishingly high amount of them started a relationship with someone they knew from high-school when they no longer were in high school though. They even start relationships with people they never bothered to talk to when they still were in the same class.
University is pretty much the same but who is whose classmate changes more quickly. People there form friendships with people who attend the same courses and most likely forget about most of these friendships once they no longer attend the same courses.
Generally people seem to have few if any lifelong friends (unless you count family members as friends).

Attending the same courses and finding a relationship partner there can happen though. Teaching a course (for adults) and finding a relationship partner there can also happen. I personally know at least two guys who met their wife that way and lots of women who had crushes on their teachers.

Work is the fastest way to meet people. There are the odd few who stick.

Unless you were in a fraternity or boarding house you never really see huge groups of people doing things.

Out of the people I still see, maybe a couple are from jobs I had, a couple from uni, one from school and a couple from the internet.

Meetups are a good way to meet people if the same people go every week.

I don’t meet people because I put in no effort, if you do, people bother more.

Everyone falls to the whole “Oh we must catch up” and never do. It’s more common as you get older. Half the time I’m in bed at 8:00pm in winter.

I might do an experiment and start a hobby.

The main problem of an autistic that he/she may be less likely to have acquired friendships in youth and therefore much more likely to end up a loner; no friends = no chance to expand your social network.

I agree with hale bopp on work, but I maintained friendship only with one person from work - it depends on the firm sizes you worked in though (I've only worked in very small private firms).

But I don't think what I am talking about is an Autism-related issue though (the forming friendships via clubs/Meetups/hobbies); you see....you need two hands to clap, if the NT people you are meeting through these activities aren't doing the smallest effort to socialize with you and follow through then no matter what you do, no friendship is going to form.

I've tried everything: gym, skill classes, IT classes, hiking, swimming club ...

Things used to work bit better before, but the older you get the harder it becomes.

Maybe over 2 decades, I got out of those only two seperate small group of friends which didn't last more than months because they fought each other like cats and group collapsed - i noticed this trend that when people don't know each other long enough and become suddenly outing buddies, the group doesn't last at all.
And one from hiking, the count is: 1; she was actually a loner too.

The last time such 'social success' happened though was 6 years ago, now while everyone is obsessed with their smartphone constantly, now it seems you cannot even start a rapport with anyone anymore in any of such hobbies/activities.

I seriously doubt people meet at the gym unless it’s the same weekly class or one of the people works there.

Most people at the gym want to be left alone.