It's not necessarily weird behavior

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... that is my biggest social barrier. Can anyone identify with this: I just don't really know how to talk to people or engage people, and it's like I have little in common with anyone, so friendships just never develop to begin with?

Why is this, and what have others done about it?

Typically, "like" people hang out together. Mean girls with mean girls, Asians with Asians, gays with gays, and others with similar backgrounds are the same. Well, none of these groups are necessarily "weird" but there's little cross-group hanging out because they don't have much in common. So if there was someone who didn't fit into any existing group, it seems as if a perfectly "normal" person could find no group in which to fit. Is it really this easy to be excluded? In fact, it seems almost as if a super normal person would probably be pretty alone, given that people hang out based on mutual quirks/markers. So to what extent am I (and maybe some others) just super normal in a way?

I was actually told today and in the past as well, the reason people like to hang out with me is because I am nothing like them. I suppose they find that interesting or different or something. But it makes me feel a little bit like a commodity instead of a person. With that said I don’t have any close friends for the very reasons you enumerated on, I find it difficult to connect with people on a personal level.

Hmmmm...maybe you're more active in some way? I probably don't stand out in particular as someone unusual in a good way. I think I mostly am just not ever on anyone's radar. I'll have short, shallow conversations about stuff occasionally, but seldom anything that leads to hanging out, etc. (of course I'm never going to be the initiator since planning is too stressful, and I'm socially anxious & incompetent at planning stuff anyway). Did you do things to get yourself attention?

I think it because the people I interact with are simple folk (I mean that in the best way) and are easily impress and have no airs. I have interacted with people who think more highly of themselves then they ought and I was made to feel like I was just a bug. I think I understand where you’re coming from, it’s like you can’t make a real connection with anyone. I have always felt like an observer, present physically but never belonging.

Well, you might not ever make it into a group. And that's just something you may have to accept. That's been the unfortunate reality of my life.

However, I still have friends. For me generally what makes my friends is common interest. I talk to someone with a common interest as me, or even just about something I know about, and if we keep talking, one of us will decide to either do something or "hang out" somewhere, then you continue communicating with eachother, and now you're friends. My interests, despite being super nerdy about them, are sorta "common" but are weird variations on common interests. Like cars, I know a lot about cars. So I can connect well with other people who are into cars but are otherwise unlike me. For example, I have Puerto Rican neighbors that aren't very much like me at all, but we share the commonality of cars, so we help eachother out with cars, and it gives some sort of basis to talk to eachother. So, you could ask people what they like, but usually I'm too much of an idiot to do that, and besides, people generally don't give you really conclusive answers, and you'll get the same answer as if you ask about music tastes "A little bit of this, a little that" so it's best to just observe someone doing or talking about something you have an interest in, and sorta just join in.

Sometimes, common interest doesn't guarantee a friendship either, and the whole "group, class, race" type thing will come into play to override the common interest. For example, I ice skate. The older people I can make friends with based on just the common interest, but the younger ones near my age don't talk to me, as they're a different "crowd" than me, they're very "preppy" and usually quite affluent, and they just don't accept me. So I talk to the older people who do accept me for whatever reason (usually older people are more accepting, as you pretty much lose friends as you get older, due to interests changing and other factors, which I'm about to make a post about.) The older folks and me share the common interest, and that's enough to base a friendship off of (well that and general character, you can find some people with common interests who are not trustworthy people of good character who you don't want as friends.)

But that's how you do it. Look for people with some of the same interests as you. Not just even "special interests" either. For example, cooking to me is just something I "do" to me, I mean I take more interest in it than the average person, but I do that with everything. But if I find out someone else also cooks, we can teach eachother various things about cooking, and then "hang out" while doing that. Also, this doesn't presuppose the only reason you're around them or them you is cooking, but it may start like that. Some friends for example, from high school, I'm still friends with, even though we share very little common interests, we care about each other like friends do. The only problem with that is, it does make friendship harder once the common interests are lessened/gone, but they're still friends nonetheless.

That's my input.