Everything is too difficult. Why go on?

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Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that people take the time to post something in here, but in many ways it's not better than imaginary friends for me. I really need people to be part of my life, people I can trust. I find it next to impossible to trust anyone online since people tend to just vanish into thin air. It's my impression that relationships with strangers on the internet are the first to go when real life demands attention, way before people in the real life are left behind. And even that happens a lot.

I have communicated via pm and email with people I "met" here, 4 years and counting. I am loyal. I have been lucky enough to meet a few WPers in the flesh, at the various square pegs aspie meetups [meetup.com]. care to divulge what part of the country you are from?

What you seem to want is the feeling that there's someone permanent in your life who really cares. I get that. This may sound as if im trivialising the whole thing but have you considered pets? They may provide you with A stable loving relationship and that will improve your sense of wellbeing hugely

I have considered it, but my living situation isn't ideal for having a cat, and a dog is so much responsibility and a commitment for maybe 20 years or so, and I'm not sure I'd be up to it.
I can't think of other animals that I'd find comforting.

There's also the sensory issue - I'd hate to have a smelly drooling dog, for example. It's bad enough I have to deal with my own hygiene all the time, brushing a dog's teeth every day would be too much.

another human being in close quarters also can be prone to triggering sensory issues as well. and as bad as it would be to dump a dog when one got tired of it, even worse is dumping a human being when one got tired of it.

Well, yes, but in general, humans take care of their own hygiene. I mean, I wouldn't mind giving a hot girl a bath, but so far this hasn't been necessary and/or the suggestion appreciated. Aslo, you can have separate places to live in, for example.

ah, that reminds me of kate Hepburn's observation, "it seems that men and women are not so well suited for each other, maybe they could live next door and drop in now and then."

Would you find emotional entanglement or animal care harder to deal with? I think that's one essential question

I can tell the OP that relationships require WORK [not all fun and games]. but in exchange for the work one gets sublime and lifelong rewards. it is well worth it.

There are always ways to rethink things. Once you begin to understand the parietal lobe you'll be on the way. Don't give up, that's the important thing. There are generations of autistics coming after you, and the world's not ready for them yet,

This is true. E-friends can't serve the same purpose as real life friends. It's not even about that these people are somehow bad. It just the way we are wired. People who we meet in real life demand our immediate attention, and also influence us with their feelings (dare to say even manipulate us with their feelings), whereas people who you talk with online can be ignored easily and also forgotten easily even if you don't intend to.

As far as the topic goes, only you can decide whether life can offer any meaning to you anymore. Of course some of this decision is based on the skill set you have now and your perceived ability to improve that skill set and thus your life. I realize that it is a pretty depressing thought when someone wants to connect, but just doesn't have the understanding or skills to do it. I have struggled immensely with this, and I still do even though I have improved dramatically.

At least you should hang around as long as you have tried to build connections with aspies in real life.

It's pretty much up to the meds now. I'm positive that unless they make a big difference in how much stress I experience, things won't work out. If they do and my mood swings are under control, I will do my best to push myself out of my comfort zone one last time to turn things around.

The confusing thing is that sometimes I think I'm able to connect just fine.
Yesterday, on the way to an appointment, I was walking past a girl that I think was doing some sort of promotion. I was in a slightly hypomanic state, so when I noticed her looking in my direction, I had to laugh because of the absurdity of the situation and her slightly expectant smile. The laughter turned into this huge smile while I was shaking my head to indicate that I don't have time to stop and chat. Even though she noticed that, she mirrored my smile and we locked eye contact for well over two seconds before I had to break it. Now I might be hallucinating, but for some reason I think she genuinely enjoyed this little dance. She had no reason to react to me once she noticed that I wasn't going to stop walking, and from what I've learned about body language, at that point it looked like a genuinely happy smile to me. It's possible my love-starved brain has warped my perception though, but I've had similar things happen. So I know people can and do sometimes react positively to me.

In any case, the degree to which I felt comfortable and happy in that moment made me think about what I actually want from other people. It seems like I'm really only interested in this direct and non-verbal aspect of connecting to people, which is confusing considering that most of the time, I have so much trouble with body language. Having people to talk to or exchange information with is actually not very important to me. This doesn't get me anywhere, of course, because I'm unlikely to get one without the other.

So my only recourse is to address what I've identified as my core issues - the levels of stress I experience, my discomfort / inability to be relaxed and confident around people, and my troubles with conversation. I would never have been able to follow up on this encounter. My way of thinking is thorough but too slow for conversations, although part of that is definitely a lack of practice. I will try to address the practice aspect through psychotherapy and other activities.
I doubt I will make too much progress with the factor of speed, but there are some psychological problems that can certainly be improved or eliminated.

I wish you luck with the meds and anything else you can summon

I bolded some important parts.

You are at the brink of realizing something very important. I myself have made this realization only recently.

What you are describing here is that when you feel totally relaxed/happy about yourself you can socialise not only effortlessly but actually in a super charismatic way. The ability to look a stranger in the eyes and hold that eye contact without flinching or showing any signs of discomfort tells the other person that you are comfortable in that situation. Women seem to find men who are totally relaxed and happy very attractive. Whereas anxious, fearful or angry dudes don't get very far with any females.

Now, why can't you be in that mental state all the time?

The fact you have asperger's is major issue here. It's likely that you are constantly stressed out by your sensory experience, difficulties managing your life and most importantly you are carrying around the emotional baggage of abuse that you have experienced in the hands of the neurotypical world.

All of the above then shows in your body language and facial expressions. And NTs are constantly pinging off each others body language unconsciously. You are transmitting distress signals which makes others distressed therefore they either want to make you feel better (by asking the threaded question Are you alright?) or they want to avoid you since you make them feel distressed. Anyway these distress signals don't make you attractive in the eyes of the opposite sex.

If you however manage to truly feel calm and happy around people, you will start to notice that people start responding to you better, and consequently you feel better which creates a positive feedback loop. Right now most of the time you are stuck in a negative feedback loop, where you expect social interaction to go badly and thus your expectation shows in your body landguage and facial expressions and people react to that in a negative manner. However, you have experienced those rare times when you sort of forget all your troubles and just feel happy, essentially you are being present. Being present in the moment can be achieved through mindfullness practice which means simply observing your environment without judgment and just letting any feelings that arise to just pass and going back to observing your environment.

You should check out mindfullness and meditation practices because they can serve as an effective shortcut to make you a more calmer, happier and stable person. The calmer and more present you can stay in social interactions, the more positively people will react to you.

Also trying to find aspies in real life is a very good way to get your basic need for emotional validation met.

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Then a comment regarding the preference for using non-verbal approach instead of verbal. The poster rdos who promotes the Neanderthal theory of asperger's has commented in some threads here that the preferred way of courtship for neanderthals/aspies is non-verbal and it lasts quite long. And also that sex comes first. I agree with this very much. I think it also connects very well with the general aspie tendency to avoid eye-contact. To me it almost seems instinctively correct that intense eye-contact is reserved to courting a woman or in dominance battles with outsider males.

The courtship that led to my first relationship involved a lot of non-verbal communication. I would often maintain eye contact with my to-be-girlfriend and also start touching her. We worked at the same place which allowed our relationship to develop more slowly and thus I became more and more comfortable in holding eye contact with her. So when I finally approached her in a definitive manner I was very comfortable being around her and it was no surprise that our relationship escalated extremely fast. All along I knew what I was doing, my intent was to flirt with her, but she as an NT didn't fully realize what I was doing even though she responded to me and became more and more warmer towards me.

So this thing works with NTs as well. Though I think with NTs it's possible to move forward much faster, though this might be very uncomfortable for the aspie man since he doesn't feel comfortable enough with the woman. Again a reason why we miss so many opportunities with women since it's hard to feel comfortable with someone you just met, even though you recognize that she is interested.

And no I'm not saying that just because a girl smiles at you means that she is interested. But it nevertheless is a positive signal. At the very least it means that she feels safe with you. If you keep looking at her and she keeps looking back and then looking away (usually looking down is a submission signal) and this dance continues and you are both smiling, then I say IT IS ON. Usually you also start to feel this weird sexual tension in the air. At that point you should do something.

If you are inexperienced, reading these situations can be very hard and easy to get wrong (since inexperienced men are desperate for connection and thus start reading any little positive sign as a definitive sign of interest). Also their anxiousness shows through in their body language.

I myself am not even super-experienced but since I have exposed myself to these kinds of situations and had both success and humiliating failures, I have started to develop a pretty good understanding of how this thing works. Of course having the ability to actually perform in these situations is still not easy because I don't have enough experience yet to be calm in any situation.

That's a very clear and lucid explanation of my core issues, thank you. Switching from negative to positive feedback loops is a real challenge - there's this gravity that you have to overcome decisively, otherwise it will simply pull you back.
I've tried to integrate meditation as a daily practice, but my discomfort tends to win. It feels like I can't afford to spend time doing nothing when everything is broken. I realize that I really need to address my stress levels, but working against these feelings requires a lot of energy and determination which I often can't find.

My mood dropped like a brick on Monday, so now I hardly get anything done. I really hope the mood stabilizer will work. It's impossible to tackle my psychological issues with these mood swings.

The only opinion to be gained here is from the living, hence it is biased toward the "choose life" option. I have struggled with this question many times in my life - why continue? There are many reasons to bring life to a close when considering the future, probably quite a few of them common between us all, but I expect all of them are personal. Our death fantasy can be strengthened when using the past as proof of what to expect when considering tomorrow. I have ceased looking for "the answer" - I think that I already know the answer for myself. Once you go into the dark places of your own mind there is no return to innocence. When I am struggling with this question I always ask myself to find an answer for now. Why continue to endure the next day? Since I write this I have always found a reason to continue. Sometimes there are many, sometimes there is only one. These are all personal and would be irrelevant to others.