You don't need to make much effort when making friends

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Yep.

I think your basic problem, most likely, is that NT's, especially NT women, perceive you as subtly different from themselves.

My opinion is that you should stop trying to make friends with NT's, and, instead, join an ADHD support group (since you seem to be more comfortable identifying as ADHD than autistic).

I think you may have got this a bit mixed up Joe. I'm no expert but it might seem like they have success at making friends and keeping them but I reckon that all their contacts are playing the same game as them so in reality they have a whole load of false friendships and at the end of the day they will too be left to grow old and lonely in their bitter and twisted armchairs.

God knows I've met a lot of these so called NT's and I believe they are no better than you or me. They have just learned to play "the game" in a different way.

I'd actually rather be socially awkward for the rest of eternity than live my life with the knowledge that I am two faced and so is everyone around me.

I'm quite honest and straightforward with people. Some like to call me blunt and I there's call me brutal. I'll never alter who I am just to please the masses. At least I know myself and I'm perfectly aware of those around me as well whether or not they choose to accept me into their circle.

A wise person once said to me: babybird you can count your true friends on the fingers of one hand.

I believe this is true and it counts for everyone NT and ND alike.

I just don't know how my socially awkward cousin does it. She's got more of a social life than any of my other NT cousins. She's always been shy, can only have one-to-one conversations (seem awkward in a group), and seems to not understand emotions very well, and also can seem in her own world. She also throws herself at people, like she's only got to meet someone and within 5 minutes she's already got their number or email address. I guess she's not afraid of social rejection like I am. Even if she did get socially rejected she probably wouldn't really notice and would just jump to the next person.

I don't know how she does it. I know her boyfriend is rather extroverted, so maybe she gets it from him?

Frankly, as I've gotten older, I have less of a desire for a "social life."

Yeah I've met people like this. Socially awkward but able to network quite well. I never know what to make of that.

I'm better with groups of people rather than one to one. I just find that I'm more comfortable when the focus isn't just on me.

I have to say, from all I observed of you Joe90, you are very smart and intelligent. You really seem to have a good heart.

I have much confidence that you will keep finding your way and help others find their way too ❤️

Yes it takes a lot of energy and effort to make new friends and keep old ones.

It's just sad that I don't make friends very well offline (although some friends have posted supportive comments on Facebook). But some people who I thought were friends (and who use Facebook regularly) didn't even put a like/heart/sad face on my post about losing my mum. I know it's sometimes hard to know what to say but it doesn't hurt to just use one of the "like" button features to show that you care. I always support them and show how I care about them. They probably don't like me, probably because I might of said something stupid once and that one stupid thing had made them dislike me forever. So when people say "if you make a silly social faux pas they'll forget about it the next minute", it's not true. Seriously, people remember everything.

So spot on.
This should be in a dictionary somewhere.

*sigh* There is only this, no plan B, no alternate way of being, it comes out that way - there is no way to adjust the setting. Believe me, I've spent so long looking.

I just dangle very low on the social hierarchy thing (sorry if it isn't the right word). Some NTs dangle low too. I usually get on with those NTs. The NTs that are higher but still are friendly and genuine are usually the type that have more empathy than the average human, and that believe the niceness of people is more important than where they stand on this invisible social pecking order thing.

I remember at high school whatever I did very seldom impressed the other kids, and this was stuff that would be hilarious if anyone else did it but because I did it it was "sad". Like I remember when I was about 15 we were in a classroom waiting for the teacher to arrive, this popular boy in my class started randomly crawling into the cupboard. Then he yelled out "sshh - I'm hiding here for when the teacher arrives!" And then the whole class was in on it and his friends helped him shut the cupboard door to keep him hidden, and everyone found it hilarious.
But I sat there and pictured me doing the same, and I knew that wouldn't result in the class playing along. Instead they would literally just call me pathetic or childish. And so it's not what you do, it's how popular you are. I was extremely unpopular at school so if I done anything a popular kid would do I'd just be socially punished for it.

I'm hoping that in my next life I'll be born an outgoing neurotypical who knows exactly what to say and how to be liked, and I could act like a hooligan as much as I could and still get everyone worshipping the ground I walk on. But in this current life I've just got to put up with being an unpopular loser who can't do anything right.

I don't envy you having to also navigate the British class system amongst other things when looking for friends. I find people from England living in Australia think in very hierarchical terms of class. The moment a British born attains some type of status here in Australia I observe they become very snooty/condescending to people their perceive as beneath them.

To Joe90:

I notice your signature now says you have an ADHD diagnosis. Good for you!

Have you looked around for a local adult ADHD support group yet? (These days they would be meeting mainly online, of course. Hopefully sometime soon they will be able to meet in-person?)

STORY: Making Friends as an Adult Isn't Easy, so We Came up With 102 Expert-Backed Ways to Do It.
(Points 50 to 52) piqued interest. It was helpful that the list of 102 points was easy to follow:

STORY: https://parade.com/1204851/kaitlin-voge ... e-friends/

I don't think I made any of my (few) actual friends by doing typical "trying to make friends" stuff. Maybe all the playing extra nice, keeping up appearances and pretending to be vivaciously social works if you're just trying to build a circle of shallow and vaguely friendly acquaintances? But real friends are the ones who see what you're really like, and like it. Anything less is just not sustainable. Also, most of my friends I met in situations where people get together to do stuff, rather than just getting together to have a party or whatever. Idle chatter is not our strong point, but we can show our qualities in other ways.

I think we come across as likeable when we are comfortable with ourselves and so accept others as they are. Then even if I don't fit in some social situation, it doesn't matter, because I'm ok with myself.