my whole life i've never quite made "friends" like others did. i found out pretty early on that autism was the most likely reasoning for this, and it's something a lot of people really just can't wrap their heads around. i've always been perfectly happy not having any friends at all, but i still sometimes get remarks such as "you must feel lonely, right?" or "you need friends, it will help your health", particularly from therapists and such. through my teenage years, i unfortunately became slowly aware of the fact that i may have a personality disorder too. in particular, bpd (borderline), which greatly impacts your ability and desire to make friends. this isn't to say that i never have had any friends at all, because i have, but i never considered them to be very enjoyable at all. there's a few exceptions (like, very very few) where i did enjoy being around them, but we still never really talked much at all and i always felt like i wasn't even their friend at all. i never hung out with others in person, my friendships were entirely online. i can at least socialize better online than in person, but it's really not saying much. i guess what i'm trying to get at is even if i'm someone's "friend", i feel left out and like an afterthought. mainly because i never really want to talk to them or call them or play games together or any of that.
nowadays, i do have people that i talk to online. it's one discord server, and there's two or three people in there who i would consider acquaintances, and i prefer that term the most. i don't have personal conversations often, especially never one-on-one, and i feel like the term acquaintance fits best. when i'm going around the net, i'll see someone's page and think they're cool, but i don't ever want much more than just to admire from afar. i'm also on the aromantic and asexual spectrums, which makes my emotions towards people a lot different than the average person. i just find it so awkward and draining to keep a connection to someone. social connections are supposed to make you happy, right?
i feel like i had a point with all of this, but it's kind of hard to express any of it at all. within the past few months, i've been accepting my a-spec identities more and more, and i discovered the term aplatonic on tumblr, and it felt like it described me. i'm not sure if it's considered queer, i think it is in a sense. attraction is more than just romantic and sexual, it's not a binary. familial, platonic, alterious, aesthetic, queerplatonic, there's so many kinds of attraction that people just never really think about. this is mainly because most people feel all of these types of attraction. so, i think if someone doesn't experience these types of attraction in some capacity, they're queer. the term queer doesn't really have much of a definition other than "different from the norm (typically implied in terms of gender and sexuality)". it doesn't have to be some exclusive "opression" club, being queer is more than that. of course, i'm queer in many other ways, but i do want people to feel welcome in the community if they're aplatonic.
i feel like this is something i'm still struggling to accept about myself, even though i've felt this way for my whole life. i feel like i must be a cold, evil person for not wanting friends. but i know that's not true. i try to be the nicest i can be to everyone, i consider everyone's feelings, i want to fill the world with hope and kindness. i can experience joy, i can still have connections with others, it's just in a different way. and that's okay. i just need to keep reassuring myself of that. i guess i'm just paranoid that others will see me in a negative way if i ever call myself aplatonic. at the end of the day, it's something i can't change about myself. i shouldn't have to convince myself i experience something when i really don't experience it at all. there's more to life than personal connections, you can contribute to the world in a positive way by simply existing as yourself. i encourage everyone who's read this far to try to be understanding of neurodivergency, how it effects others, and to be as kind and accepting as you can be. that's really the best thing you can do!