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Do any of you not bother going to autism groups? I used to in the past but I haven't had tons of progress making friends.

Luca said:
1. I hate to word it like this, but we were definitely "higher functioning" than everyone else there... most people couldn't hold a proper conversation, most were living at home with their parents and needed a lot of support, and most only talked about the same repetitive topics over and over and all of the conversations were one-way. Most people weren't particularly worldly or aware of things either. Very different from the conversations I have both with people on this forum, and other autistic friends in real life, so I know that conversations with autistic people can in fact be reciprocal. This was just a skewed subset of people with higher support needs.
I'm not trying to say anything mean, and I'm sorry if this has come across that way. The majority of them were very nice well-meaning people, we just couldn't relate and the interactions were quite awkward.

2. Even with the first point stated, we felt a bit like we were being judged for having more "mainstream" special interests (dogs, sports, farming, construction, travel, home improvement/DIY, art, outdoors, etc.) Everyone else had very oddly specific, niche, off the beaten path types of interests (think along the lines of collecting vintage toaster ovens, obscure movie trivia, 1950s airplanes, furries, etc.)
I'm not in any way saying there's anything wrong with having unusual interests, and very niche specific interests can obviously be cool and fascinating. We just didn't like that the general attitude towards us kind of felt like we "weren't autistic enough." Both of us being very extroverted by nature also put us at odds with some of the personalities in the group.
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Those two points were very much my experience as well. Add to that a 30 to 40 year age difference and I was the only straight man in the room and it was just an incredibly uncomfortable experience for me. The whole time I was there I spent wishing I'd gone to the pub instead. When they announced a dress up night titled Wear Your Favourite Leather Gear I was out of there.
 
One would think they have such for adults in my area, but we don't. The only group gatherings are for the parents of (and their) kids who are autistic. Not complaining because that's a great thing for those kids and the parents. I wouldn't mind a group to try, though.

At the same time, being part of the entertainment fields, there are many of us so obviously autistic. Not just, though, and per any mixers or mingling events, they get annoying with the obvious NT folks sucking up all the air in the room.
 
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