u/IngenuityOk6679

Lived in Sydney my entire life and I've always found it insanely hard to make friends. What is even more unusual is that I've seen many sydney-siders complain about this - especially people who've recently graduated university. If you didn't have a "friend group" after from high school after graduating, you are absolutely smoked. I currently have 2 or 3 people that I regularly message and talk to, with one really good friend since primary school, but other than that, its really hard (we aren't all a "group", its just individual relationships). Hitting up old high school friends/acquaintances can be a good strategy alongside making friends with coworkers (as you regularly see them, etc.). Going to continue trying this and see how it goes.

Going on meetup.con, I've realized there's pretty few meetups for people in their early 20s which sucks because now that strategy of uni clubs/societies isn't going to work anymore as I'm graduating.

Does anyone know the particular reason why this is the case? Is there like a science reason? ChatGPT said that in Sydney Australia, its more difficult to make friends RELATIVE to big cities in other Anglo nations (USA, UK, etc.) becuase of the following reasons: large Sydney sprawl and commute, huge cost of living crisis, cultural preference for forming strong friend groups EARLY (highschool), night life restrictions and obstacles combined with poor third places, etc. Specifically for people aged 18-25, the lack of a centralized college where people your age live together like in USA and UK colleges is a major reason for why its much harder to make friends in this age group in Sydney and Australia as a whole relative to UK and USA.

As a person whose been to a USA college for an exchange semester, I just have to say this: their college life is GOATED

This is one of the biggest traumas I have personally dealt with as a neurodivergent and its why as a 25 year old male, I have never in my entire life had a single friend of the opposite gender. It was the worst in high school.

"Why are you talking to her?" "Everyone look OP is trying to talk to Tayla hahahahahahah". "Do you have a crush on her awww hahahahha". "Bro you are going to need much more than CONSENT hahahah". "Dude your so CRINGE". "STOP harassing her hahahahah" (just said hi, what exam are you studying for that looks cool?)

CRINGE. CRINGE. CRINGE.

Those three words give me the most horrible, heartbreaking feeling possible. Its the word most kids would use to describe me and my repeated failed attempts at social connection. I was lonely and it took huge amounts of effort and luck to finally secure male friends so I would purposefully avoid attempting making social connections with girls around them to ensure that they do not bully/reject me out of "my cringiness". In private, I would try to connect, talking about my special interests, asking about theirs, etc. but whenever other boys or popular girls would catch me doing this, oh boy. The bullying was horrendous. And even more hilarious is the fact that my own younger brother would partake in this and continue the onslaught at home.

Why would they do this? And even worse, why did these girls just play along with it? I was never trying to do anything s*xual, etc. it was always just attempts at platonic connection. I have never even ATTEMPTED flirting with a woman my entire life due to this.

Because of this bullying, I grew up being completely unable to believe that I deserved any love or connection with the opposite gender. And even today, simply saying hi and talking about the weather with a female coworker gives me such a huge level of anxiety that I just want to hide away under my blanket in bed at home for the rest of my life.

Anyone knows why they did this and how exactly to combat it? Specifically, I have this internalised belief that me speaking with women = harassment due to the bullying I experienced. A therapist has explained that it never was harassment and it was just annoying neurotypical racially biased bullying (due to south asian stereotypes of being creepy weird inc*ls) but its so unbelievably difficult to overcome this fear that my brain LITERALLY believes that I'm going to go to jail for speaking to a woman lol. Its like those ugly faces are cowering over me and policing my every move.

This is one of the biggest traumas I have personally dealt with as a neurodivergent and its why as a 25 year old male, I have never in my entire life had a single friend of the opposite gender. It was the worst in high school.

"Why are you talking to her?" "Everyone look OP is trying to talk to Tayla hahahahahahah". "Do you have a crush on her awww hahahahha". "Bro you are going to need much more than CONSENT hahahah". "Dude your so CRINGE". "STOP harassing her hahahahah" (just said hi, what exam are you studying for that looks cool?)

CRINGE. CRINGE. CRINGE.

Those three words give me the most horrible, heartbreaking feeling possible. Its the word most kids would use to describe me and my repeated failed attempts at social connection. I was lonely and it took huge amounts of effort and luck to finally secure male friends so I would purposefully avoid attempting making social connections with girls around them to ensure that they do not bully/reject me out of "my cringiness". In private, I would try to connect, talking about my special interests, asking about theirs, etc. but whenever other boys or popular girls would catch me doing this, oh boy. The bullying was horrendous. And even more hilarious is the fact that my own younger brother would partake in this and continue the onslaught at home.

Why would they do this? And even worse, why did these girls just play along with it? I was never trying to do anything s*xual, etc. it was always just attempts at platonic connection. I have never even ATTEMPTED flirting with a woman my entire life due to this.

Because of this bullying, I grew up being completely unable to believe that I deserved any love or connection with the opposite gender. And even today, simply saying hi and talking about the weather with a female coworker gives me such a huge level of anxiety that I just want to hide away under my blanket in bed at home for the rest of my life.

Anyone knows why they did this and how exactly to combat it? Specifically, I have this internalised belief that me speaking with women = harassment due to the bullying I experienced. A therapist has explained that it never was harassment and it was just annoying neurotypical racially biased bullying (due to south asian stereotypes of being creepy weird inc*ls) but its so unbelievably difficult to overcome this fear that my brain LITERALLY believes that I'm going to go to jail for speaking to a woman lol. Its like those ugly faces are cowering over me and policing my every move.

This is one of the biggest traumas I have personally dealt with as a neurodivergent and its why as a 25 year old male, I have never in my entire life had a single friend of the opposite gender. It was the worst in high school.

"Why are you talking to her?" "Everyone look OP is trying to talk to Tayla hahahahahahah". "Do you have a crush on her awww hahahahha". "Bro you are going to need much more than CONSENT hahahah". "Dude your so CRINGE". "STOP harassing her hahahahah" (just said hi, what exam are you studying for that looks cool?)

CRINGE. CRINGE. CRINGE.

Those three words give me the most horrible, heartbreaking feeling possible. Its the word most kids would use to describe me and my repeated failed attempts at social connection. I was lonely and it took huge amounts of effort and luck to finally secure male friends so I would purposefully avoid attempting making social connections with girls around them to ensure that they do not bully/reject me out of "my cringiness". In private, I would try to connect, talking about my special interests, asking about theirs, etc. but whenever other boys or popular girls would catch me doing this, oh boy. The bullying was horrendous. And even more hilarious is the fact that my own younger brother would partake in this and continue the onslaught at home.

Why would they do this? And even worse, why did these girls just play along with it? I was never trying to do anything s*xual, etc. it was always just attempts at platonic connection. I have never even ATTEMPTED flirting with a woman my entire life due to this.

Because of this bullying, I grew up being completely unable to believe that I deserved any love or connection with the opposite gender. And even today, simply saying hi and talking about the weather with a female coworker gives me such a huge level of anxiety that I just want to hide away under my blanket in bed at home for the rest of my life.

Anyone knows why they did this and how exactly to combat it? Specifically, I have this internalised belief that me speaking with women = harassment due to the bullying I experienced. A therapist has explained that it never was harassment and it was just annoying neurotypical racially biased bullying (due to south asian stereotypes of being creepy weird inc*ls) but its so unbelievably difficult to overcome this fear that my brain LITERALLY believes that I'm going to go to jail for speaking to a woman lol. Its like those ugly faces are cowering over me and policing my every move.

Its one of the main reasons I have massive social incompetence and anxiety today. When I compare my childhood experiences as an inattentive AuDHDer to that of a fellow hyperactive AuDHDer I know, it makes me really sad knowing that if my ADHD were simply presented differently, I could have leveraged the impulsive talkative ADHD nature to build a "extroverted quirky mask" and be more socially accepted like they were, allowing me to learn social skills quicker and better instead of shunning into my own world of inattentive, introverted maladaptive daydreaming.

And today, me being the inattentive AuDHDer, I have no friends, can barely hold a job for more than 6 months and struggle in school. Meanewhile my hyperactive AuDHD classmates from highschool all have large friend groups, consistent romantic connections and stable employment (sorry I know this is 100% selection bias but I've already clarified the baseline social development theory with my psychiatrist - hyperactive AuDHDers DO naturally learn social skills better over time than us inattentive presenting AuDHDers).

I hate this.

I'm confused regarding genetics because my psychiatrist told me that even if both parents have all 3 of those neurodivergent presentations and oldest child does as well, then it is STILL more likely that the youngest child is neurotypical over neurodivergent which makes no sense. How does neurodiversity genetics work? (I'm asking because my younger sibling did an assessment for all 3 and they confirmed he is neurotypical but with borderline personality/narcissistic traits).

I have a feeling deep down that he has masked through the assessment and that his presentation of neurodivergent and life experiences has converted him into a very heavy narcissist. He is far too similar to us.

Bit of background, I graduated recently with a business degree and have had work experience as a business process analyst (automating workflows, etc.) which ended at the start of the year (9 months internship). I have autism level 1 (previously known as aspergers), ADHD inattentive presenting and OCD, lifelong social anxiety and avoidant personality disorder. I can do the work fine under the right conditions, the biggest problem I have is the social navigation. I very much prefer large companies as I only have to talk to a few coworkers and internal stakeholders to facilitate project updates, deliverance, etc. But I am TERRIBLE at social skills despite trying immensely. My biggest problem is transitioning from a coworker acquaintance style relationship to genuine friendship/likeness with coworkers. My coworkers just end up trying to avoid or ignore me after a while. And they stop trying to help me with my work like they did for other interns. There is never any negative comments/animosity amongst us, just weird ignorance and dry conversations except for my manager since he needs me to perform. I've heard them all talk behind my back, about how quiet and socially off I am, etc. but they never say it to my face. Which honestly, I'm relieved about.

I'm on ADHD medication and it helps immensely in the actual work and relieving some of the social anxiety. But that issue still remains and it really affects how effectively I can complete my work since coworkers aren't willing to assist. For example, I was tasked with coordinating with the digital team to help me gain access to PowerBI, SQL and Python but they either ghosted me on Teams or said they were "busy" and recommended me to use the tools I did have access to (which were horrible at developing the solution I needed).

I'm planning to get more qualifications in data science/ML since I'm in analytics and have done some of those subjects at uni so that I can transition from the socially heavy business analyst career into data analytics/data science/machine learning which I've heard has a lower social requirement (but still required to translate data and insights and present to non-technical stakeholders which I have been praised for - one of my only social skills I can adequately do since it involves memorizing a script haha). Is this true or not? Even if the social requirement is still there for those data roles, I would assume it would still be far less than the constant communication and stakeholder interviews and presentations required as a Business Analyst.

Another thing that really hurts me is my appearance. I was extremely depressed for years and now after losing a bunch of hair and experiencing premature skin aging, I look like I'm in my late thirties despite being only 24 (south asian). I've seen how autistics/neurodivergents are treated if they are conventionally attractive and it blows my mind how society will literally accept the exact same autistic behavior from someone whilst socially punishing the other just because one of them was eye candy and the other wasn't. For example there was this AuDHD girl who told me of her dual diagnosis from the marketing team who would act even more socially aloof than myself around others yet, she was universally loved by her team because she was a pretty blonde lol (although I've also heard this has mixed results as some might place a higher social skill expectation on you, meaning the difference between your actual and expected behavior is more criticized and socially punished).

Bit of background, I graduated recently with commerce and have had work experience as a business process analyst (automating workflows, etc.) which ended at the start of the year (9 months internship). I have autism level 1 (previously known as aspergers), ADHD inattentive presenting and OCD, lifelong social anxiety and avoidant personality disorder. I can do the work fine under the right conditions, the biggest problem I have is the social navigation. I very much prefer large companies as I only have to talk to a few coworkers and internal stakeholders to facilitate project updates, deliverance, etc. But I am TERRIBLE at social skills despite trying immensely. My biggest problem is transitioning from a coworker acquaintance style relationship to genuine friendship/likeness with coworkers. My coworkers just end up trying to avoid or ignore me after a while. And they stop trying to help me with my work like they did for other interns. There is never any negative comments/animosity amongst us, just weird ignorance and dry conversations except for my manager since he needs me to perform. I've heard them all talk behind my back, about how quiet and socially off I am, etc. but they never say it to my face. Which honestly, I'm relieved about.

I'm on ADHD medication and it helps immensely in the actual work and relieving some of the social anxiety. But that issue still remains and it really affects how effectively I can complete my work since coworkers aren't willing to assist. For example, I was tasked with coordinating with the digital team to help me gain access to PowerBI, SQL and Python but they either ghosted me on Teams or said they were "busy" and recommended me to use the tools I did have access to (which were horrible at developing the solution I needed).

I'm planning to get more qualifications in data science/ML since I'm in analytics and have done some of those subjects at uni so that I can transition from the socially heavy business analyst career into data analytics/data science/machine learning which I've heard has a lower social requirement (but still required to translate data and insights and present to non-technical stakeholders which I have been praised for - one of my only social skills I can adequately do since it involves memorizing a script haha). Is this true or not? Even if the social requirement is still there for those data roles, I would assume it would still be far less than the constant communication and stakeholder interviews and presentations required as a Business Analyst.

Another thing that really hurts me is my appearance. I was extremely depressed for years and now after losing a bunch of hair and experiencing premature skin aging, I look like I'm in my late thirties despite being only 24 (south asian). I've seen how autistics/neurodivergents are treated if they are conventionally attractive and it blows my mind how society will literally accept the exact same autistic behavior from someone whilst socially punishing the other just because one of them was eye candy and the other wasn't. For example there was this AuDHD girl who told me of her dual diagnosis from the marketing team who would act even more socially aloof than myself around others yet, she was universally loved by her team because she was a pretty blonde lol (although I've also heard this has mixed results as some might place a higher social skill expectation on you, meaning the difference between your actual and expected behavior is more criticized and socially punished).

So as a person with extreme neurodevelopmental issues that ruin social ability, one of the most decapitating ones is related to my ADHD - its known as RSD (or rejection sensitivity dysphoria) where I internalise rejection as a personal flaw instead of externalising it onto external circumstances like neurotypicals (regular-brained folk). So rejection to me causes my nervous system to perceive it like I am dying, leading to intense avoidance-style behaviors. What a psych told me was that this is really the result of destroyed ego: the brain is hypersensitive to rejection because it inflates its own sense of self and ego very highly and wishes for 100% perfection in everything. When this need is not met even once, the "healthy narcissism"/"self esteem" is completely destroyed leading to social anxiety.

And what really happens is that the ADHD brain is prevented from letting out its true feelings and instead internalising it into sadness: our authentic ANGER is suppressed by the brain making a logical decision to prevent further harm.

So the best tip to deal with the anxiety is to get a punching bag at home and when home alone, absolutely destroy it. Let out all your rage and anger on it after your exposure therapy attempts if you fail/get rejected instead of just crying about it at home like I used to do.

This has done wonders. Via externalising my anger healthily in private, controlled settings, I care so much less when rejected or making a social mistake. I put it on CIRCUMSTANCES instead of myself - e.g. if manager is angry at me, I say that its because "traffic made me late - will try again" with internal positivity instead of "its my fault I should just quit the job", etc.

Healthy externalisation of repeatedly suppressed anger. Thats the tip. Embrace your deep rooted narcissism and teach it to come out. That will help your social anxiety immensely. we develop social anxiety as a protection mechanism to prevent further harm to our self esteem/ego/healthy narcissism and what this really does is suppress our desire for external release of emotion.

So externalise it :)

HEALTHILY of course - pls do not fight people :(

For autistic folk, being able to involuntarily replicate normative social behavior and cues via "exposure therapy" must be done in a completely different manner because it simply DOES NOT HAPPEN. Our brains are genetically flawed in this ability and require a more nuanced approach. If you continuously expose yourself to social situations repeatedly and frequently lead to yourself getting bullied, harassed, rejected, etc. you will further isolate yourself and create a permanent fear in your autistic head regarding social situations.

You must speak with a professional in autism - psychiatrist, therapist, psychologist, etc. who will give you autistic specific advice.

Asking because when I compare how I am treated in my marketing department compared to the engineering and progrmaming department of my organisation, I get extremely jealous and wish I had completed my STEM degree. It almost feels like their autistic behaviour and quirks are "accepted" in a way by higher management, especially when considering hteir managers also typically tend to be the shy, nerdy autistic types as well. In addition to this, the STEM degree pays well which is essential for neurodivergents.

Or do I have selection bias?

I am writing to those AuDHDers still in university who are considering dropping out of STEM despite being passionate about it due to the difficulty + burnout + other AuDHD issues. Being a STEM graduate as an AuDHD, especially a programmer, is one of if not the best methods to mask in the workplace environment. I know many autistic engineers/programmers as graduates and they are not punished in the workplace as much as I am as a business graduate. Its like companies are able to understand how valuable the STEM grads are and thus, excuse SOME of their social mishaps (you are still required to be very highly masked in corporate environment but being a STEM worker means the expectation is slightly lower for you in most cases). I have seen people being outright autistic in the workplace and they are not as badly punished for it as me because they are the valuable programmers and are expected to be shy, etc.

I wish I could go back and force myself to finish my dream engineering degree but all those issues piled on and I had to quit.

Basically, since our society relies very heavily on social prowess and physical attractiveness, you would have to assume that the people who undoubtedly have it the hardest are going to be the people who a.) cannot naturally/intuitively/involuntarily socially calibrate and conform and b.) people who are physically unappealing based on society's expectations of "conventionally attractive". For the purpose of what I am trying to say, I will call a 7/10 person as "attractive" enough to the majority of society.

Non-Autistic + Attractive: Least likely to end up as perma-virgins but still possible under the right circumstances (e.g. s*xual abuse trauma, childhood traumatic events leading to lifelong social anxiety, etc.)

Non-Autistic + Unattractive: Without a combination of proper support networks such as stable employment + friendship groups + therapy and exposure therapy, can be likely to end up as perma-virgins.

Autistic + Attractive: Again, will require a combination of proper support networks, but have the opposite problem of non-autistic + unattractive group: instead of having the natural biological wiring and prowess to navigate the essential social situations that most adults rely on to even be CONSIDERED as a romantic partner (employment stability + friendship groups), you instead have the looks halo to rely on.

Autistic + Unattractive: Now this group is where I am in currently. I have been in a attractive + autistic group before I was balding and had these health issues and now I am in this one. And let me tell you: I would chop one of my arms off to be in that Autistic + attractive group again. Because being ugly AND autistic on top of it is just a complete nightmare. For unattractive, non-autistics, they can leverage their neurotypical social prowess to obtain the BARE minimum required to be able to get through the system - job + friends. But for us autistics, we have extremely high unemployment and underemployment rates surpassing almost 50% (and 80% for college graduates) in addition to massive increases in loneliness, social isolation etc. There is no looks halo to rely on. There is no neurotypical natural social ability to rely on. There is absolutely nothing you can do except keep trying and trying and trying and burning out and then trying again.

Best method I can think of currently for us is to get a STEM degree and LARP as a "nerdy shy programmer" or engineer to get that money and then leverage that as a baseline support system to then be able to focus on exposure therapy. A trick i used to get into some friend gruops and be exposured to more women is the "latch on" strategy a psychiatrist told me. Basically try your absolute best to befriend one person you believe to be a "popular member" of a larger social group (e.g. some kid at university) and then hang out with them, go restauratns and movies, etc. and then they will slowly invite you to more of their own friends and then eventually his whole social group/network which can exposure you to more members of the opposite sex (or same sex/any other sexual orientation you have).

"Oh but your mum and I had to walk 3 kilometers every day just to get to work".

"Imagine being a MAN and worrying about getting a job hahahha"

As a south asian, balding, short man who also happens to be autistic, I find this kind of behavior extremely ignorant and makes me really hate neurotypical society even more, especially the stupid man-hating, girl-boss narrative which upholds the traditional male patriarchal expectations that I just completely fail to meet because of the combination of my autism and the looks. Whenever my mask slips, its NOT accepted or ignored. It frequently gets weaponized against me to justify treating me lesser than a human simply because I'm not able to appeal to the male standards well enough.

Its genuinely extremely tiring and annoying and it leads into my next problem.

I know how this will sound and I really do not wish to offend anyone, but I find myself sometimes wishing I was an AuDHD woman instead of a man. I don't have gender dysphoria, its just a really weird limerance-adjacent obsession. I feel guilty about it because I feel that deep down, I'm just leveraging on selection bias, personal biases and being genuinely really ignorant of the s*xual abuse autistic women experience and I apologise for that. Yet, I just keep thinking of the lives of the autistic women I know and how their mask slipping amongst neurotypicals seems to constantly be excused for being silly, cute and fun - especially from the opposite sex. I just keep dreaming that one day, I wouldn't be seen as a weird creepy dude who's super awkward at work and no one likes because he isn't "man enough" whenever his mask slips and I could be like my 2 autistic female coworkers whom the other interns have accepted as genuine friends whilst I always get invited out of pity and politeness. I've known many of AuDHD girls over the years, mainly from our university neurodiversity club and a similar trend is seen there too. I keep feeling immense levels of jealousy hearing them talk about their boyfriends and how they are so loving and kind and provide the material, socio-economic and emotionally intimate comfort I envy. I keep feeling extreme amounts of jealousy for these autistic women, despite knowing that the masking is usually more tiring for them in addition to all the other problems.

I guess this comes to show that people will always desire what they do not have. I really wish I didn't have to mask so f*cking heavily all the time and could just be weird and silly and borderline childish and still be perceived positively instead of the general animosity, harassment and vilification I experience whenver my mask slips for failing to "be a man". I see these autistic women with their support systems (friends + romantic partner, etc.) and feel so incredibly sad, jealous and a genuine sense of longing. It makes me realise how beneficial it is to be physically conventionally attractive to be able to mask as an autistic and since I'm not tall, white, etc. I'm not perceived in a very positive light from the get-go despite putting immense effort into my appearance and it just makes me hate this society even more.

I have all the symptoms of tesicular cancer. Tesicular pain + lower back pain + lower back right pain + abdominal pain + immense fatigue, etc.

Got an ultrasound - no focal lesions detected but testicle was atrophic at around 7.5mm and had mild microlithiasis.

Doctor said its probably not cancer and my recently elevated LDH at 280 was due to my obesity and pre-onset metabolic syndrome/insuline resistance.

But I'm still going to do the blood test for tumor markers. I'm scared sh*tless. Or maybe I'm just scaring myself.

Out of curiosity, how likely is it that a person with metastisised testicular cancer had no signs of focal lesions or scarring in ultrasound except for atrophy + microlithiasis and slightly elevated LDH? I'm worried that I'm one of those unlucky few because I literally have all the symptoms of the metastiised cancer thing where its moved upward from testicle into the body. There is apparently a chance that its just "dried off" and there is no apparent focal mass or scarring.

Is this even a possibility or do I just have health anxiety?