Kind of an off day. We pushed ourselves a bit too hard last night
and that always has consequences. Luckily, there's nothing super
important that needs to be done today, so it's okay to be kind of
out of it and overly sensory-sensitive. Sometimes there are just
days like that and all we can do is ride it out.

Watched an interesting video about 4D and 5D regular polygons
(the word wasn't polygons, but we can't remember the actual word)
and how they're discovered and modeled. Hard to wrap our brain
around but interesting nonetheless. A bit sad about it though
because we were rambling excitedly about it to someone last night
only for it to turn out that they weren't at all interested and
only listened because we started talking at them. That hurt. It's
tiring when people don't say up front that they don't want to hear
something or don't care about it. It would save everyone pain if
people just said they didn't want to listen and everyone moved on.
It still hurts, but less than finding out after 5-10 minutes that
they were only humoring you and didn't actually care about any of
what you were saying, that they were pretending to be interested.
That makes us feel like we were being annoying and bothering them,
and that no one actually cares about what we say. I know at least
some of that reaction is thought distortion and that people do care
about at least some of what we have to say, but it's like a gut
punch in the moment and hard to really believe it until later. It's
at least easier to move on when they get it over with right away
since no one's time was wasted.

Bit of a vent ahead, reminder that there's absolutely no
obligation to read any of it. Prioritize your own mental health,
okay?

I'm more upset about all that than I should be, probably because
1) we don't really have anyone we can talk about complex interests
with and it's lonely, and 2) it's an ongoing pattern of social
failure where we think we're doing well and engaging people, only for
them to turn around and make it clear that we're actually being
annoying, weird, or otherwise not doing well in holding expected
conversation. It's exhausting and isolating when every attempt to
reach out to neurotypical people (so, you know, the vast majority)
ends like this, where we're treated like we're intentionally trying
to annoy or bore them, or like we're children being humored instead
of adults doing our absolute best. All of our energy goes into trying
to blend in and appease people, and in the end it doesn't make any
difference. Sometimes I think we should just stop trying. It's a waste
of limited social energy and doesn't make a significant difference in
how we come off to others no matter how strictly we monitor everything
we think and do. We can puppet our face and body to look normal, talk
about things we don't give a shit about because it's expected, struggle
to keep up with group conversations without being overwhelmed or
accidentally interrupting, never talk about things we care about because
it seems to bore or annoy people, etc. and it gets us nowhere. We're
still not socially acceptable and come off as weird, creepy, obsessive,
childish, rude, or other various faults. Sometimes I think we should
just stop trying and let everyone else put up with it, seeing as they
apparently already do. All of this isn't a problem with other neurodivergent
people, which is a relief since that's the vast majority of our friends and
the only people we actually feel safe talking to. But with neurotypical
folks, there's no rest or relief from trying and failing to please them
and meet expectations that make no sense. So why are we bothering?
Maybe we'd be better off shutting up around most people, or not bothering
to try to please them and mask everything about us just to feel like
maybe we belong somewhere. It's so tiring and I hate it. But stopping
feels dangerous and scary because we've been hurt for not masking many
times before. There's no winning here. We get hurt or rejected or told
we're not doing enough either way. I guess if it's going to happen either
way, it would be better to stop trying and let whatever happens happen.

Sorry for the vent. Had to get that out somewhere. We've been thinking
about social interaction issues and friends a lot lately. We're... not
exactly in a good position there, and we don't know how to fix it. People
are scary and the ones we trust turn out to be hurting us half the time.
I just want to feel safe around people for once in our life, like we don't
have to force ourselves to appeal to everyone or else we'll be hurt and
rejected. I'm sick of it. It makes me angry and upset that nothing we try
seems to make a difference, and that a healthy social life seems almost
unreachable. There are a few rare gems we know, but even then we don't have
nearly enough contact and they're busy with their own lives. It feels selfish
to want to be around them more when they're so busy. And it feels selfish to
realize that we don't seem to see social interactions and friendships like
other people do, that as usual we don't understand the construct of various
types of relationships. We're aliens stuck with a species we don't understand
and it's isolating.

Ha, I apologize for the vent and then I proceed to vent more. Whoops. I'll stop
now. We'll be okay. This happens a lot and we always make it through one way
or another.