I feel like this may be a little controversial in this group, but it is how I've been feeling lately and it's making me feel lonely.

I went to an event recently which was in part held by an autistic organization and so many of the people there were autistic (and presumably other types of ND). I've been attempting over the past couple years since my diagnosis to build an autistic community in person to very little success for a number of reasons. I went to this event because a friend invited me and I do enjoy this friend's company. I left feeling very defeated as I once again felt thoroughly uncomfortable and wanting to leave.

Reasons why this event and hanging out with other groups of autistic have been unsuccessful include:

Being monologued at. I appreciate that other people have special interests and like to info dump. However, being monologued at especially about something I find thoroughly uninteresting by someone I barely know is very frustrating and I can feel myself losing attention immediately (I have AuDHD). Ironically, I have to mask to avoid making the other person feel bad.

Similarly, autistic people in general interrupt me a lot more than NT, which completely makes me forget what I'm saying and makes me confused . Both ND and NT people do interrupt me, but usually I tell an NT person once sternly and they'll be mindful, but most of the autistic people I know in person will not respect this.

More broadly, I've noticed that a lot of the autistic people I know have a lot of difficulty respecting my personal boundaries. This has happened several times. I once was helping a fellow autistic with paperwork, I had offered this help to her. She took this offer and began to text me multiple long paragraphs per day, 30 minutes of audio messages (which I hate). I tried to establish communication rules with her, clear ones, and she would respect them for a few days and then go back to breaking them. I eventually told her I was going to block her--and did block her--because of repeatedly breaking my limits.

On a coffee date with an autistic friend, she told me how her boss had asked her to stop texting him for things unrelated to work, and then went on how she understands that he asked her not to but she NEEDS to tell him about her random thoughts in long text messages at 3am and so she isn't going to stop.

Another autistic friend, when asked by someone to please change the subject with regards to something triggering, refused to do so, and ultimately caused the person requesting to have a panic attack and cut off all contact with my friend.

Conflicting sensory needs. For example, I know this one person who is a good person and I appreciate them but does very loud vocal stimming and my noise sensitivity cannot tolerate it so I actively avoid them. Also I spend so much time trying to manage my own sensory needs, it is impossible for me to keep track of the sensory needs of multiple people in my environment.

Basically I feel like I can't be in community anywhere. NT spaces have a whole bunch of issues that are discussed in this forum at length. I definitely feel more UNDERSTOOD in ND Groups, --for example at this party I wore my headphones inside the whole time and nobody was weird about it-- but in my case ND people are not easier for me to be around, which is a little heartbreaking.

Anybody else have had a similar experience? I feel like I can't exist with groups of people anywhere.

Edit: formatting