Hi everyone. I'm just trying to make a friend, but trying to find people who are exactly like me is very hard. I am different from most "normal" people, and not in a good way. I have a lot of flaws. But I am not looking for someone to accept me. I am looking for someone who is just like me. So that there is nothing that needs tolerating or accepting at each other. Is it possible to find such a person? I don't know, but I know the only way I might is if I am an open book from the beginning. So here I am, and here is my story.

I am an autistic person, been diagnosed since I was a kid. Unfortunately I never got any help, support, or anyone who could understand me. I live in Eastern Europe. Not the best environment for autistic people, or for anyone too different really, especially when I was a child. Everyone I've ever met treated me like a weirdo. But from their perspective I really was one, not being sufficiently like everyone else.

My childhood has been pretty abusive. As a kid, after my parents noticed many times that I act and react in ways different from other people, they took me to a psychologist. I was diagnosed with autism, but that didn't change anything. Like most parents in Eastern Europe, especially back then, my parents had traditional mindsets. In their mind any deviancy, anything that made me different, could be fixed with sufficient discipline. It was common for my father to beat me, a few times to the point of drawing blood. Eventually my parents divorced, but the effects still linger. I am fearful, paranoiac and afraid to be truthful in real life.

For most of my life I didn't have any friends, only a very few people I could say came somewhat close that came and went. I was just too different. I didn't share any "normal" interests, and the way I behaved was too "unnatural". Unsurprisingly I never had a romantic partner either.

My biggest interest by far is video games. Escapism. Throughout my life they saved me, allowed me to lose myself into those fake worlds and forget the real world. But naturally, what I wanted the most became what my parents took away the most often, whenever I didn't act sufficiently normal. But this only served to increase my longing. I became obsessed with games, spending every tiny bit of free time when I wasn't grounded in front of my PC. It is something that carries on to this day. Even now I spend literally all day at my PC, browsing or gaming. To the point that I eliminated anything except sleeping and eating from my schedule just to stay at my PC more. My second interest is learning new things, which I also do at my PC.

I have a huge number of flaws originating from the combination of my upbringing and autism. I'm not talking about autistic traits, for those are only flaws from the eyes of regular people. I have a huge number of genuine flaws and I do not even want to fix them, even as I know this makes it worse - knowing exactly what are the flaws but having no intention to.

I isolate myself from others, knowing I am too different. But I want to find someone who is like me. Who has the same story, who has the same mindset, possibly the same flaws. If you are like me, I would love to talk more in private.