I'm sorry for the long post. I'm a little scared about writing all this, but hopefully you'll understand where I'm coming from.

Does anyone else struggle with making friends or blending in with the other adults in conversation?

It's like being the black sheep of a chatroom where, no matter how hard you try, something feels off and you're not on the same wavelength as everyone else. Or you try talking to another adult one on one, and you just can't connect with them no matter how hard you try? I know it happens to everyone now and again, but when it's consistently happening no matter how old you get, you start to wonder if something is wrong. Any friends you do make just fade away and stop talking to you.

It was so much of a problem that I taught myself how to talk and hold conversations using online resources that were meant for autistic adults and people looking to be "charismatic" (since age dysphoria resources aren't a thing yet), but because of that, everything I say feels automated. When I look back at conversations I've had, I don't recognize the words as myself or sounding like me. It's the adult talking.

And when it comes to doing adult things, I feel terrified of being "caught" as if I'm undercover every time I go out.

It feels like like I've lost touch with what I genuinely talk like because I've been pretending to be an adult for so long, and that it's slowly draining me and building stress. When I try and reconnect with it, it's just babbling and broken English (I'm guessing my real age is around 1-4), so I repress it out of shame. Obviously, no one's going to accept me like that, and they have every right not to.

It just makes me question if I can ever even make friends or if I should just accept not having them is just a consequence of not being able to grow up like everyone else. I really just feel alone and broken and I don't know what to do. I just hope this all makes sense and someone gets it.

How do you blend in with other adults and capture that vibe? And how do you make friends?