You might be able to predict from this that I was extremely lonely in the real world. By this point in my life (around ninth grade), I was a total social outcast. It’s hard to untangle the original causation here, but my social gracelessness and my status as a weird nerd formed a feedback loop: I wouldn’t talk to the vast majority of my classmates at school, supposedly because “I probably wouldn’t find it interesting anyway”. And whenever I did talk to other students, or speak in front of a class, I tended towards spergy faux pas monologues, without adjusting for what others may have wanted to talk about.
In other words, I wasn’t really even trying to connect to my peers in person, and instead spiraled into my own corner of weirdness of the internet. This was especially bad for me because, as it turns out, many of my peers on anime analysis YouTube were themselves miserable, self-destructive outcasts.
....
My autistic, socially maladaptive personality had resulted in me being rejected by the social order, and I wanted something, anything to make me feel loved again.
As someone who ended up in a similar situation (though AoPS, not anime), and then made the effort to connect with classmates in highschool, it was not worth it for me. When you say, ‘autistic’, do you mean autistic, or that you were smarter than most people and had different priorities (like studying)? I am very confident I am not autistic in the medical sense, though I have had one or two people say, “well maybe you are a little,” because I’ve diverged mentally from the rest of the population since birth.
In elementary school, I got along pretty well with my classmates, but my gifted class took the smartest 5–10 students per grade in the city (several grades were combined). In sixth grade (first year of middle school), I was mostly a loner, because my classmates were no longer as awesome. In seventh grade, I transferred to the better middle school (most of my elementary school yearmates did too that year), and was pretty social once again. In eighth grade, I moved to another state, where once again I was a loner, and this time I am confident in saying everyone was pretty stupid and no one cared much about the maths or the sciences. After all, I spent the next four years with them in high school.
In tenth grade, I finally decided to make some friends, because I didn’t like being a loner. I ended up making friends in cross country, because that was the only shared interest I really had with anyone else. It was alright, but I feel like I was always pushing them to study more math/science, and they were always interested in just having fun.
In college, I finally met smart people again, and realized the issue wasn’t me, it was them. My highschool classmates claimed to care about academics and had a lot of natural talent, but never applied themselves. They had different interests and different priorities, and trying to contort myself to fit in was not good. So, when I look back, I do not think it was a worthwhile endeavour to try making friends, even though I succeeded. It would have been worthwhile if I had remained in my old state, and went to highschool with my elementary classmates, but not in my new locale. I think it could be the case that you were in a similar situation.
As someone who ended up in a similar situation (though AoPS, not anime), and then made the effort to connect with classmates in highschool, it was not worth it for me. When you say, ‘autistic’, do you mean autistic, or that you were smarter than most people and had different priorities (like studying)? I am very confident I am not autistic in the medical sense, though I have had one or two people say, “well maybe you are a little,” because I’ve diverged mentally from the rest of the population since birth.
In elementary school, I got along pretty well with my classmates, but my gifted class took the smartest 5–10 students per grade in the city (several grades were combined). In sixth grade (first year of middle school), I was mostly a loner, because my classmates were no longer as awesome. In seventh grade, I transferred to the better middle school (most of my elementary school yearmates did too that year), and was pretty social once again. In eighth grade, I moved to another state, where once again I was a loner, and this time I am confident in saying everyone was pretty stupid and no one cared much about the maths or the sciences. After all, I spent the next four years with them in high school.
In tenth grade, I finally decided to make some friends, because I didn’t like being a loner. I ended up making friends in cross country, because that was the only shared interest I really had with anyone else. It was alright, but I feel like I was always pushing them to study more math/science, and they were always interested in just having fun.
In college, I finally met smart people again, and realized the issue wasn’t me, it was them. My highschool classmates claimed to care about academics and had a lot of natural talent, but never applied themselves. They had different interests and different priorities, and trying to contort myself to fit in was not good. So, when I look back, I do not think it was a worthwhile endeavour to try making friends, even though I succeeded. It would have been worthwhile if I had remained in my old state, and went to highschool with my elementary classmates, but not in my new locale. I think it could be the case that you were in a similar situation.