You’re being down voted, but I feel you. It’s why I picked one of the largest instances when I joined, despite what other Lemmings tend to tell people to do. Picking a small instance is a bad idea because they die out like that. I’ve seen several fairly significant smaller instances die out at this point. I don’t want to wake up and my account suddenly vanished one day because the host forgot about it.

I’m really out of the loop. Why is lemm.ee shutting down? I thought it was one of the more sizeable instances.

Thank you very much for sharing your story! I’m sorry to hear about your friend, btw. But I’m glad you got to share your life with them for so long. I’m lucky that I have a really good friend right now too at least! They have a family of their own so it’s not as if we can mutually prioritize each other to the same extent, but that’s ok.

Omg I had the same experience during puberty lol. Even into my late teens and early twenties, my mom would kind of bug me about it. When I still wasn’t taking anyone home, she used to drop hints that it would be ok if I was a lesbian and had a girlfriend lol! Thankfully at this point, people stop bringing it up haha.

Yeah I’m definitely working on trying to get rid of the FOMO at this point in time. I have a lot of great people in my life tbh and I’m trying to branch out and be a bit more social with things that scare me. But even if I do, I’ll never really have the “standard” human experience. Gotta figure out how to eventually be ok with that.

I’m not a spiritual or religious person, myself. I briefly looked into Taoism, but it seems that the westernized idealized version of it isn’t what Taoism necessarily is in reality.

Thanks for your offer to chat! Hope you don’t mind if I’m just giving a long winded response here lol.

I found out about asexuality in my teens. Even today, whenever I approach asexual communities, I find that most of them are filled with very young coming of age people who are so extremely “terminally online” to the point where it makes me a bit uncomfortable. And I’m saying this as someone who is terminally online myself. It’s difficult to explain what I mean and I hope I am not offending other asexuals out there. But it’s refreshing to hear from your perspective, as an asexual in the “real world”, with thoughts, feelings, and experiences based more in reality as opposed to in an online hypersensitive safety zone.

Hope the best for you!

I don’t think I’ve ever really spoken to an older asexual on the internet before. I know it’s a tangent from the main OP, but do you think you could expand on some things for me?

1. When did you realize that you were asexual? And how did you deal with it considering it’s a relatively new term that wouldn’t have really been spoken of when you were growing up.

2. Do you find your life fulfilling? I have a social need, but not a sexual need, so it makes it frustrating knowing that I need people, but that a relationship with 99% of the population doesn’t make sense. (Yes, you can find other asexuals out there, but we are exceedingly rare and there are not going to be many, if at all, in your same city.)

I’m younger than you, but not so young that my life as a whole is still being figured out or anything. I’m in my 30s and now secure in my career, but still struggle with social things and figuring out what I need for my life to be fulfilling. I’ve likely been a lifelong asexual. I’ve also never had a partner.

Anyway, sorry if that is too much to ask lol, but I was just curious!

That’s odd. I have lived in apartment complexes for a large portion of my life. There has always been a single outgoing mail slot with the rows of mailboxes at the apartment complexes. It blends in so it might not look too different than the rest of the bank of mailboxes. This is in the US though so idk how other countries handle it.

Weirdly I don’t think I’ve ever had a “phase” like other people seem to have gone through. Is this common enough to not have had something like that?

I guess it was possibly as a teen when I was being LOLRANDOM on internet forums. Not sure if that counts tho because I have always been an internet dweller.

It’s tricky for me though because I’ve always had a social need. I don’t have a need for sex like the majority of other humans do, but I do have a need to be social. Lickily I fulfill most of my social needs by going to work, but it can be stressful at times.

I apologize compulsively at work and this thread is making me feel some type of way. Seems like everyone must hate me for it based on this thread I guess. It’s like I’m in an unwinnable scenario of bothering people if I fuck up and bothering people if I apologize about it. So then what?

Yes, they accuse me of “overthinking” things a lot in general. But they don’t realize that I have to do this in order to try to do things more correctly. Lack of enough thought is what gets me into these kinds of situations, you know?

I’m definitely not imagining most of these. If everyone is happily smiling and chatting away, and then I make a mistake which causes a sudden change in facial expression, curt response, and the sudden end of a flowing conversation, then it’s not my imagination.

Coworker 3 is the most lenient/forgiving of them, but issues still arise with them too.

No, I don’t currently pause between each sentence. Usually conversation flows quite smoothly. But it flows until I make a grave error and then it shuts down catastrophically. My question was saying “how can I think before I speak” because pausing after each sentence would be incredibly jarring and not work with conversational flow if that makes sense.

Coworker 3 has occasionally asked that out of genuine concern when I have been having a bad time. But it’s a trick question because I’m not supposed to respond that I am having a bad time. It is the incorrect response and will make them upset, even if they tell me that I can be honest. It’s very confusing because coworker 3 will occasionally tell me that it’s ok to come to them with things, but the reality is that isn’t true. If I do that, it makes them upset. So one of the biggest things is that I have worked to not tell coworker 3 when something is bothering me and not share feelings like this with them. But it is confusing when they do things that indicate that it’s ok and welcomed for me to do so when it isn’t. They say one thing but I am supposed to act in a way that is discordant with what they indicate, which is confusing.

And sometimes coworker 3 likes to discuss serious topics. So I sometimes accidentally say something about the topic with too much emotion in my voice or something or the wrong statement in general and then I fuck up the whole thing.

I get that I am truly a horrible person, truly. I struggle with that every day. I did try to apologize to my coworker in that instance, but they were not at all receptive to it. Usually the things that I say that get reactions like that are much more innocuous…like letting coworker 2 know that they can leave early (we are salaried and still get a full days pay if we leave early). Or apologizing to coworker 2 that I was freaking out about a work related task simply because I was anxious about it.

But no, coworker 1 is on a level that is difficult for me to describe. Coworker 1 causes issues with almost everyone they come in contact with including the leaders of many different departments. It has been so bad with coworker 1 that they have made me think that I was going to get fired and/or made me want to quit my job. Coworker 1 has had multiple complaints filed against them to HR by multiple different people. To my knowledge, that has not occurred on my end at all.

So coworker 1 is a bit dangerous to interact with, hence many of us do so minimally.

I can’t tell if this is sarcastic or genuine.

I apologize if anything came off as sarcastic! I am being very serious in my questions. I don’t really understand how any of this works. I have been reading the replies but it’s tricky to respond to them all.

With the friend thing, there are a lot of philosophies people have about work. Some people believe I shouldn’t speak and should only work all day, while others seem to prefer to chat once in a while. For me, it’s difficult for me to know the most correct way to act in terms of these two philosophies. It seems like a lot of society would like the former…that I should speak minimally and just do my work. I struggle with the former philosophy because you spend most of your waking hours working, so I would like to get some enjoyment out of it. But that is wrong, no? I am supposed to hate my job and just be a good worker bee, no? It’s tricky because humans are social creatures but I know I’m not supposed to feed my needs like that.

And like the person who I had considered to be a friend. They have a busy life outside of work so it’s wrong to bother them, correct?

The person who I had considered to be a friend sometimes likes to talk about serious topics. But I am not really sure what to do when that comes up because I at times give the wrong answers. I know a lot about their beliefs. We have different ones and usually that’s perfectly ok and I we don’t really argue or anything. But sometimes I still do it wrong or say something with too much emotion in my voice or something.

If someone is full of shit at work, I’d just nod and smile. Unless there’s something to be gained by calling them out, I’d just note that they are uninformed on that topic and move on.

They weren’t actually full of shit…they are just super fit and don’t realize that they are a bit outside the norm.

So one of the things I’ve noticed is that I slipped up like this because it was in the middle of a flowing conversation. I didn’t stop to realize that I was about to say the wrong thing because we were having a lot of back and forth lighthearted chatting. That’s why I’ve brought up this topic to begin with tbh. If I am not in a flowing conversation, it’s easier for me to pause and think before a response. When I am in a conversation I fuck up. I don’t know anyone who pauses between each sentence even utilizing this “think before you speak” attitude, so I’d like to find out how to implement it in a better way. Idk.

I do appreciate your time.

Oh God…how can I possibly hope to think of every single permutation of conversation??? It sounds like I would be thinking about conversations indefinitely if I did that. Any tips???

No, I am not in the Midwest. I did have a therapist ask me once if I was neurodivergent and I said no. I don’t think I fall in line with anything like autism or anything like that. I do struggle with human interaction but everything else about me seems pretty “neurotypical”. Even in conversation, I actually am able to carry on normally and understand a lot of social cues, I think, as well as I have the ability for eye contact when I am not anxious. I struggle a bit with anxiety and told someone that I struggle sometimes to order food at places because of that. That person told me “that’s weird because you seem totally normal” in a non sarcastic way. It made me feel good actually lol and like I’m very normal passing haha.

They just get upset with me if I do that unfortunately. I’m never supposed to talk to them about things when I make them upset.

Well yeah so I kind of wrote the post in a detached manner because I am trying to mechanically optimize conversation. Doing things organically doesn’t work out for me even though my heart is in the right place and I just want to get along with people and for us to be happy.

I’m 30. People telling me that things will work out once you get to know people better do not at all understand that I have spent many many years doing this and yet I still fail horribly multiple times per week. I’m not some teen with a still developing brain. This is the way I am and I want to figure out how to improve and be more correct in my interactions. If it hasn’t organically happened in 30 years, it’s not going to organically happen now. So I need a different approach. Getting to know people and your heart being in the right place aren’t the magic solution for me.

I have just never been skilled in that manner. So I would like to try to break it down into a more logical way where I could actually work on it. All too often I get frustrated that no one has written a guidebook on every facet of human interaction.

Yeah with coworker 1 I try to interact minimally with. It works out ok. So I mostly talk to coworkers 2 and 3 but I still tuck up with them all the time.

Nah, coworker 4 isn’t anxious. She just wants us to work as quickly as possible so she can leave as quickly as possible. I don’t talk to her much either tbh. It can be a bit frustrating when she sometimes gets upset when I am chatting with a different coworker (because she wants me to shut up and not talk to anyone at all).

I mean, forgive me for not explaining every detail of all of my coworkers lives in this thread. The post is already stupidly long and I was trying to get to the meat and potatoes of it for those that might be able to help.

I know some of them quite well and I am constantly learning new things about them. I can speak organically with most of them (except coworker 4), and often do so at length with coworkers 2 and 3. But my mistakes are still frequent enough and significant enough that it causes major problems. I am constantly learning what not do to, but there are seemingly infinite permutations of conversation and infinite ways things can and do go wrong, even when I find some of the patterns.

I had my bouts where I tried a lot of therapy. Therapists weren’t overly helpful to me but were good at quickly draining my bank account. Many of them would say “oh there’s nothing wrong if you do XYZ in a social context” and I would try to explain why it is wrong, similar to how I’ve demonstrated to you guys.

No, I fuck up even in small talk. For example, we were talking about supplements and exercising one day.

Coworker 2: Yeah, running a 10 minute mile is easy. Anyone can do it.

Me (a slow runner): What??? Idk dude that is kind of hard for me.

Coworker 2: Well for some people walking is healthier than running!

Me: What??? Ok sure, Coworker 2

Coworker 2: (angrily shuts down and refuses to say anything else to me for several hours even after I apologize)

Coworker 2 being angry with me was one thing. But I felt bad because coworker 3 was also chatting and it meant that they no longer got to speak either because coworker 2 was so mad.

Small talk with coworker 1 doesn’t work at all because they will randomly randomly act condescending to you when you make a joke or say something that doesn’t land exactly with them. It’s a bit demoralizing so I try to interact with coworker 1 the least.

I don’t outright tell coworkers 1 and 2 that I am anxious. But I will sometimes obsess over certain work things that I am anxious about and they get wise to it and get upset with me…even if what I am specifically doing to them is apologizing for acting weird because I was simply anxious.

I had considered coworker 3 to be my friend a bit tbh. But that is not supposed to be the case, right? We are not supposed to be friends or anything. I am supposed to find friends elsewhere and not think of them that way, right?

If people want to discuss serious topics with me then I’m just not supposed to contribute, right??

Wut