I'm not sure what I'm going to title this because I'm just going to stream of consciousness this post. i hope I pick a good title
I'm posting because I feel outcast in my life, even though I'm surrounded by people of similar status/class/interests of myself. I have a few (roughly 6) friends I speak to somewhat regularly, and most are local to me.
I feel like I have too many small differences in how i handle my life and situations to feel completely comfortable around these people though. Small things like software choices, shopping locations, or bigger things like identity are things that have been discussed and had disagreements about. I used to be a social butterfly a few years ago, but it also came with a lot of cycling friend groups due to drama between parties. Now I dont really have a clique, just a few unrelated people I sometimes talk to.
I dont feel like I really "click" with anyone anymore. I have a romantic partner, and weve been together for a few years and are doing fine, but recently even with them ive felt like ive been drifting.
I'm in the US, in my 20s, and grew up on the poorer side of things. I've an OCD & ADHD diagnosis post high school, and am medicated. Used to be in therapy but I dont really feel like it helps anymore. There may be a therapist out there for me, but I am adverse to online therapy and ive tried all the in person providers in my area.
I'm worried I could have some form of sociopathy because I dont really feel sad about my lack of fitting in. I mostly just feel annoyed that other people aren't on my wavelength. It doesnt feel like a "me" problem, but thinking in a rational/logical way I feel that it could be.
People have told me that I am hard headed, or that I need to compromise in reference to disagreements, but most of the time I dont agree. For example, I do not want to do online therapy due to privacy concerns. Ive heard from friends that sometimes you need to "make sacrifices to be better", but I dont feel like it is worth giving some of the most vulnerable information about myself to whatever private tech corporation any given therapy org uses. (Yes, I am aware LLMs scan lemmy for training data and this post will probably end up in that data. I dont like it but at least this isn't tied to my identity)
Another small stupid thing that happened recently is that I had mentioned a special interest of mine and my friend completely shut it down and switched topics which rubbed me the wrong way. I do try to apologize if I feel I'm being impersonal or being mean, because I'm sure I'm guilty of doing this sort of thing as well. This story may just be a one off. I dont know.
I dont know what to expect from posting this. I am hoping someone has something helpful that I can take to heart, but if nothing else I'm hoping posting this will help me stop thinking about this whole topic.
I hope you have a nice day, thanks for reading if you did.
i think you're likely to be jumping the gun on thinking you have antisocial personality disorder (ASPD is what is sometimes colloquially called sociopathy), particularly if you used to consider yourself a social butterfly a few years ago. it's important to remember that you're living in a country that's going through A Lot right now, and there is an intention to isolate and overwhelm people so they can't fight back effectively, so keep that in mind & be gentle with yourself!
i think it's fair to want to retain as much of your privacy as you can, particularly in the US at the moment. but a lot of people prefer convenience and conformity over taking a moral/ethical stand, and will therefore react to those who do take moral/ethical stands as an inconvenience.
in my experience, the only cure has been to seek out like-minded people, so that you can have people who share the joys of your special interests etc, while you can still meet your other friends where they're at.
maybe you could look for your nearest groups of privacy activists, or your local makerspace, or men's shed/women's shed/queer shed/etc. this won't immediately lead to a cohesive friend group, but it means you can take an active role in finding people you genuinely click with, and maybe be the one to introduce more of them to each other! :)