With age, I've figured out I'm just flat out bad at socializing. Unless I'm around people I know, I basically act weird and socializing only goes well with a very narrow group of people. While I was living in New York I just kind of had to accept this and eventually left because I started to hate socializing.
I'm now realizing this could've been a mistake, but it also might just be a crisis of realizing autism has basically nixed my ability to live a life that I enjoy.
Not sure if this relates to you, but I was recently diagnosed with ADHD (30~ y/o). My whole 20's I had trouble socialising outside of small groups of people I already knew, and wondered if it was autism related (my grandfather is undiagnosed but our family strongly suspects he's autistic).
What changed everything for me, was finding the right stimulant medication. Turns out it wasn't the socialising, it was the big groups. I can't understand what people are saying, get distracted by background noises, lose my train of thought and then get anxious about how I'm acting (and how the person I'm talking to thinks of it). With medication it's just... normal. I still lose my train of thought or get distracted by background noises, but I'm able to return to the conversation much easier. More importantly, I'm not getting anxious in social environments anymore. Even the understanding that its ADHD related has helped my mental health a lot.
I understand this doesn't quite relate to autism, but if you aren't diagnosed and only suspect it, I'd recommend investigating ADHD (as well as AUT+ADHD, which is its own thing entirely).
Thanks, I also had a "late" diagnosis at 22. I've been on generic adderall for a while but I'm curious if you adjusted dosage or the kind of stimulant? I can assert as well that my social / auditory circuits work about 3x as well while I'm on stimulants (even a very small does of 5mg). Fortunately, I haven't had any dependency issues either.
For me, my social problems are usually just not caring enough about being interesting to the other person or misreading facial expressions and thinking they're annoyed I'm talking to them.
I'm in New Zealand, so the commonly prescribed stimulant is methylphenidate (i.e. Ritalin). We also have dextroamphetamine but only as instant release.
I started on slow-release Rubifen which is generic methylphenidate, at 20mg/day.
This was increased to 20mg/morn+20mg/afternoon, then 40mg/morn+20mg/afternoon. My issue was it would always wear off early and leave me unable to do anything basically from 4pm onwards.
I recently switched over to Concerta, which is still methylphenidate but lasts 12hrs instead of the 6hrs from Rubifen (which was really closer to 4hrs for me).
I started on 74mg/day and am now on 92mg/day with the option to go up, but I think this works for me.
My psych did mention I'd be better on dextroamphetamine as methylphenidate doesn't seem strong enough for me, but we only have instant release here and I need the full day/consistent effect.
In regards to social problems, mine are basically identical! That was then causing me to stress over what the other person thought of me, which lead to pretty bad anxiety. With medication this is much easier to handle. I still have trouble if I'm not overly interested, but have a much better time dealing with the situation, especially the anxiety part. Just knowing the cause is (mostly) ADHD helps a lot too.
I'm now realizing this could've been a mistake, but it also might just be a crisis of realizing autism has basically nixed my ability to live a life that I enjoy.