Question came up on an autism community, "have you ever had a party phase?" My answer:
No. I hate parties, always have. I'm an introvert. I don't like crowds. Even spending a few hours with between 1 and 4 friends is draining for me. I *like* socializing with a few friends for a few hours, but I do need time to recharge from it.
I did go to a couple school dances in like, middle school. And I went to two different proms. They were very challenging. It was too dark for there to be so many people around (I like darkness when I'm alone or relatively so, but with more people around I prefer to be able to see the potential threats), it was too loud even when I got as far away from the speakers as I could, and there were too many people. But I had a few people who thought I was like an adorable pathetic socially awkward class mascot who tried to get me to dance with them. (At the time I thought they were trying to be my friends but in retrospect I realize I was too much of a weird nerd and they were thinking of me as a pet or mascot), and for the first couple middle school dances there were a couple girls I had a crush on. But between me being a weird and awkward pathetic nerd, and lily-white me being unsure how to interact with black girls without being accidentally racist, it was very awkward and I never gave any indication of my crushes.
Then in high school, despite continuing to be a weird and awkward nerd, I had the Internet and was able to find a girlfriend who was also a weird and awkward nerd, and we dated long enough that I went to her prom first and then she came to my prom the next year.
So I mean... kinda yes actually? Insofar as I went, and kinda had fun. But when I was younger, my ears were often stuffed up from myriad colds I had, so I couldn't hear as well back then. Since then my immune system did a complete turnaround and now I almost never get sick from contagious diseases. Still have random headaches, backaches, and other "body doing dumb shit" though. I say still because my body was doing those things my whole life on top of me being sick with colds all the time as a kid.
This was cross-posted from
https://alex-antonin.dreamwidth.org/336440.html You can comment either here or there.