My Favorite People Are Neurodivergent
If friendship doesn’t come easily to you, maybe you just haven’t met enough neurodivergent people yet.
Until my late 20s, I rarely had close girl friends. It wasn’t that I was a tomboy; I’ve always leaned feminine in my interests and physical presentation. And I certainly wasn’t one of those sexy cool girls with a big group of guy friends—you know, the ones who somehow get invited to guys-only events, oozing sexuality while playing pool and drinking beer. (In all honestly, I’m picturing Olivia Wilde in Drinking Buddies here; I’m not positive these woman actually exist in real life.)
It’s more that I didn’t have a ton of friends, period. At any given point, I did have people I socialized with, but I was always a bit on the periphery, never among someone’s closest friends. My best friend was always the guy I was dating at the time, and I inevitably adopted his friend group as my own, establishing a sort of “intimacy by proxy” that inevitably dissolved when the relationship ran its course.
But as I got older and more comfortable with myself, I did build a few close relationships with women. I’m thinking of three women in particular. I found them unusually easy to talk to—a delightful blend of silly, insightful, energetic, emotional, warm, deep, and a little dark.
These were the kind of people I could spontaneously sing with, or cry with, or have two-hour conversations largely composed of interesting tangents. And they were also people who seemed unfazed when I inevitably disappeared for a while—because for them, our friendship was more about the inherent ease and connection we felt with each other, not how many hours we’d spent in each other’s company.
Then, something interesting happened. One by one, each of these women—none of whom knew each other well, if at all—was diagnosed with ADHD. At the same time, one of my siblings also got diagnosed. And while it took me a good five or six years, I eventually realized that I, too, am neurodivergent.
(I largely chalk up that delay to having a really outdated and limited understanding of ADHD—but also, I can see now that my autistic traits counterbalanced many of my ADHD traits, making it a bit harder to identify my particular neurotype.)
My experience is not atypical. The reality—which research backs up (Google the “double empathy problem”)—is that people tend to get along better with people who share their neurotype.
It’s not just that conversation flows more easily, though in my experience, it absolutely does: there’s less friction around what kind of information gets shared, who talks when, whether interrupting is expected or discouraged, how expressive people can be, and so on. It’s also that the parameters of the friendship are easier to figure out and navigate.
For starters, we’re more likely to share similar relationship preferences—for example, my desire to be able to go a few weeks or even months without talking, especially if I’m overwhelmed or hyperfocused on something else.
My neurodivergent friends are also much more likely to talk openly about our friendship—what we like about it, what we’re worried about, and how we can better support each other. It’s a meta-level awareness of the relationship itself. Maybe it’s truly a neurodivergent thing, or maybe it’s a coping mechanism after struggling for years in relationships with neuro-normative people.
The more I learn about my neurotype, the easier it is for me to make friends. Not just friends—good friends. The kind of friends I used to watch other people make, wondering, what am I doing wrong here?
To a younger Charlotte, let me say this: You were doing nothing wrong. Your mind just works differently than many people’s. The good thing is, there are billions of people out there, and a whole bunch of them do think like you. When you come across them—and yes, you will come across them!—you’ll feel it. It will feel easy, and beautiful, and profound. Just you wait. ❤
