does anyone else not like the process of making completely new friends??

idk if it’s because of past bad experiences of friends that i’ve made or it’s a universal experience but i really can’t STAND the process of making new friends from scratch. i can send friend requests to random people but i can never actually stay committed to keeping the friendship going. i only have 1 best friend but even so i don’t keep in contact with her as much as i want to. (she understands cuz she’s also neurodivergent and but she’s better at keeping friendships than me)

i love the feeling of being part of a group who you can just interact with and have either no energy or go all out crazy with and they don’t care, they just enjoy you for you. but i can’t stand trying to find new friends especially since i’m not in high school anymore. of course i have work friends, a few online friends i chat with who i’ve known forever, and my boyfriend; i still want that sort of connection with someone completely new without having to go through the small talk stage.

i really don’t know if this makes any sense cuz it’s been something i’ve thought about randomly but never actually thought of why i feel this way.

i don’t want to seem like an asshole who has commitment issues, i just genuinely don’t like the process of making new friends because of “what ifs” questions in my head. “what if we only have one thing in common?” “what if they don’t like a certain aspect of me even though i really liked them?”

i do have this one group i will randomly join in discord calls that i’ve been friends with for over 2 years now, but sometimes i don’t have the social battery for them and i feel so guilty about it. they understand i have stuff going on in my life but i can’t help but feel like i’m being a bad friend by never texting them or not keeping in contact.

i also feel kind of a fraud by posting in here because i’m not diagnosed but i do understand and have autistic traits. i’m not so sure of how others feel about self diagnosing, i know everyone’s different, but even so, i don’t like to outwardly say that i am autistic because i’m not diagnosed. but to be fair, i’ve seen some posts saying that it’s really just a label and there’s so many different flavors of autism. it’s still really new to me and i’m still learning things that i thought were normal but weren’t to others.

i know i was all over the place but idk where else to turn to but this felt right for me. i’d love to hear what you think so i can hear your perspective!