I’ve never been able to talk to interesting people when I go outside. It’s not that I have a fear of doing it, or that I’ve never wanted to.
It’s just that when I’m outside in the strangers’ planet, where I’m not safe, I exist in a completely different universe than everybody else. I get extremely anxious with a heightened sense of danger which paralyses my sense of autonomy (or selfness, or what have you). I’m pensive to say the least.
In my own world I can be funny and imaginative.
But when I get an opportunity to meet someone new who might potentially stay in my life for a while and play an important role in my personal growth, I clam up.
I figure the solution (and what a lot of other autistic people do), is to prepare ahead of time.
Even then, I’m leaving a lot of things up to chance. For example I had it in mind to sit in my favourite café near a train station and if someone inspires me to talk to them, I could say something like, “you know, I sit at this station all the time and I watch people go by and I wonder what their story might be. Then I saw you and I just had to ask. Are you waiting on a train?” Perfect ice breaker.
But opportunities to say that are very rare.