Imagine yourself in a room full of people speaking, exchanging glances, and effortlessly weaving in and out of conversations. It’s like you’re on another wavelength, the humour doesn’t strike home, and everybody else is privy to social rules that are difficult for you to grasp. For many neurodivergent individuals, this is a reality many live with every day.
The Neurobiology of Connection
All humans, regardless of neurotype, benefit from meaningful social connection. Our brains release neurochemicals such as serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin when we experience positive social interactions. These chemicals regulate mood, ability to learn, stress reaction, and sense of wellbeing.
But while the need for connection is human, the means through which people experience and express it may be quite disparate. For many neurodivergent individuals, the way they engage may not conform to the model that society is used to. This doesn’t mean they don’t value relationships. It doesn’t mean they lack empathy or don’t enjoy company. It simply means that their way of connecting might look different.
For many neurodivergent people, traditional socialising can actually inhibit rather than promote these positive neurochemical responses. A study conducted at Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital found that maintaining eye contact, navigating unpredictable conversations, and filtering sensory information in busy environments, potentially leads to stress responses rather than positive neurochemical effects. And that discrepancy is typically misunderstood.
The Negative Effects of Societal Expectations
This is an outdated and problematic assumption that being “good” at socialising looks one particular way: expressive body language, flowing conversation, intuitive turn-taking, and making others feel at ease. When neurodivergent individuals don’t tick those boxes, they may find themselves being disproportionately tagged as socially awkward, uninterested, or worse, rude.
The issue isn’t necessarily that neurodivergent people lack social interest. For example, they may want to connect deeply but may do so through unique and equally effective pathways. Their intention and methods for connecting might simply differ from the norm.
Despite this, social skills interventions have historically focused on teaching neurodivergent children to behave more like their neurotypical peers. While the intent may be to help, these approaches can do more harm than good when they pressure, even coerce individuals into hiding their true selves. Masking can involve imitating facial expressions, forcing eye contact, scripting and rehearsing conversations ahead of time, or pretending to enjoy small talk. While these strategies might help someone blend in socially, they tend to exact a steep price.
Many neurodivergent individuals describe masking as emotionally draining. It can lead to burnout, identity confusion, and mental health struggles such as anxiety or depression. Constantly pretending to be someone else just so you can be accepted, in the long term can erode self-worth and authenticity.
Misunderstood Doesn’t Mean Disinterested
Let’s say you’re fluent in English but land in a room where everyone speaks a completely different language. You’d likely feel confused, unsure, anxious, and maybe even excluded—not because you don’t want to talk, but because the tools and rules of the conversation don’t come naturally to you. Now imagine somebody telling you that you’re terrible at communicating, when you’re actually just using a different social language. That’s what socialising might feel like for some neurodivergent individuals.
Too often, it’s not a lack of desire to connect, but a mismatch in communication styles. For instance, at a meetup specifically for neurodivergent adults, the atmosphere differs noticeably from typical social gatherings. Conversations flow around shared interests rather than social performances. People freely stim or take breaks without explanation. The space creates a sense of belonging that many neurodivergent individuals rarely experience in conventional social settings.
Neurodivergent Social Worlds
Parallel Play
Neurodivergent individuals often connect through parallel play spending time together while doing different things. This might look like children building side-by-side structures, occasionally sharing pieces without conversation, or adults reading different books on the same sofa. While there is minimal verbal exchange occurring, true connection is experienced through comfortable silence, occasional shared observations, and simply coexisting without performance; generating intimacy without cognitive overload.
Purpose-Driven Socialising
Structured activities with explicit rules provide social frameworks where neurodivergent individuals excel. From improvisational theatre to choral societies, coding groups to tabletop gaming, these settings facilitate connection through common goals rather than social interaction per se. The structure lessens the cognitive burden of navigating unwritten social rules while emphasising strengths and contributions.
Digital Communities
Online spaces remove traditional barriers to socialisation—sensory overload, geographic isolation, and communication difficulties of a non-verbal kind. Neurodivergent people often prefer building significant relationships through forums, special interest groups, and gaming communities. Online gaming, especially, is well suited to creating structured environments with clear roles where individuals are valued for knowledge and reliability rather than the manner of communication.
Creating Truly Inclusive Social Spaces
Moving beyond stereotypes requires visible changes in the manner in which we structure social environments and conceive of human connection. Here are practical approaches for creating genuinely inclusive spaces:
- Recognise diverse socialisation styles as equally valid. Whatever form an individual connects whether it is through quiet parallel activities, immersion into special interests, online communities, or traditional conversation, all forms of meaningful human connection deserve consideration, recognition and respect.
- Share the social burden. The responsibility for successful interaction between neurodivergent and neurotypical individuals shouldn’t fall solely on neurodivergent people to adapt. Creating inclusive environments means neurotypical individuals must also learn and adapt to different communication styles.
- Design with sensory needs in mind. The majority of conventional social spaces are sensory nightmares for neurodivergent individuals. Small adjustments such as quieter areas, sensory-friendly lighting, clear structure and expectations can make the difference between exclusion and participation.
Conclusion
Social connection doesn’t have to look one way to be meaningful. For neurodivergent individuals, connection can occur through mutual shared interests, parallel play, or online communities—ways that may differ from neurotypical norms but are no less valid. Let’s redefine Belonging. Being inclusive means creating a world where everyone’s way of relating is not merely accommodated, but embraced and honoured. 🙂
