I had to "break up" with my long-time circle of friends over this kind of behavior. We had known each other for over 10 years, but the last few years of our "friendship" I had been increasingly flaked on, until I had started to develop anxiety any time I even thought of trying to make plans, because I knew how it'd feel like pulling teeth. Once I started identifying patterns like, I suggest plans on x date > they counter with x date + 1 month > 1 month later comes, everyone is "too busy" (but not too busy to have made plans amongst themselves during the same time) as well as several other obvious and embarrassing signs of being excluded, I just stopped trying and effectively "quiet quit" the friend group.

One particularly egregious example, the last event of theirs I was invited to, a small condo housewarming party of ~10 people, I quickly took notice of how they'd systematically move the group away from me, one or two individuals at a time, to a new spot any time I joined the conversation, until I was left alone, and this process repeated a few times until I gave up and scrolled on my phone alone on the couch, until my friend's girlfriend apparently took pity on me enough to strike up a short convo (which was genuinely kind of her), but aside from that brief gesture I left a short while later feeling pretty dejected and quietly humiliated. Why invite someone to a gathering if you have no intention of talking to them? Why treat someone like that and then also still try to maintain any kind of friendship??

A whole six months of radio silence after the "quiet quitting," one of them finally texts me asking if I wanted to "catch up" over lunch. I turned him down and (admittedly not so kindly) explained why, which was met by him pulling in 2 other "friends" to dogpile and gaslight me over how they were just "really busy" all the time, and how I should have tried talking to them about it because they had "no idea." When I offered multiple examples of how they had systematically ignored and excluded me, they'd just circle back to the "we were soooo busy" and "had no idea" excuses, like broken records. Except for one of the friends, who just gave sort of a meek "I hear you, if you don't want to talk to us anymore I will respect that," which felt more like an admission that he didn't care enough to keep me around than anything else. After a while of , I just blocked the two that kept arguing in circles. The rest of the "core" group (all people I had known for years btw) just simply never talked to me again.

Months later from that, I happened to reconnect with a couple of friends (both of whom I wouldn't be surprised if they were also on the spectrum) that were mutuals with the above mentioned friend group (but also never super close to them), and they shared similar experiences of being excluded and feeling gaslit by the same individuals. So, at least I got some closure that it wasn't "just me." But, goddamn, it felt really shitty to learn that some otherwise apparently-well-adjusted neurotypicals like to keep us around just to be set pieces for their larger gatherings or some shit.

Suffice to say, I have lots of problems trusting and forming any kind of bonds with most neurotypicals, and tend to keep my distance from them nowadays. I still don't fully understand why they behave the way they do around me, but at least I've come to realize and accept that it's something wrong with them, not me.