As someone who just graduated college, I have spent the last year learning what lots of people on here probably already know: if you can't get a job/education lined up, society (especially in the US) will do everything it can to make you feel like a pathetic failure. I applied for PhD positions and got in nowhere because academia in the US is unbelievably cooked (a whole other rant). Anecdotal evidence says that schools were accepting literally ~5 people out of an applicant pool of ~300 because of funding cuts, and the situation before funding cuts wasn't much better. But anyways, not getting into a PhD position is very far from the end of the world; I can just take a gap year and reapply.
However, I feel like my experience and the experiences of those around me (both of rejection and success) have really reinforced just how "connections" seem to be damn near the only thing that can get you a position at this point. I already knew how important connections were in the job search; I've heard all the sayings like "your network is your net worth" and "it's not about what you know, it's about who you know." That shit sucks. But I naïvely thought that somehow academics would be more insulated from this type of stuff. I knew that PhD applications were personal affairs on some level; you're applying to work with someone more than you're applying to a school as a whole. But people around me would talk about how they would talk to potential advisors at conferences and get lunch with their current research advisors. It felt like there was a social aspect to being in academia that I didn't know you had to participate in and that I just kinda didn't grasp. I like my advisors, but I usually kept my relationship with them to research and I have no idea how I'm supposed to get to know them better so they can write better rec letters for me and blah blah blah. I don't know if I'm over-analyzing my rejections (given that acceptance rates are literally 2%) but it feels like the fact that I didn't go out of my way to "network" hurt my chances. Anyways I now get another chance to apply to either an absolutely cooked higher education system or an absolutely cooked job market 
tl;dr: complaining about how I graduated college and didn't get into any PhD programs and do not have a job rn and I think the fact that I have a hard time "making connections" and "networking" probably hurt my chances
I completely understand where you're coming from, especially the whole 'no body warned me' thing.
The entirety of the human experience in society is built on a neurotypical concept of tribalism, of which networking is an essential facet.
If you do not have a close network of individuals you regularly participate in social outings and hang outs with, you will be out of luck at some point no matter how smart you are, no matter how good at a thing you are, no matter if you're the world's only expert at something. If you are not actively and constantly creating and maintaining a frankly exhaustively large social network you are screwed. This is exponentially more true the closer you are to the imperial core of capital, wherein hyper-competitive individualism runs things so the natural contradiction of the human psychological need for close connection creates this caricature of tribalism itself presenting in these weird semi-professional networks of trust that are not based on ability or even the potential for self-gain, but purely vibes.
Best of luck finding an in to any of the in-groups you've missed out on in your under graduate years. It sucks and once you start getting into those groups it just never stops being an extra 10-30 hours of work per week to maintain those connections so you have the right to study or work.
don't really think this is relevant. neurotypicals also hate networking
yeah this is just patently not true. pure, self-indulgent doomerism completely divorced from reality
I can see the 10hr figure being close to accurate for some roles I'm familiar with, if you allow for networking time at work to be counted in.
Things like attending pointless meetings with higher ups (that you could have otherwised dodged). Forced social interactions with other workmates, cubicle talk, lunches, after-work drinks you can't avoid.
One hour a day across a 9 hour work day, five days a week, if you're working in close proximity to your colleagues, I can easily see passive chat with direct teammates + some active chat with colleagues in other teams/departments to 'maintain' a network within your company as being possible.
If you want to grow or move in your indistry, tack on a three hour industry event one evening (seminar and drinks) or a lunch (lunch and learn, yes three hours is generous for thus but, I need to make up rough numbers) then two hours scrolling, messaging and commenting on LinkedIn, or messaging people on whatsapp then you're approaching ten hours.
Explains so much why us autistic folk are basically unemployable, among many other things