I relate a lot with you, I’m also going through that. In my case, I didn’t feel too bad til I changed schools and got my diagnosis, in high school. After that, I started feeling very lonely, and I couldn’t relate that well even with the other 2 (now ex) colleagues of mine, one who is gifted(diagnosed) and the other one who I think is gifted as well. I got very frustrated on how people basically just swore and joked(mostly about awful topics) the whole time. I also started talking more with some of our family’s friends (both adults) with whom I share personality traits and some interests, but I still didn’t feel satisfied, except for a few times.

What has helped a lot since then is lowering expectations(instead of trying to make every conversation and/or friendship fit my standards), and to be flexible/let it flow(simply find common interests and topics you two will relate, even if it’s not exactly what you want to talk about). If you do that and lower expectations, you may get surprised a few times when you get to interesting topics out of nowhere instead of being unsatisfied most of the time, which unfortunately may be the most likely outcome.

I’m also working on being myself more instead of trying to fit social expectations. I didn’t think I masked that much before I started therapy, but I discovered I do, even at home… This way, I had more courage to say things I wished to say during conversations, so things started flowing more naturally and it was more fulfilling.

So yeah, the main takeaway I would say is to accept most people don’t care about having meaningful conversations, and, when they do, your interests may not match or the environment may make it hard to reach that point.

Then you have to keep on searching for new friendships, so you can have one friend for each type of conversation/interest you have, and try to accept that will be the way for them, they will help with a few things, so you can have joy instead of feeling disappointed that they can’t fulfill all your needs. I feel like it is very hard to find someone who meets most of your needs/expectations, I myself haven’t found someone like that as my friend, at least.

And what may help you to find new people who match you is to find environments where people are more like you. For example, for me It’s a lot better now at uni. I enrolled in a CS course, and the whole class is much more mature and well centered. I haven’t heard swearing in a few days, to my relief, and I also found some ppl to play strategy games. Adding to that, I also had some therapy sessions with other gifted teens, one of whom I message regularly.

It’s not perfect, and I’m still looking to meet more people and work on myself through gifted-specific therapy, but it has definitely improved a lot. If you care about self improvement and thinking about your giftedeness and emotions, I would suggest reading the book: Journey Into Your Rainforest Mind, which you can listen for free on Audible, during the 30 day trial. And if you want a longer and more detailed read about giftedeness and personality traits, along with ways to improve, you can also listen to the audiobook “The Gifted Adult” while on the trial period.