@alltagmitpsyche @actuallyautistic

Disclaimer: I have no idea if this is relevant to your query.

I had to define for myself what my values infrastructure looked like for friendships and for a relationship. For me, they are very different.

I'll skip to what they have in common though which has been really valuable. I unmask early as possible, the first time the mask would be painful, before expectations and investments have really formed. I pay attention to their response. This tells me the degree to which *I* am really safe with this person.
If the period of time right after I surprise them causes a rift, crisis averted. If it's just awkward but turns into a genuine moment of learning, hell yea. If there's no bump at all and they light up, let's gooo. It lets me calibrate, and learn the degree to which I will instinctively want to mask around a person and factor that into my investment.

There's no one intimacy level for "friendship." Sometimes people ping back as just safe enough to remain acquainted with, which is great. One of the things I find most damaging is overestimating how safe a person may be to be based solely on how positively they respond to my general mask.
So, if I'm interested in any degree of intimacy, I show myself and observe.

Truthfully, my ride-or-die friendships are all very very low maintenance.

@alltagmitpsyche
I don't know if I have anything useful to say, but I feel I am in a somewhat similar state (though somewhat better off):

I am also autistic + ADD, and been through burn out (I like to think I have recovered or am recovering, but not entirely sure)
I also feel it is a challenges to keep relationships. For me the main problem is that it requires a lot of spoons to maintain close relationships.
I only realized that this is an issue for me, though I used to wonder why I had so few friends. Now that I understand the issue (or think I do), I am developing strategies to make it work. My goal is not to have many friends, but just to maintain a few good relationships, but definitely more than one.
My strategy is something around prioritising.
- I prioritise friends how accepts that sometimes I will clock out, and who I can have a continuous relationship with despite that. Because I have to do that occasionally I will do that.
- I have an ongoing conversation with my spouse and other relations about how our relationships function. Basically I try to reduce the work needed to maintain a good relationship by helping them to understand that I care about them even when I need a lot of alone time.
- I also try to reduce how much social energy I spend on activities that are not important for me or for maintaining the relationships that are most important to me.

To me it seems that it would be good for you, if you can rearrange your relationship to your partner, so it doesn't take up all of your social energy. Maybe you can talk with them about how you can meet their needs in a manner that is less draining for you. There might be some activities you can avoid, if they understand that it is costly for you.

@alltagmitpsyche @actuallyautistic

I think it might be helpful to look into what about socializing specifically is exhausting, and see if you can form friendships that are less draining.

For me, the number one drain is having to initiate and schedule times to hang out, so I have friends who agree we schedule our next hang out before we end our current one.

If focus is problem for in-person conversations, have more friendships online, or request that you go to just chatting for a while.

It's also ok to have friends you don't see consistently or often. Just be up front about it!