Yes I get what you’re saying too, my comment was partly in response to the OP’s previous posts where she says that her son would rather ask adults about their gardens and that he gets on better with pensioners etc .
no shade to the op or her child, I was always told I was ‘an old soul’ and as an adult a drunk relative kindly told me ‘you were a weird kid’ , so I get it.
of course I turned out to be neurodivergent which is no surprise.
I didn’t fit in for multiple reasons, mainly because of my abusive parent and of course my undiagnosed ND.
although my teachers loved me until I eventually made it work with the kids by making myself the class clown , not recommending that either but it was the only thing i knew.
i didn’t have a kind or supportive parent who wanted me to fit in, she went out of her way to make me into an oddball….
anyway, i digress, I think kids are amazing, so funny, bright and hugely perceptive which can be a double edged sword in scenarios like the OP’s, and I hugely enjoy their company.
sadly, although there’s a massive difference between groomers and people who just love kids, there are plenty of people who appear to love kids who are also predatory and traditionally they do look out for lonely, solitary and ‘different’ kids, so i understand what the other poster was getting at although clumsily and distastefully expressed.
its such a fine line, and OP has done everything right to try and find suitable niches for her child .
i know many a nerd, oddball or geek who one day turned out to be cool.
failing that, look at mark corrigan, who although not actually cool per se, is a cult favourite, an Honourable Man, if you will.
also young sheldon, he melts my heart and look how popular he is now 🤣🤘
@MyChildHasNoFriends it’s hard, I empathise and I am sure things will change as he grows and finds his crew.
maybe readvertise your club to a different age range and as you’re doing it for FREE (!), maybe start whittling down the ones who don’t fit your preferred demographic anymore? Make yourselves exclusive, not the other way around
advertise your group in places where you might find like minded families and parents of kids like yours, relevant Facebook groups or similar, idk, there’s millions of kids like him, and millions of parents who have been through this same situation and know the sadness of having a lonely child.
a lot of them are homeschooled partly because of the isolation they experience at school, perhaps affiliate yourself with groups linked to homeschool parents and join meet ups etc, you don’t need to homeschool to get involved .
as I said in an earlier post and many others have said too, forget the party now, visit somewhere he loves and get his favourite food / dine out in his favourite place, get some cool presents, make his birthday about HIM, not about other people who don’t matter, or NPCs as they are known in modern parlance.