Ok if your introvert friend tells you “you don’t count as people” you know they will ride or die with you for life. Not counting as people is the introvert Platonic friend equivalent of getting married.
This is a thing with autistic people too! Some of the best people I know are not-people. Friends I can just hang out with and be as ‘not-on’ as I need to be to be happy. Sometimes that means sitting around having super-in-depth conversations about fandoms and media and literature, and sometimes that is all of us on our own devices being quiet, and everything in between. Not-people are the best.
knitting in the dark 