Did Any of You Have Friends When You Were A Kid?

[Tom]

I've been friendly with a lot, but generally only very close to one or two and usually due to a shared interest. I was fortunate to have one good friend certainly also ASD from age 11 to well into our 40's before we lost contact.

 

[Kaz2012]

Was forced to socialise with other children but found them annoying. My first real friend was not until 5th grade. We bonded as we were both weird. She ended up having heaps of mental health issues and had some bad things happen to her. So sad we lost touch. Tried to track her down online but no luck so far.

 

[Shamar]

It seems like what it meant to have friends when we were kids was different than what it means to have friends as an adult.

For all of you who are completely friendless (like me), did you have any friends at all when you were a kid? Or is one kicked out of the ASD club if it's discovered that they had a friend in 3rd grade?

I had no friends, I did have a few meaningless acquaintances, and some "friends" who set met up for public humiliation or to steal something from me.

 

[Mr. Stevens]

I had friends as a kid, but always did best one on one. Still do. I am still friends with my best friend from jr. high/high school. We met when I was 12.

 

[autism-and-autotune]

Not really, no.

 

[Outdated]

As a kid I only had 2 friends. Through primary school it was a girl, Leeanne. She was 2 weeks older than me. Then as primary school ended her family moved away and when I started high school I met another friend and we were best mates for so many years that he was more like family than a friend.

Because I moved around the country a fair bit as I got older distance separated us a fair bit but the friendship was still pretty strong. Then when I was in my 40s I started to finally realise that I was autistic, when I mentioned that to him I copped exactly the same sort of ridicule and abuse that I did from my parents and it didn't go down too well.

I haven't heard from him in 15 years now.

 

[Kisa the tea]

Not really until I turned 16

 

[MildredHubble]

It took me a long time to figure out what exactly true friends were, and it was a bit of an iterative process that didn't arrive at any sort of conclusion until I was in my 20s, probably mid 20s.

But I've had one very true friend since I was 8 years old. Probably the only person that really seems to get me. Also they suggested that I may be "on the spectrum" maybe a couple of years ago. So they've been paying some attention to my quirks too it seems.

I used to think that if I had simply talked to someone when I was very young that they were a friend.

There were people I thought I was friends with, but I guess I just mistook proximity for friendship. We'd hang out sometimes, at least until I'd haplessly committed some faux pas that offended them. Then I had to walk circuits of the school playground on my own at break times.

But, I had my computer (still have it on my desk), it felt (and feels) like a friend. I had my guitar (and still do). When nobody would let me join in, they never turned me away. I wish I had spent more time with my true friends when I was a kid, instead of fruitlessly trying to fit in with other people. Ironically, the more time I spent with them the more interesting apparently I became to other people.

I do have other friends now, but only a few. We don't talk much, but when we do meet up, they never make me feel bad for being MIA for a long time. They accept me. And that's all I really ever wanted

 

[Fino]

I didn't have friends until college.

 

[TBRS1]

As a kid, I had "friends."

Since I'm an ASD nerdy pushover, they were largely abusive.

Older, I had many friends who were largely jerky - because they could get from me what they wanted - but I also, somehow, ended up with a few solid gold friends.

I'm not entirely convinced that this is an ASD thing. I've noticed that most people tend to count crappy people as friends, but maybe ASD people have better (though more selective) standards.

IMHO NT's ought to look more closely at so-called "friends."

 

[Snowflakekisses4]

I tended to attract mean people and I never knew why. I had one friend when I was age 9-12 then she one day didn't talk to me. I didn't understand and had no one to talk to about it. Had some friends in highschool but lost touch. College made 2 wonderful people friends for life, also made friends with 2 people who used me. One was a lifelong 'friend' who I dropped after learning about narcissism. The other was a malignant narcissist who I married. He shredded me in the divorce and turned our 2 adult children away from me. Though I learned so much about narcissism, I still never understood how people could take advantage of me so easliy and still come out smelling like a rose. I am thankful for the genuine friends who are still in my life, but not being able to grasp the nuances of evil people, I was really wounded. Healing, and have forgiven, mostly had to forgive myself. But my own narcissistic mother made fun of me, so I never knew what normal friends looked like until my 2 kind college friends.

 

[TBRS1]

I tended to attract mean people and I never knew why. I had one friend when I was age 9-12 then she one day didn't talk to me. I didn't understand and had no one to talk to about it. Had some friends in highschool but lost touch. College made 2 wonderful people friends for life, also made friends with 2 people who used me. One was a lifelong 'friend' who I dropped after learning about narcissism. The other was a malignant narcissist who I married. He shredded me in the divorce and turned our 2 adult children away from me. Though I learned so much about narcissism, I still never understood how people could take advantage of me so easliy and still come out smelling like a rose. I am thankful for the genuine friends who are still in my life, but not being able to grasp the nuances of evil people, I was really wounded. Healing, and have forgiven, mostly had to forgive myself. But my own narcissistic mother made fun of me, so I never knew what normal friends looked like until my 2 kind college friends.

So many people have had experiences with narcissistic explotation (including myself) that I begin to wonder how common narcissistic personalities are in the general population, or, maybe, ASD people are more often victims of narcissistic personalities (?).

 

[SusanLR]

Not as a kid.
One in college that I hung out with sometimes.
I could count people I considered friends on one hand.
Only one presently.

 

[MNAus]

I had friends, but as I got older and the expectations moved from playing on the playstation and skateboarding into "socialising" it all went to pot. I'll be honest, it worked ok when it was mates (mostly male and a few female) who didn't give a damn about how you acted, who said what, etc. It was all about a few beers, some cool music, etc. We were all an odd bunch, so undiagnosed autistic me was just fine. And there was no expectations. The girls that hung with us were cool, never put each other down, etc. If you didn't want to speak you'd get a hello, a hug, whatever you wanted ,and be left alone. Then we started getting relationships and things got socially complicated. And that was that. Gossip appeared. How you were perceived mattered. Who was the victim, who'd offended who, who was cut out, who was in. Who had been disrespectful. It all got too difficult.

A bunch of us kept things going for another year or two through activities that probably shouldn't be repeated and probably knocked years off our lives, but as an escape, to keep this revolting gossip-filled bunch of mindgames outside. But in the end partners and lovers, mine included, just introduced mind numbing grief of social hierarchies, cliques and fashion. So I left the community I was in to live by myself, far away.

To this day I think it a damn shame when good things get ruined by these kinds of things. The second I hear the first mind game starting I walk away. It's why I can't do a full time permanent job, because people pull you in to that.

ETA: I haven't had a friend for about 15 years now. I've had a few contenders but within a few weeks the gossip started, so I cut my losses. It's my fault, my tolerance is appalling.

 

[Alexej]

I really only had one friend at a time, There were three of them, and each of their parent moved away for their work.

 

[Ken]

I had many lifelong best friends when I was a child. However, none were human.

 

[Kitsuna]

Had no problems making friends up until middle school. When I was in elementary, I had both school and neighborhood friends.

Things just got different when friendships shifted from being based a lot on playing games and etc to more complex social skills.