Do you Really Have Friends???

[DogwoodTree]

My conclusion after decades of trying is that I'm not really "friend" material. I've tried everything I know to try, including a year and a half now of professional therapy, and still no go. I have a couple of people who will sit with me and talk about interesting things, and there are several people who have said that we're friends. But I don't feel connected to them. I don't detect any true, positive feelings from them towards me, even though I often detect negative emotions towards me like frustration, confusion, or annoyance. And I don't feel close to them. I don't feel like I can trust them with the real me.

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to learn to like myself if no one else likes the real me, either. They like the mask, but that's all they know. When I try to reveal more authentic parts of me, the darker parts that aren't fun and are confusing, people pull away. Always.

I'm tired of it all, and have basically decided to leave people alone and not even attempt to have friends. I focus on my work, and being the best mom I can be (even if it requires a lot of faking), and being the best wife I can manage (even if I fall ridiculously short on so many standards of "normal" wifing).

 

[FreeDiver]

Do you(I) Really Have Friends??? That's a really tough question to answer. As an aspie (or someone on the spectrum for that matter.), do we really know what real friendship is? Really! think about this question for a moment. Because people that you might think are your friends, may only be your friends because you have something that they want.

 

[Loomis]

I think in order to have " close friends," one must be able to trust. Most Aspies I know (myself included) do not easily trust for one reason or another...

...I think another reason people don't have close friendships these days is because of the transient society in which we live...

Trust is critical and not easy. One must be willing to risk loss. Willing to risk loss means detaching from outcomes, accepting uncertainty and not clinging to material things. The important things in life are what does not degrade, and decay i.e, integrity, authenticity, a non-judging attitude, courage, etc.

The other part of friendship is easy for aspies. It is to be completely honest.

I have two close friends. One is a benign psychopath with narcissistic tendencies. He really is a good-hearted fellow and the complete opposite of me: an extremely gregarious hyper-extrovert. We share a lack of empathy. He is a retired clinical psychologist and we understand each other quite well. For example, once he asked me why I seldom call him. My answer was that I only call him when I want something. His response was to laugh heartily.

My other friend is a woman with low self-confidence and OCD. We share some common interests and hobbies. We are great friends because I go out of my way to help her in any way I can. She is married and considers me her best friend. Her husband is OK with this because we are like sister and brother.

 

[Jumpinbare]

I have 6 friends. I don't need any more. Two have been friends almost 50 years. Two others have been friends for about 30 years. The last two only for about 2 years. But all are familiar with my weirdness and haven't walked away shaking their heads, so they seem pretty genuine.
I heard a good friend story: Billy Bob says, "Bubba, you know I would face death for you."
Bubba replies "Wait now, when we came across that bear last fall, you took off running without a word. Explain that." Billy Bob replied "that bear wasn't dead!"

 

[Jumpinbare]

When I started this thread I had just read a comment from a guy who said he had about 200 really close friends. that sort of threw me.

That was someone who has no idea what a close friend is.

 

[BryceMcBryde]

I don’t have any irl friends. All online but they’re all close to me

 

[Misty Avich]

I can never make out how people on the spectrum have (NT) friends. I've already explained my social qualities a million times here so to get a better understanding of how I am socially then search my posts a little. I don't feel like repeating myself lol.

The social qualities I do have are just about enough for what's needed to have friends. I attract people with autism or learning disabilities, or anyone that are a little odd, unique or sensitive.
But I've never really had NT same-age friends. I don't know if it was because I relied on my cousins to be my friends when I was a kid, and I felt like they were "ready made friends" so I didn't invest much time in branching out and making my own friends. By the time my cousins had branched out, it was too late, and I was lonely and often rejected by girls who could have been my friends.

But now I can't imagine myself having NT friendships, even though I seem to be successful in the NT dating world.
When I interact with NTs my age I feel a connection but a friendship still doesn't form.

I look at my NT peers and they have friends who they sometimes spend a day with, doing activities together and helping each other out when needed, and going on vacations together, and meeting up for lunch or drinks. Even some Aspies I know have this average "NT" social life. I just wonder where I go wrong and why I'm a failure. Is it because I don't drink alcohol? Do people get scared of me when they find out I don't drink? If that's the case then we are a very pathetic culture, to actually be socially isolated because of not intoxicating my body on Saturday nights. When do people grow up?

 

[Judge]

I can never make out how people on the spectrum have (NT) friends.

Mathematically speaking, 98.2% (US CDC estimates) of most anyone you meet whether to befriend or not will be NT. Since coming to the conclusion in 2013 that I am on the spectrum, I have not run into anyone in person who I thought might actually be autistic.

Though in my distant past I now recognize the likelihood of two cousins and one person I worked with for many years who are probably autistic as well.

Of course it remains an open-ended debate as to what truly constitutes a "friend". -At times I have no idea. One of life's mysteries to figure out I suppose.

 

[Misty Avich]

NT doesn't mean everyone not on the spectrum. It means everyone not born with any developmental delays or difficulties (social or intellectual). It can also include severe mental health problems, and brain diseases such as Alzheimer's. So while the majority of people you meet in life will be NT, the percentage of the population being NT is probably less than 98.2%. Many autistic people connect easily with non-autistics (allistic) who also aren't NTs. I have a friend with Down's syndrome who isn't autistic but still has her struggles with things that NTs take for granted, and it affects her chances of employment and relationships. She's also been bullied by NTs just like most of us autistics have.

 

[Judge]

NT doesn't mean everyone not on the spectrum. It means everyone not born with any developmental delays or difficulties (social or intellectual). It can also include severe mental health problems, and brain diseases such as Alzheimer's. So while the majority of people you meet in life will be NT, the percentage of the population being NT is probably less than 98.2%. Many autistic people connect easily with non-autistics (allistic) who also aren't NTs. I have a friend with Down's syndrome who isn't autistic but still has her struggles with things that NTs take for granted, and it affects her chances of employment and relationships. She's also been bullied by NTs just like most of us autistics have.

I haven't met anyone socially with any of those conditions either. Making your point a bit moot on my end.

Yet I can say unabashedly that those I have befriended or fell in love with over the years were most definitely not neurodivergent. But then I never took the term Neurotypical to imply physical or mental perfection either. Having had one relationship with a woman who turned out to be what some refer to as a "functioning alcoholic". And with another who was hypersexual.

Since relocating in 2008 I can't say I have made many concerted efforts to reach out to much of anyone in R/L. Not surprising as well is how even long-term friendships seem to evaporate with people in general changing jobs or moving great distances. Regardless of how aggressively- or not one attempts to retain such connections with others.

 

[MC1Rcat]

I currently have 3 friends of more than a few years (one is a cousin, and only one of them lives in the same city as me, 2 hours away by train..so we only hang out once or twice a year), and I have a few friendly "acquaintances" from work or school. None of my friends are really close. I cannot call and talk to them at any time, or rely on them/ ask them for help at any time...or at least I don't feel comfortable doing that, because they have not always been available in the past. (I am okay with them calling on me for help though, and I have been happy to be of support whenever needed.) I don't know if the lack of closeness is because of me or if its because they all have a lot going on in their own lives, maybe both. They also are all ND and somewhat socially avoidant, but not as reclusive as I am. Now that I think of it, anyone that I have ever been more than an acquaintance with (friend or romantic partner) has been ND (mostly bipolar or ADHD. I have rarely ever met anyone with ASD irl outside of my family.)

Also, all of the people I have ever been friends with, have been the ones who have mainly kept up with maintaining communication and asking me to hang out. For some reason, unless it is a romantic relationship, I do not think to ask people to do things with me, nor am I good at remembering to check in with others to see how they are, etc. It does come to my mind that I should do it, in moments when I am busy doing other things. I usually intend to do it later, and then forget. This is probably why most of my friends seem to evaporate over time, and acquaintances do not usually develop into friends. I know that I am not an initiator when it comes to relationships in general. My therapist wants to start working with me to try to foster better relationships with people, because I have no "support system." We'll see what happens with that. So far, she is not very understanding of why I cannot always identify emotions and why I always tell her what I am doing lately when she asks me how I feel. So, Idk if she has any tools in her box for ASD.

I think I don't make good friends easily because of my social/ sensory ASD related issues (need to spend a lot of time alone) AND also because a lot of the people I do seem drawn to/ or who seem drawn to me are often unstable, and after awhile I realize that they are too crazy for me and I need to disengage. I also have some trust issues, so I am wary of people in general.

Are any of you good at making and maintaining close friendships? Any advice?

 

[Jumpinbare]

Since coming to the conclusion in 2013 that I am on the spectrum, I have not run into anyone in person who I thought might actually be autistic.

I haven't known about myself nearly that long, but I have only run into one person I thought might be austistic, but it was a child maybe 5 years old, and I was too reserved to ask his mother about it. The boy was repeating a multisyllabic phrase over and over. There were no recognizable words in the phrase, though the boy spoke very distinctly.

On the other hand, the more I learned about AS, the more I suspected a friend that had moved away decades ago had it. I looked him up, eventually found him, and after a bit of catching up on things asked him point blank if he had ever been told he had Asperger's Syndrome. Bingo. He had. So I do know someone personally with AS besides myself, but no one local.

 

[Judge]

On the other hand, the more I learned about AS, the more I suspected a friend that had moved away decades ago had it. I looked him up, eventually found him, and after a bit of catching up on things asked him point blank if he had ever been told he had Asperger's Syndrome. Bingo. He had. So I do know someone personally with AS besides myself, but no one local.

Yes, me too in the sense of no one local. Yet I can think of one second cousin and one first cousin who I'm now certain are on the spectrum. Yet I also suspect neither of them knows it, or would want to know. And then there's a guy I worked with for years that seemed to fit the description as well.

But then these days I live in near isolation...not frequently socializing with anyone. So the odds of finding a fellow autistic person nearby is quite remote.

Luckily for me though in my heart and mind I feel that solitude almost always trumps loneliness.

 

[The Pandector]

Although I didn’t know it at the time, I grew up surrounded by undiagnosed autism. Mom was for sure, and I’d wager three of my four siblings are on the spectrum. So, in hindsight, I know about living with autism.

Excluding family, I have either had one or no friends at any given point. When without, I never felt the need to form a friendship. It happens when it happens.

Now, I have a dear friend, not common for me. Used to live there, but had to move a few valleys away and I haven’t seen him in person in a few years. Still, we spend an hour or two on the phone every week and I’d say we have a permanent relationship. While that is a great blessing, I don’t feel the need to look for another friend.