• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

Making Friends

Do you have NT (neurotypical) or autistic friends?

  • Total voters
    12
S

SRSAutistic

Active Member
I have no friends. I am 17 years old. When I interact with the autistic community, I feel welcomed, accepted, and appreciated. It seems that with time, I can make friends in the autistic community, but I cannot make any NT friends. In the past, I have tried to make friends, but I struggle. I do not attend any socialising events. In elementary (primary) and middle (intermediate) school, I was not bullied, but in high (secondary) school, I was stalked and bullied. In high school, some students who bullied me must have spotted my 'strange quirks' (to them) and started stalking and bullying me (Look, he's different, let's trap him).

My special interests are time zones, electrical plugs, electronics (battery performance of electronic devices), and plane-spotting. As a result, I cannot find any social groups or events. Please reply to this thread.

1. Why is it so hard for us autistics to learn NT social skills?

2. Why are our autistic brains not wired for social interaction?

3. Why is it difficult for us autistics to make NT friends?
 
Last edited:
I think it can be important to not get too hung up on what people are, NT or autistic or whatever and just try to look at them as people. People are different, just listen to what they say and try to learn more about them.
 
There are other things that make such connections difficult. Life in the late 20th century apart from the present...where so much of society is so transient. Where whatever friendships we make "evaporate" with changes of where we live and/or work. Making even the best of the few friendships we have, "gone with the wind".

Where even when you try to keep up online, those connections of the past just wither away with time. And then to consider the social dynamics of online acquaintances. Where they can be on a more superficial level and can disappear in an instance.

It's tough...not just for autistic people, but all people. Technology isn't helping...IMO.
 
SRSAutistic said:
I have no friends. When I interact with the autistic community, I feel welcomed, accepted, and appreciated. It seems that with time, I can make autistic friends, but I cannot make any NT friends. In the past, I have tried to make friends, but I struggle. Please reply to this thread.

1. Why is it so hard for us autistics to learn NT social skills?

2. Why are our autistic brains not wired for social interaction?

3. Why is it difficult for us autistics to make NT friends?
Click to expand...

I don't feel there's an easy answer to this, as already stated I think you shouldn't focus on if they're ASD or NT, largely it makes no difference, we are all products of our environment regardless.

How to make friends, well there's alot of variables to that. How old are you? Do you socialise at all? Attend any sports or classes relative to your interest? I'll try to answer your questions from my own understanding.

1) It is hard, I'm not going to deny that. For me, I believe I had an easier time than most so maybe I won't give the best perspective here. I'm still friends with people I was in nursery and primary school with. What made relationships last that long? I guess aligned interests, mutual respect, loyalty and having eachothers backs. I must admit though, I've always found it harder to make new friends and understand what's OK and what's not OK rather than keeping an already established friendship going.

2) Why are our brains not wired for social interaction? I think I answered this on your last thread, but my opinion is were not wired for socials, were wired for specifics. I feel our focus is more linear and we often miss things because of it.

I don't know if this is a going to be a good metaphor but I'll attempt it. We view things through a different lens, a magnifying glass if you like. We see details in everything because of this 'lens'. For a NT I believe that they don't need a magnifying glass, they may miss all the details we find, but they're not focal on one point, like us the magnifying glass, they're looking at the whole map; and essentially this is why we pick up details but miss other things, were so 'honed in' we miss what's outside the scope of the magnifying glass.

As for the brain physiology itself, I think the answer to Autism is relative to the cingulate gyrus but that's a whole different conversation, which is also just an opinion I have and should be taken with a grain of salt

3) I believe the other 2 answers covered this.
 
Last edited:
I second the thoughts of @Judge . Around me I know some folks who are not particularly religious but belong to a church, I think for social reasons. I feel that our society is atomized, and for anybody looking to make connections it then becomes more difficult. With ASD, when the ideal connection is with accepting people, that smaller pool makes connection more difficult. Add in the inability to process social communication along with shyness/social anxiety and finding connection becomes a perfect storm of difficulty.
 
Maybe try voluntary work for a good cause. Something to distract you. And you meet people when you volunteer.
 
You are right though that we are not wired in the same way as NTs for social interaction. It took me many years to work that out, it was a like a secret that stopped me understanding myself, as I kept trying to learn how to be social in an NT way, without success. Then eventually realised that for me there was a kind of blank area, where I had none of the intuition or abilities NTs mostly have as automatic and normal, I had just heard of these all my life, but they were not in me. Hence, I was bumbling about, failing to make connections.

However, that is a key piece of understanding, so if you are there already, the future is looking bright for you. We can still connect, it's like it has to all be done with understanding, with forethought and deliberately. It isn't normal for us, we don't tend to have automatic social understanding. We have to think it through. I may often get confused mid interaction, in interactions I can't predict, but can usually muddle through.

I guess other ND people do often have a similar sort of experience with unstructured social interaction, so they are more easily able to be understanding of us, and have similar challenges.
 
I have some autistic friends and some NT friends. It doesn't matter. They all care about me and I care about them.
 
I think l always had autistic friends all my life. NT girlfriends- we never lasted long because they were usually fake friends.
 
I presume that the fairly small circle that I ran with in high school (ie punk and new wave) had its share of ND people among them. After high school the few very good friends that I had as a young man were NT. I was the odd one of the bunch. From the age of 25 or so to about 3 years ago I had literally zero friends other than my wife. That period of zero friends spanned about 25 years. I was fine with that. Work, family life, married life and my own special interests took up all of my time and I preferred that.

However about three years ago after being professionally diagnosed I decided to start a local adult autism group so I could meet other people in person who were like me. Since that time I've only had autistic friends and the number of them has grown. I love the way things are in that regard.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

New Threads

Top Bottom