misjudging friendships

[Alan tm]

I feel I'm trying to be friends but I get nothing back ,
I think I just seem annoying.

I'm trying to be friendly . I end up with an empty mail box and by myself .

I'm ok if people want things fixing or technical advice but even then I'm giving more info than they want and they get bored .

I dont want to seem like a stalker but I'm getting quite rubbish feed back

 

[Sozdatelniza]

Same.
I think I have a difficult personality. When I want to talk to potencial friends it often turns out they want to talk with more social active people. And so vice-versa - when I want to be alone I later get a feeling I lost my chance to impove relationships with my friends.

I'm a pure introvert and I need to be left alone everyday for at least a few hours. Nevertheless they might think I don't want to talk to them because something is wrong with THEM even though it's not true at all.

I feel unexplainable guilt after all that. I tried to improve this issue by trying to be more social active. It ended up by getting more exhausted and stressed though.

I wish I could give you an advice to this situation but the problem is I don't really know what advice would be more helpful.

Perhaps you could learn to find friend with same interests (it's quite not easy even if you know what your interests are) and to tell about youself so much as possible. Telling about your special traits either.

But it can happen that telling about your diagnosis could ruin your friendship. One friend from St. Petersburg with Asperger's experienced that. Obviously it depends on which country you live and how much people are informated about autism. I know that in every country are some people who are thinking "autism=imbecile". Thus they don't want nothing to do with autists.

 

[Suzanne]

When I stopped wanting and searching, I discovered a couple of friends. But both are like me, so that makes it much easier.

It seemed always fighting against the tide, with making friends. A sense of needed to grab a piece of their cloth, in order for them to not flitter away!

I might get one letter or phone call and immediately think I have a friend for life and then that tide again, because it was always: why are they not contacting me? Have I done something wrong?

One of my sisters, who is 2 year's younger than me, has the ability to make friends and when ever we went away, she would be crowded with girls and boys around her and it was at the end of the holiday, that I discovered a potential friend, but had no idea how to keep it up and so there have been: many potential friends, that are "floating around" lol

Finding out about aspergers have been a truly carthatic moment for me. Answers so many questions of my struggles in life and probably why I have some female friends I feel just about ok around.

 

[Progster]

I don't know what people think of me, but I don't find it easy to make friends. I think that people find me boring because I have no or little social chit chat, I'm not always smiling and joking and bantering that friendships seem to require you to do. In a group, I can't join in the conversation, and just switch off after 10 minutes if the conversation isn't interesting to me. I'm way too serious most of the time, no nothing about pop culture and so have nothing to talk to them about, so I'm just boring and so I'm not people's first choice when it comes to inviting round or soicialising.

 

[Thinx]

Yes bit like @Progster although I can banter a bit and have an off beat sense of humour that sometimes works for me. Depends how much my social deficits have already influenced people maybe or how intolerant of difference they are. Hard to care in a way because I am not often getting anything from such interactions but on the other hand the judgemental attitudes for non participation can be unpleasant.

 

[Bolletje]

I think the problem with many Aspies is unintentionally coming on too strong when trying to make friends. So the message you're getting across, instead of the intended "hey, I'm a friendly and interesting person, you should get to know me.", will be more like "LOVE ME! I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOUR SIDE!". I had to really learn to dose my enthusiasm and reaching out, I still slip up sometimes though.

 

[Alan tm]

Thanks that's all very handy information.

I have very little or at least I have a focused interests that bore people because it's not very inclusive, that doesn't help .

People say do normal things , take up something accepted .
But I have no interest.in those. Zzzzz

I try to make friends outside of interests but then they have nothing in common .

As said above, I get a friend and think it's going to be a long term thing but they just fade fast . I'm to helpfull. I thought that would be a good thing.

Seems nobody has time to interact. I thought AS types were the odd ones
But really its NT who are quite weird ?

 

[Otenba]

I think the problem with many Aspies is unintentionally coming on too strong when trying to make friends. So the message you're getting across, instead of the intended "hey, I'm a friendly and interesting person, you should get to know me.", will be more like "LOVE ME! I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOUR SIDE!". I had to really learn to dose my enthusiasm and reaching out, I still slip up sometimes though.

This sounds like me too. The enthusiasm just seems to intimidate people and so scare them away.

It might not help a lot, but I found this lady's breakdown of the "levels of friendship" helpful, because if you know someone isn't at the friendship level, you know to keep the enthusiasm on the low when dealing with them:

It is sad we have to make accommodations for others, but I guess it's just more for the pile that already exists.

 

[Sabrina]

I think the problem with many Aspies is unintentionally coming on too strong when trying to make friends. So the message you're getting across, instead of the intended "hey, I'm a friendly and interesting person, you should get to know me.", will be more like "LOVE ME! I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOUR SIDE!". I had to really learn to dose my enthusiasm and reaching out, I still slip up sometimes though.

It took me my whole life to learn this. I take it easy now, I have a couple of new friends in real life and another couple of old friends that I keep contact with through text (they live far away).

With my new friends I have to dosify my enthusiasm too. Otherwise I end up doing everything they want to do and not what I want, having bad consequences in my time management and my sense of accomplishment.

 

[Bella Pines]

I think the problem with many Aspies is unintentionally coming on too strong when trying to make friends. So the message you're getting across, instead of the intended "hey, I'm a friendly and interesting person, you should get to know me.", will be more like "LOVE ME! I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOUR SIDE!". I had to really learn to dose my enthusiasm and reaching out, I still slip up sometimes though.

Agree with @Sabrina, this captures it in a nutshell.

Some of the best advice I ever received was "A little of you, goes a long way".

We interrogate people, we are too direct too soon and we analyse the situation. Am I getting anything back, are friendship parameters being met, what is the status of this relationship, how does this compare to my previous human interactions?

So I would always say, dial it back. Get comfortable in your own skin, exist happily alongside people and it will sort itself out.

 

[Alan tm]

This sounds like me too. The enthusiasm just seems to intimidate people and so scare them away.

It might not help a lot, but I found this lady's breakdown of the "levels of friendship" helpful, because if you know someone isn't at the friendship level, you know to keep the enthusiasm on the low when dealing with them:

It is sad we have to make accommodations for others, but I guess it's just more for the pile that already exists.

I didn't think this would be any use but it was quite an eye opener.
I also said to someone to night ..I'm a fixer