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Why is it that friends hardly ever contact me first?

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dspoh001

Well-Known Member
I am feeling frustrated because it seems to me that friends don’t reach out to me if I don’t reach out to them first. What’s a reasonable expectation for someone to reach out to you instead of you having to text them and trying to start a conversation that way? I hope that question makes sense. If not, let me know and I’ll try to rephrase it.
 
I know how you feel; literally no one ever really talks to me of the very few IRL friends that I have
 
Ah, this is something I have a lot of experience in. Note these are MY experiences, and cannot speak for every person.

These are what I call "fair weather friends" (not sure if I even use that right?) they are the friends that forget you exist until either you contact them or they fall out with other friends and know they can come to you because you will open your arms to them, then soon as they make up with their real friends you're forgotten again. They use you.

This is what most of my "friendships" have been, and now I am aware of what is happening, I just don't bother with them anymore.

I have a small circle of friends (2 people, really... more like a small line...) that will contact me as much as I do them, and make time for me. They don't forget I exist for months at a time.
 
I have the same issue.

But to be fair I think this is my responsibity, I mean, I only talk for myself so I dont know if you can relate to this but :

I am prone to isolate myself a lot.

Each year I basically spend months without contacting them anymore. I always have a place in the group and coming back always feels like I have left only yesterday.

But I guess they stoped trying to reach out for me anymore , many times they tried and got basically no response for weeks/months , so i guess they question the fact of me being their friend, I dont know if they understand that outside of them I know no one else. Maybe they think I just meet other people and moved away, it happens a lot. But this isnt my case.
 
Most of my contact with other people is like this, in fact, I wouldn't describe them as friends, but as acquaintances. It's because you are peripheral, outside their social circle, and not on their immediate social radar. Most people don't actually have that many friends, most have just one or two that they talk to on a regular basis, and the vast majority are acquaintances or peripheral friends.
 
Yep, similar situations myself. I think it comes down to others just having a bigger social circle than I - or we - have. Therefore they have less time to initiate contact with people in general. That's how I choose to perceive it as, which I think it a reasonable presumption. If I don't think of it like that then I just sink into a mire and that's not helpful to me.
 
I have it as well. I think people have busy lives and that's why they don't respond to you or contact you before you contact them.
 
So I have some friends who just never seem to initiate contact. It's always me messaging them. At school it's a mutual hello, but they never seem to text "hey, wanna hang out?". But they do want to when I ask them. (Except for this one person, but I could write a book about the misunderstanding I have for her.)

I mean, why don't they suddenly ask to hang out? Am I just not on their mind unless I force it onto them by messaging them? Do they not want to say no to me?

I would ask them, but I feel like they would just think I'm overly clingy.


Another possibility might be that they think that I never want to talk to them, because I can sometimes be a little bit distant from people. Although then again, when they say hi, I'll definitely reply.

What should I do?
 
People have different levels of friendship. Some friends may be considered not as close to them as other friends, thus they don't really initiate any contact.
 
This was my experience all through school and I rarely got invited to social events organised by my classmates. I don't know a solution to this except to keep trying.
 
I don't even think this is necessarily an issue that concerns you personally. My husband, who is NT, and I have friends (NTs) that live virtually 5 minutes away from us and sometimes they won't respond to texts or anything for weeks at a time. Cancel plans, etc. We only have 2 friends that really seem to be excited to come see us every time they can. I think people are lazy lol
 
It could be as you said that they might think you’re not interested in the activity because of the distant response you might give sometimes. (FYI I am terrible at expressing excitement in activities too. I can’t tone enthusiasm)

It can also be this generation’s indifferent attitude to everything. Like they’re just indifferent to everything except their phones and everything else is “whatever!” My nephew, 13 and NT, sits at home all day gaming in his room. If someone asks him to come out to do something he’s up for it. The answers usually are “k” “cool” “whatevs”, just playing it cool. Sometimes he wants to go watch a movie and his friends are all waiting on that one person who will initiate it, because it’s “so desp” to ask first.
 
I used to think it was the way I communicated that made people not talk to me much. If that is the case I feel much more comfortable in it being so, because I don’t have to struggle to not be misunderstood by these people.

Out of my friends are the people who know how frequent we can be with each other. It’s 3 people. I don’t talk to the, every day. Sometimes weeks and months go by and either one of us will send a text because we thought about the other or saw something that reminded us of the other. Then we do a small catch up. Other times we contact each other on subjects we know only the other one will understand.
 
On a good day, I tell myself that people have different roles in a friendship. So it's the other person's role to do most of the talking, particularly the witty banter and entertaining anecdotes, as I know I'm not able to do any of that stuff. What I can do is the boring admin stuff - eg initiating contact and arranging events - which a lot of people either don't get round to or don't want to take responsibility for.

But on a bad day, it still gets me down - particularly when the people I've organised a day / night out for go and organise something else with other friends without inviting me, which happens a lot!
 
I agree that, for me at least, a lot of this has to do with personal isolation.

My partner is EXTREMELY social to the point that it looks like magic to me. The biggest difference I see from living with someone like this is that he contacts people EVERY DAY. He loves to talk to and meet new people and others respond to that. When he wants to do something, they are down with it. And if his friends don't respond, he does not take it as personal rejection because he is secure in his friendships.

I, on the other hand, find that kind of constant contact to be a lot of pressure and, frankly, exhausting. I am not a fan of talking just for the sake of it. What if I only want to talk to you every three months? I guarantee those moments together will be meaningful and special.

But that's not how the NT world works. If you only call up people when YOU want them, they will do the same to you - and that feels hollow.

I only learned I was aspie less than a year ago and am also struggling with how to develop meaningful relationships that I can also be comfortable with. I'll let you know how it goes.
 
Zuliac said:
I agree that, for me at least, a lot of this has to do with personal isolation.

My partner is EXTREMELY social to the point that it looks like magic to me. The biggest difference I see from living with someone like this is that he contacts people EVERY DAY. He loves to talk to and meet new people and others respond to that. When he wants to do something, they are down with it. And if his friends don't respond, he does not take it as personal rejection because he is secure in his friendships.

I, on the other hand, find that kind of constant contact to be a lot of pressure and, frankly, exhausting. I am not a fan of talking just for the sake of it. What if I only want to talk to you every three months? I guarantee those moments together will be meaningful and special.

But that's not how the NT world works. If you only call up people when YOU want them, they will do the same to you - and that feels hollow.

I only learned I was aspie less than a year ago and am also struggling with how to develop meaningful relationships that I can also be comfortable with. I'll let you know how it goes.
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Same here. Friendships need to be cultivated and nutured, and I just don't do that... I just feel pressured. I'm also not much of a talker and don't talk or contact people unless I have something to say. I see my partner or my mum who are very sociable, talk to their friends every day and for hours, and I can't understand how they manage to find things to talk about for so long - I can't find things to say.
 
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