I seem to have made a friend, then they're suddenly gone

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Indeed there's not much that can be done when someone turns against you, unless you're lucky enough to have a mutual friend who is both willing and able to step in and be a peacemaker.

When I say we need people to be more patient, I mean not being the kind of person who abruptly turns against other people, in the first place.

As you wrote later:


Unfortunately, this is a big general societal problem. It's not just your personal bad luck.

Modern Western society has made a lot of progress in reducing (though not eradicating) some specific kinds of prejudices (e.g. against people of color and against LGBTQ+ people). But there has been very little if any progress against the more general problem of prejudice, i.e. people jumping to conclusions about other people.

If anything, the more general problem of prejudice may have gotten worse, due to a combination of (1) lots of popular advice in favor of relying on one's gut feelings and (2) today's social media, where people can easily encounter literally millions of other people, which leads people to feel that they needn't waste even a millisecond on anyone with whom they have even the slightest disagreement, or who seems even slightly "off."

Obviously, the general problem of prejudice has a far worse impact on autistic people than on people in general. But, IMO, it's bad for people in general too.

What's needed is a big cultural change. We can incrementally help bring it about by discussing this issue with at least some of the people we know and by making mutual pacts, with any friends we manage to make, to be patiently assertive with each other. (See this list of links to tutorials on how to be assertive without being aggressive.)

One thing I've noticed about my own personal life: Although I'm not of Jewish background myself, the vast majority of my friends, over the years, have been of Jewish background. I think this is because Jewish culture, unlike contemporary Western culture in general, specifically encourages people to resolve their issues with each other, at least within their own community. Observant Jews have an annual ritual of apologizing to each other and resolving conflicts during the days between Rosh Hoshanah and Yom Kippur. And backstabbing gossip (Lashon hara or rechilut) is considered a grave sin.

So, it's possible to have a culture in which people resolve their problems with each other. This is something the modern Western world needs to learn.

Thanks for your helpful comments

I think we're getting a bit confused with all the quotes. The 2 people were Skinny Elephant's comment.

I'm so often the weirdo in the group that I'm used to it now.

I agree with you, I've decided to do things on my own now and just do that instead. If it means I do everything alone from now on, so be it!

What you say here hits the nail on the head:

people can easily encounter literally millions of other people, which leads people to feel that they needn't waste even a millisecond on anyone with whom they have even the slightest disagreement, or who seems even slightly "off."

I've noticed that a lot in today's world of social media. Friends are very temporary and can be made and discarded at will in a second. Unless someone has a BIG personality, lots of followers, provides excitement and fun 24/7, it's hard to be noticed at all, let alone befriended.

And because people have sooooo many online friends, they don't bother with offline friends.

It's impossible.

The only answer would be to switch off the internet, I'm afraid. Make people go back to having real life friends. Where quiet introverts are seen as nice people to befriend, not too boring to be friends with.

Switching off the Internet just ain't going to happen (unless some massive disaster destroys the entirety of modern human civilization, of course).

What might help would be a renaissance of old-fashioned message boards like Wrong Planet, devoted to specific topics, moderated by teams of volunteers, well-organized enough to make good moderation feasible, and without the ability of individual users to block other users except to block private messages.

IMO, the biggest advantage of forums like Wrong Planet is that people do get practice talking to people they have disagreements with, because they can't take the lazy way out and just block other users.

In order for a revival of old-fashioned message boards to happen, there needs to be wider public recognition of the problem of interpersonal laziness due to over-reliance on today's major social media.

I wouldn't be surprised if the internet either goes down, or becomes 'pay only' for rich people.

I agree about message boards! I love message boards compared to social media for all the reasons you list. Moderated boards are much better than unmoderated social media.

Once I got a message from a 'friend' on social media calling me sh1tty this, sh1tty that, for something I'd said. I didn't have any idea what it was, she didn't say but just blocked me. So I was mystified then and still am 6 years later! She could have stated what I'd said and asked what I meant, but as you say, interpersonal laziness took over

btw what you said about Jewish people focusing on forgiving and sorting out problems with each other was very interesting. I also grew up knowing a lot of Jewish people, maybe that's why there was a nice community feeling when I was little.

I am sure most societies in the past were the same because most communities were small and everyone depended on each other to survive. So they had to sort out any major problems or they could end up dying. I know for example that Norse society had regular meetings to sort out any problems in public. People had a disagreement and the community decided what to do about it all together.

What on Earth leads you to believe that this is at all likely to happen?


Other religions can create a nice community feeling too. That's one of the social functions of religion. But, for whatever reason, Judaism seems to be better at it than Christianity, perhaps because it's more formalized in Judaism, and perhaps also because of the long history of Jews being a persecuted minority, giving Jews more of a sense of needing to rely on their community for survival.


Yep.

The important question, to me, is what it will take to give most modern Westerners more of a sense of community than most of us now have.

I think the modern Western world (and perhaps the rest of the modern world too?) is in process of fragmenting into lots of small international subcultures. This was already starting to happen before the Internet era. The rise of the Internet accelerated this trend.

I think the fragmentation is necessary in order for people to have a sense of community. It's hard to have a sense of community with the whole world, and most people in today's world don't have enough in common with their neighbors to have much of a sense of community with them either.

I believe that fragmentation into lots of small international subcultures is necessary, but not sufficient, to give people a sense of community in today's internationally-connected world. Unfortunately, too many of today's "communities" exist primarily on social media platforms which are intrinsically not conducive to a sense of community at all, but instead encourage people to regard other people as utterly disposable.

So the problem is how to get more people to recognize the value of platforms (such as message boards) that are more capable of instilling a sense of community.

Granted, people have a lot of online friends in the age of social media (and granted, you live in a different country than me). However, as far as I can tell, normies have continued having vibrant in-person social lives (even in the age of social media), at least in the USA.

Thanks for catching that. I was going to point it out. But I see you beat me to it.

As for that poster's hypothesis that my 2 former "friends" I mentioned were using me, I can't imagine what they could have possibly been using me for. I was a college student (at the time) with hardly anything to my name.

I'm under the impression they only pretended to be my friend because, due to the fact that we shared several friends, we were often in scenarios where we had to be around each other.

I guess none of us will ever know the 100% explanation of why they pretended to be friends with me though.

The internet is very precarious. All it would take is an EMP from somewhere e.g. the sun, and BOOM it's all gone. Or a rich, greedy, power crazed organisation to decide that monetising sites is the best way for the internet to continue, convince everyone else, and take over the internet. BOOM, gone!

Everything is being monetised now, the internet will surely be next. Did you see that Elon Musk tried to take over Twitter? If someone like that got hold of social media, paid subscriptions would happen in an instant. People can't afford those now days so most of us would be excluded.

I know very little about religion as I was brought up as an atheist.

I'm at the point now when I think the only thing that would bring people together in communities would be an alien invasion!?! Or the removal of the internet, which would force people to turn to their neighbours and local events again.

You're right. 'Normies' have gone on as before. It seems to be us 'Aspies' that get excluded, because we're 'a bit weird.' I'm not sure what the answer to that is.

haha I'm an editor and proofreader. It's my job to catch mistakes like that.

It's hard for us to know why people are and aren't our friends. I guess that's why we find it so hard to connect with people who aren't autistic

I've read awful stories of autistic girls at school who have been gaslighted by popular girls and led to believe they are popular, only to find it was all a sick joke and done for a laugh. Extreme cruelty. I'm very lucky that I'm so suspicious of people that I didn't get caught out like that! I hung around with the 'loser' crowd at school so we were all in the same boat

Wow can't believe that

What part can't you believe? I need more information

Well-said. I guess I'm skeptical of the idea that social media has significantly changed the dynamic of friendship. Normies have done well in the friend department both before and after social media. Those of us on the spectrum have struggled both before and after social media.

I remember these 2 high school classmates offering to be friends with me. I'd describe them as burnouts. They weren't necessarily part of the cool preppy crowd. But they weren't seen as uncool either.

My mom forbade me to be friends with them. She insisted they were playing a prank on me. Maybe they were; maybe they weren't. But I was not pleased with my mom. When I have/had a hard enough time making friends to begin with, it hurts to be told some of the few people who express interest in being my friend are pranking me (I should add: My mom didn't even know these 2 classmates)

When it came to dating (both during my teen years and my young adulthood), my mom did the same thing. She'd tell me any girl who expresses interest in me is pranking (or otherwise scamming) me.

I understand those of us on the spectrum are more prone to getting pranked. But that doesn't mean the whole world wants to prank us.

Thanks.

On the other hand, I do know a lot of lonely people online who say they have no friends in real life, and struggle to make any friends. But maybe they're Aspies too?

I think in the past when people lived in small communities for generations with their families and all knew and understood each other, that must have been easier for Aspies. 'Oh you know what my cousin's son is like, he talks about trains a lot.' People just accepted 'eccentricities.'

Also in the past, most communities had very strict social rules. Now days, everything is fluid with lots of different expectations and subtle meanings so Aspies don't have a clue what to do, we're floundering.

I'm calling us Aspies because it's shorter, btw!