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Anngables
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11 Aug 2017, 11:20 pm

You're right Kraftie . . .. I do enjoy the challenge . . .. . .but it's a challenge I will never win I know that. Knowing and really believing that he cares for me is the crux of the problem, as I think is the crux of majority of NT - ND relationships, whether strong friendships or romance.



The_Face_of_Boo
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12 Aug 2017, 12:56 am

Anngables wrote:
Blackimenace and this is exactly what I try to do . . . .now if I were as ignorant as my friend I would believe her . . .i don't if you read carefully . . .. however this is the crux of the problem, and always will be.

We continue to find our way forward. . . .. and I'm still here and all the time he reaches out to me, and lets me know he wants our friendship it will continue. . . . . I still worry he will forget about me at some point for too long a time and we will have drifted apart. . .. .



Then what's the problem? Honestly you're not making any sense.

Anyway, friendships may drift part, it happens in life, not just a AS/NT thing.



The_Face_of_Boo
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12 Aug 2017, 1:05 am

Btw, friendships between males, even between NT males lack all these "emotions" you are talking about.

NT Men don't share emotions between them as well.

Norah Vincent discovered that in her 18 months experiment living as a man in disguise, but she did discover that men do open up emotionally to women way more often, but never to other men.

OP, maybe he just treats you like a male friend. lol



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12 Aug 2017, 1:35 am

The_Face_of_Boo wrote:
Btw, friendships between males, even between NT males lack all these "emotions" you are talking about.

NT Men don't share emotions between them as well.

Norah Vincent discovered that in her 18 months experiment living as a man in disguise, but she did discover that men do open up emotionally to women way more often, but never to other men.

OP, maybe he just treats you like a male friend. lol


Not always true, but it's definitely more common among men to be emotionally repressed.



rdos
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12 Aug 2017, 2:08 am

imhere wrote:
You are not helping or contributing positively to this discussion rdos. The whole point is what we, as NTs, feel when trying to be friends with an aspie that we care about and how that leaves us feeling unfulfilled and we don't know what to do.


OK, that's at least a fair starting point. The problem with your take on this is that you don't want to listen to NDs about how they view friendships and relationships, and you assume it is all the fault of the ND that you feel unfulfilled, and you have no role in this. That kind of reasoning won't get you anywhere.

imhere wrote:
We do not want to be mere acquaintances, which is what you seem to say is our only option and we are to be happy with that because you say so. Just stop.


You fail to understand that people have no control of how and with whom they bond. You cannot just decide to get a strong emotional bond with somebody. It's outside of your control. And what I've been trying to tell you now multiple times is that NDs don't bond naturally with friends, only with love interests. This is not something you can learn, fake or cope with.

imhere wrote:
You do not understand, you misinterpreted most of what was said, you are a self-proclaimed expert on ND relationships, and you are pushing your own agenda into a NT/Aspie argument. No one wants to see that crap. We are all here and learning from each other. Some of the Aspies here have said they appreciate the NT perspective because it helps them understand where they may have had problems with NTs.


You fail to understand that I have a very popular test, and have researched these issues on large populations. I KNOW how attachment builds in NDs vs NTs, and I even have a paper on peer-review about that. While you are hearing the opinions of a few self-selected individuals on a forum, I base my claims on large populations.

imhere wrote:
And, by the way, NTs make up the vast majority of the population of the planet that all of us, NT and Aspie, have to interact with every single day of our lives! So you cannot live in a vacuum in a perfect ND-only space.


You don't need to get passed the acquaintance stage with your typical social contacts, like colleges and people you know from activities.



rdos
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12 Aug 2017, 2:41 am

Anngables wrote:
NT - NT friendships . .. . Ok so I have lots of friends . .. . .. a friend is someone I would arrange to meet with, we would have each other's telephone number, we know a fair amount about each other's personal life and we have interests in common.

I have different friends I do different things with . . . .so I have my party friends . . ..they will call me up and invite me to parties, or gatherings and we will go to festivals,together. We have fun and good times. Outside of these events we may contact each other sporadically just to check everything ok
I have work friends - these are colleagues I get on with well. So we will talk about issues in our lives, issues in work. We will have each other's phone numbers and may chat via whatsapp etc a fair bit

Long term friends . .. .friends I have known for many many years . .. . .we don't have to see each other very often of speak very often. We know we will always be there for each other. Some of my long term friends live in other countries so they will always contact me when they are over here, we will meet up and spend hours chatting as if we had only seen each other the day before. I consider these people true friends

Then we have a small collection of people whom i feel really "get" me they understand how I tick . .. . They can often see why I am doing something in a certain way before I realise. We can have really deep conversations about almost any subject. We share the same outlook and philosophy on life. These are the people I can feel completely comfortable with.

Not sure if that helps . .. .


Yes, that is similar to how I perceive many NTs have it.

I mostly have a few friends I'm cooperating with research-wise. We message each other's when we have read something and discuss research ideas. I also can ask them for full-text papers. I've been friends with a few of them for many years. It is not a tit-for-tat exchange, more like a completely altruistic exchange. I'm not emotionally bonded to any of them and we typically don't discuss private matters.

I know many NTs have friends to party with, but I really don't like partying. Still, one might say that my family has a few friends like that. It's mostly because our daughter had a crush on a guy at a shared activity, and now is close "friends" with him. Because of that, we actually go to a few parties, which usually are fun.

At work, I really don't have any real friends. The colleges are more like acquaintances, but a few of them tried to take it further without much success. I was not comfortable with that.



Anngables
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12 Aug 2017, 6:41 pm

The face of boo . . .. . We are going around in circles here .. . .. . The problem is what do I get from the friendship. It is all on his terms . . .. . I get less and less verification or signs of appreciation as time goes on . . .. . Yes friendships drift away . .. . . However the one thing he has adamantly said is that is not what he wants . . .that he does want me in his life. . . .and this is the crux of the problem and why AS has a name and actually exists . .. . .. Yes we CAN do ND type friendships but it is emotionally very difficult. . . .. . Our inbuilt mechanisms tell us we are being taken for granted, we are not cared for, we are being used. It is a constant fight against these emotions and feeling no matter how illogical they may feel to you.



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12 Aug 2017, 7:26 pm

^^^ this is the thing...I don't get into it because it feels pointless on here but it's wearing to read how ASD people need this, or that etc.
And it's up to the NT to accommodate. If they don't/can't... it's cos "they don't want to"...an NT is supposed to do whatever the ASD needs. There's no onus on the ASD individual. It all rests on the NT. If stuff fails it's cos the NT failed. Didn't understand. Wasn't understanding enough.

Being NT "is also a condition" with its incumbent requirements. We get overlooked on this entirely too much.



rdos
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13 Aug 2017, 3:34 am

boofle wrote:
^^^ this is the thing...I don't get into it because it feels pointless on here but it's wearing to read how ASD people need this, or that etc.
And it's up to the NT to accommodate. If they don't/can't... it's cos "they don't want to"...an NT is supposed to do whatever the ASD needs. There's no onus on the ASD individual. It all rests on the NT. If stuff fails it's cos the NT failed. Didn't understand. Wasn't understanding enough.

Being NT "is also a condition" with its incumbent requirements. We get overlooked on this entirely too much.


In general, I agree that people with ASD (and NDs) need to adapt/accommodate, but they already do this a lot because otherwise, you would not even get to know them, much less become friends with them. I think the best is if those that can most easily adapt do this, rather than demanding that things that are very hard to adapt should be changed. I think the friendship area is an area where NTs more easily can adapt.

To see why NDs have so much trouble in the friendship area, and why this is not easily fixed even among those that fly far above the diagnostic area you might study this Aspie Quiz evaluation based on 150,000 answers: http://www.rdos.net/eng/aspeval/l4, and in particular the related questions report: http://www.rdos.net/eng/aspeval/l4/rell4.htm

In particular:
93. Do you see your own activities as more important than other people's? (Aspie-score correlation: .45)
99. Will you abandon your friends if your activities or ideals clash? (Aspie-score correlation: .49)
103. Do you find it hard to be emotionally close to other people? (Aspie-score correlation: .57)
105. Has it been harder for you than for others to keep friends? (Aspie-score correlation: .64)

Then compare that to some relationship issues:
71. Have you experienced stronger than normal attachments to certain people? (Aspie-score correlation: .49)
76. Have people you formed strong attachments to taken advantage of you? (Aspie-score correlation: .48)
81. Do you have, or used to have, imaginary relationships? (Aspie-score correlation: .48)

What this shows is that NDs form strong attachments in the relationship area, but have much weaker (or even non-existent) attachments with friends. Of note is also that it is primarily infatuation and obsessive thoughts that builds the romantic attachment for NDs, unlike NTs that attach with dating (conversation, sex). Dating is pretty similar to hanging out with friends, so probably explains why friends and relationships are a lot more similar to NTs than to NDs.

There are few possible fixes for this. One is that NTs adapt more to NDs in friendships. The other is that NDs follow the relationship path and become actively polyamory (many NDs can have multiple romantic attachments). The downside of the latter approach is that romantic attachments are exclusive in the initial build-up phase for NDs, and thus they cannot pursue potential partners at the same time if they follow that path. Another downside is that the romantic attachment process typically takes years to build for NDs, so even if the polyamory path is followed, they would still have to be extremely picky with whom they do this with.

While I have researched the attachment process in relationships, it would be interesting to show that NDs don't attach to friends. I suppose there should be some instrument to measure attachments in friendships which can be used for that purpose.

Personally, I think the polyamory path has a lot of potentials, but I wouldn't do it with an NT, and I would expect it to be more like an asexual polyamory relationship than a close friendship.



Last edited by rdos on 13 Aug 2017, 3:54 am, edited 2 times in total.

The_Face_of_Boo
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13 Aug 2017, 3:40 am

Anngables wrote:
The face of boo . . .. . We are going around in circles here .. . .. . The problem is what do I get from the friendship. It is all on his terms . . .. . I get less and less verification or signs of appreciation as time goes on . . .. . Yes friendships drift away . .. . . However the one thing he has adamantly said is that is not what he wants . . .that he does want me in his life. . . .and this is the crux of the problem and why AS has a name and actually exists . .. . .. Yes we CAN do ND type friendships but it is emotionally very difficult. . . .. . Our inbuilt mechanisms tell us we are being taken for granted, we are not cared for, we are being used. It is a constant fight against these emotions and feeling no matter how illogical they may feel to you.



Then stop texting him at all; let's test him if he cares.



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13 Aug 2017, 9:32 am

Anngables wrote:
The face of boo . . .. . We are going around in circles here .. . .. . The problem is what do I get from the friendship. It is all on his terms . . .. . I get less and less verification or signs of appreciation as time goes on . . .. . Yes friendships drift away . .. . . However the one thing he has adamantly said is that is not what he wants . . .that he does want me in his life. . . .and this is the crux of the problem and why AS has a name and actually exists . .. . .. Yes we CAN do ND type friendships but it is emotionally very difficult. . . .. . Our inbuilt mechanisms tell us we are being taken for granted, we are not cared for, we are being used. It is a constant fight against these emotions and feeling no matter how illogical they may feel to you.


I'll be honest with you here. I'm a woman and I don't understand what you want. I don't feel like I need constant verification that my friends like me. We talk from time to time. We text from time to time. We meet up from time to time. We don't need every day contact with one another to know that we still like each other.

Sounds to me like you're in love with him and want a girlfriend boyfriend relationship with him and he doesn't want that. He just wants to be friends as in: you chat sometimes, you meet up sometimes, but you don't live in each other's pockets.



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13 Aug 2017, 11:12 am

I don't really see anything you need to worry about.

You relate positively? Enjoy! That's what I'm into. There's no need to keep labeling every part of life all the time.


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Anngables
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13 Aug 2017, 5:59 pm

I do stop texting him . .. . He will text me usually 2 or 3 times a week.

We have had a day out today . . .. . Lovely as always.

I'm going to stop trying to explain my concerns on here. . . .because either I am really bad at explaining myself or you are misunderstanding me. However I do appreciate everybody's input.

Cberg I definitely become attached to my friends. Many are 30yr plus friendships. If I find someone I think really understands me I will fight tooth and nail to keep them in my life . . .. . .hence my Aspie friend situation. I have worked really hard at this friendship. I'm sure he has too in his own way if I'm honest.



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13 Aug 2017, 10:39 pm

I just feel like you're coming over as really possessive. Unfortunately no matter how much we personally like someone and no matter how much effort we put into a friendship that won't make another person feel the same way about us.

That's nothing to do with autism. Friendships change and fluctuate over time. Circumstances change. Things won't always stay the way we want them to.

Sometimes you just have to accept that and move on with your life.



rdos
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14 Aug 2017, 3:57 am

Just started an investigation of friend attachment using the Adolescence Friend Attachment Scale + questions about friendship type, duration and friend's gender, and already with a small sample it is pretty clear that many NDs confuse friendships and relationships, while few NTs do. Also, it seems like for NTs, the attachment score increases with duration, but not for NDs. Still, I'll run this for a few months to get a sufficient sample of perhaps 10,000 to 20,000 answers which I think is required to do a robust duration analysis and potentially mediation analysis too.

It's also pretty evident that most different gender friendships indeed are potential relationships, not friendships.



Anngables
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14 Aug 2017, 5:51 am

Hurtloam . . .. if I come away that way then I am misrepresenting myself because that is completely not the point. . . .. . .. . Anyways after all the insight on here we spoke yesterday. He is absolutely adamant that he values our friendship and would not want to lose me from his life. . . .. . .all is good. It is not about being possessive. It is about how difficult it is for an NT person to know or understand if someone who reacts emotionally in such a different way . . .actually wants them around or values them. I am willing to put in the 98% effort to maintain this friendship but he has to do his 2% part and it felt like that was slipping away.

And rdos that research sounds interesting look forward to hearing more. . .. .. I only speak from a very limited anecdotal perspective, but do you think any of the attachment issues ND folk experience come from bad childhood experiences- where they were treated badly by other children and often felt lonely?? Or do you think it is a neurological difference?