Bit it feels like he doesn’t care

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I know it’s wrong. . . . I know it’s my stupid NT mind at odds with his Aspie brain . . .. . . But why does it FEEL to me that he doesn’t care . . . .. and why do I mind so much. . . . Nobody else not even men I’m in a relationship with make me feel as insignificant as my friend does often. . . . .and yet I KNOW he has no intention to do this . . . .

I think you know the answer to that......

I see your frustration----but I don't believe a resolution to your satisfaction is forthcoming.

He is the way he is.

I believe you understand that most of the time----but that you don't care for that state of affairs (understandable), and therefore seek a change.

I just get frustrated and come on here to vent. I do understand really. . .. .

Are things going any better between the both of you?

I have absolutely nothing to offer, except that I feel exactly the same way. It hurts. A lot. It's been months since I've had any contact with my aspie friend. I miss him terribly to the point of crying. And I don't think he cares not one little bit. I don't think I'll ever see or hear from him again. The reason I'm responding is because one of the things that triggered his departure from my life was me telling him how hurt I was that he made it seem like he didn't care and that he made me feel like I didn't matter to him at all. There doesn't seem to be any amount of understanding Asperger's that takes away that hurt. I have nothing else to offer.

inhere, I have a friend on facebook I haven't seen in person for 20 years. And when I saw him 20 years ago, it was sporadically, we are both really just friends from middle school. So really our friendship goes back over 30 years ago. I didn't contact him, but I still always looked back at that time way back when and considered him a friend.

Autistic people don't necessarily require contact in order to consider a friendship a friendship. They look at a friendship in a very linear way. If somebody tells me their my friend and than we don't have contact for three years, I still consider them a friend. I'll still be there when they need it. However, I would not know what to do for those three years to maintain that friendship. I literally can't come up with an example of what I'd do to maintain that friendship. I mean seriously, if I contacted a friend, what exactly would be the reason I'd come up with? It seems like NTs sort of make stuff up, they sort of find that gray area where they find some reason to be in contact and than the other NT sort of knows what the first NT is up to and responds to it with encouragement. If somebody showed up at my doorstep with a contrived reason for contacting me, even if they were a friend, I'd be genuinely confused.

When you told your Aspie friend that you were hurt, he either thought that "the gig" is up and you were ending the friendship and giving him the reason why. Or, he simply didn't know how to respond. I doubt he didn't care about the friendship, he's just not able to maintain the friendship. He's going to need you to come up with the scenarios, and when you come up with the scenarios for meeting each other, you better make them pretty freakin obvious.

I encourage you to contact your friend and try to meet him. C'mon, your the NT, get creative. If you ain't creative, Lord knows us autistics aren't, at least not when it comes to that.

Anngable's situation is different. She knows better how to navigate the aspie world. I'm curious if you told your friend about how you felt and how he reacted. Because mine acts offended at any hint of expressing closeness...

And recently I did send him a simple email that only said happy birthday. He did not respond. I didn't really expect him to. But I remember his birthday and I wanted him to know that I did. Once I sent a different friend a simple happy birthday message and he responded that he appreciated it so much because his own parent did not remember to wish him happy birthday and he was glad someone remembered. So there you go. I'm sure that this was somehow offensive to my aspie friend though. Like it's too personal. My aspie friend did not remember my birthday, which is very close to his. I did not expect that he would.

In Anngable's situation, it seems more like her friend cares, at least at times he does, but that he does not know what to do or how to express that. He seems to do things from time to time that make her feel bad and he doesn't get it, like treating other people he is supposedly less close to better than he treats her. He doesn't seem to get that this would hurt someone. But with my friend, he is just entirely put off by me expressing that I cared for him. He was afraid of that or afraid of me. He hates me now and has even said to other people that he has no intention of making contact with me any time soon. That is not a case of just not knowing what do say or do. I'll never understand it. I mean I really really don't get what is going on there. It hurts a lot and even if he did magically make contact one day I don't even know how I would react. I am not angry at him. I'm just hurt. If I cried or said that or did anything other than pretend that nothing ever bothered me, he'd get angry again.

Also, I don't think NTs "make up" reasons or contrive things. I might just contact someone and say that I was thinking about them and wanted to check in or see how they were doing. And that is what I would say and that is what I would mean. I have a few friends that I occasionally ping like that. I would appreciate knowing that someone was thinking of me if it were reversed. It doesn't matter why and they don't need a reason to contact me. Just caring is enough, and just hearing that someone does is enough. But the same thing directed at my aspie friend is offensive apparently. In other situations, sometimes I haven't talked to an NT friend in a long time but something in life reminds me of them. Like my former college football team got beat bad by another friend's former college football team....so I emailed that friend and just made some wise crack about how that was not cool. He replied with a similar wise crack clearly indicating he was amused, and that was it. No frills. Just a quick ping because I thought of him.

And I know what Anngables is talking about. An aspie can really truly make you feel like you are dirt to them. That may or may not be their intention, but there seems to be a common theme that this is how an NT feels on the other side. That is why I said no amount of understanding and knowing that there is a reason they behave like they do matters if it doesn't change how you feel when they treat you that way. You cannot control that, and you cannot lower your expectations for that. Someone says something (or doesn't!) and you feel how you feel as a result. And it hurts.

Oh, and the last contact I had with my apsie friend was me asking him to get together since it had been a while since we saw each other. He said really mean things in response. And also, one of the big issues here is that for a long time my apsie friend DID make me feel like we were close and that he did care. But then when I expressed that I cared back it was like he was angry and he acted like we almost never knew each other, or that he had no idea why I would have considered that we were close in the first place....made me feel like our friendship was all imagined in my own head but that it never existed in his world. OMG that hurts.

Was there something specific that happened with your friend? Or just general neglect of friendship?

Imhere, your friend could be afraid of rejection. When you expressed that you cared for him, it may have been what he wanted to hear, but it might have frightened him. Sorry that happened to you. If I'm honest with myself, I'm guilty of similar things with the some friends and acquaintances I had in the past.

If its an consolation, I'm sure your (former) Aspie friend has had his share of rejection and hurt, and if he lives longer will continue to do so.

I don't want him to feel rejection and hurt. I care for him and don't want him to have pain. On the contrary, I wish for him to have comfort and peace. I don't think he was afraid of rejection. I think he never cared but I just thought he did. Because he acted like he did. But I don't think he was aware that he was acting like a person who cared because he doesn't know what that looks like either. It's like opposite. Anngables friend seems like he cares but doesn't act like it. I think my friend acted like he cared unknowingly but really he didn't.

I guess I always have trouble reading about NTs having so much difficulty with Aspies treating them poorly, whether intentionally or not. It just isn't like an autistic person to act like they care only to later say they don't care. I guess the behavior doesn't make sense to me. I agree, it seems like you should move on.

So what happened Anngables?

And Aspiesingledad, the issue was that we had a professional relationship that was coming to an end. We were close in that domain, very close. At least I thought so, and so did everyone else around us. I also thought we would carry on a friendship in a personal domain when we no longer would be working together. My efforts at trying to cultivate a personal friendship after that were taken as a romantic come on, which I think he found distasteful. I tried to explain it to him, but he ghosted me in return. The up and down of not knowing at all where I stood with him up to that point was maddening. He was so kind but then also so cruel. The only constant was that I cared. Doesn't matter. I know I'll never hear from him again, and I'll feel that loss and hurt, and frankly, he won't ever care, which of course makes it hurt more. It feels so cold and heartless and empty. I gave so much just to be crapped upon.

How did things turn out Anngables? Any better?

I have an aspie friend like yours. It took me years to realise that he cares. He keeps coming back, he gets in touch, he even gave me a gift, very not like him, and the following moments he is mean and rude and ignores me. Sometimes I just wished him to go to hell and leave me alone but I learnt a lot about myself too, how I overreact, how I have catastrophic thinking sometimes.
But because he keeps coming back that's how I know he cares. He doesn't talk to people he doesn't trust and like.
I thought I'd share this.

Hi people thanks for the replies. . . . .have been in a bit of a bad place recently. I have been very depressed. Lots of very sad things in my life and it all became a bit much. I reached out to my friend for emotional support which turned out to be a bad idea. It appeared (from my side of the story) to send him into a complete meltdown about my neediness,and me making him feel,suffocated. How I wanted more from him than he wanted. He didn’t want a close friendship, a special friendship just a plain ordinary friendship. He then continued telling me all my faults and things I had done that had upset him over the past 3yrs. . . . .

The problem I have is a) I respect his right to have grievances and to need to tell me about things I have done he has found upsetting
But b) I have no right of reply . . If I try to explain why I reacted in a particular way he states I am putting all the blame on him
C) deciding the time is right to let your close friend know all their faults one by one, when they are severely depressed is not (in my opinion) particularly kind
D) if I try to put my point of view he threatens to block me! Which immediately means there is no ability to have a 2 way conversation.

After this meltdown had occurred and throughout it also. I kept saying “I hear you and I am sad that I have upset you. It appears that you don’t like me as a person very much, and that our friendship is over, please do not continue constantly berating me.
His answer to that is always “those are your words not mine, and you bring this on yourself”

These exchanges were all over messenger, so I stated I wasn’t prepared to argue over text anymore . . .that if he wanted to meet face to face so he could remember who I actually am . . His caring funny friend (although often annoying). then that was fine but otherwise I wasn’t going to answer anymore.
He immediately said yes let’s meet

I asked for a little time, as I was feeling so hurt. . .

We eventually met up 2 weeks after the big argument
We had a very nice day. Nothing was mentioned about the argument
But the trouble is I now feel very wary.
It literally felt like being hit in the face repeatedly when he was constantly berating me.
I couldn’t defend myself without it becoming a really nasty situation so I just agreed and apologised (I’m not disputing that he had the right to some of his grievance, but I often had a just reason from my perception)

Now I feel like I can’t trust him, I will hold at arms length. I think maybe that is what he wants.
I still find it so difficult how he meets someone once in the street and considers them his friend . . .. and someone who has consistently been there for him he seems to see as the enemy a lot of the time.

I am weary.. . . .. when I am feeling disillusioned it feels like he only wants me to continue being a part of my crowd of friends, and because I will drive us to many things (he doesn’t drive) but maybe I am doing him a disservice.

I continue to respect him greatly and will always care but I’m not sure where our friendship goes from here .