The Aspie "Group Friendship" Cycle

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I call this the Aspie "Group Friendship" cycle.

Stage 1) First few meetings: "Hi and Hello stage". People in a new group in a class, an organization, a job, etc. welcome you with handshakes and general good manners.

Stage 2) After a few weeks or months they are still friendly and civil to you but they are slowly suspecting that there's something not exactly 'right' about you. Sure everyone is different but there's something about you they can't put their finger on.

Stage 3) Months later and they start talking behind your back.: What's wrong with that guy/girl? Maybe he/she doesn't like us? Maybe he/she is a weirdo or anti - social?

Stage 4) Now it can go either way. Some become openly disrespectful or abusive. Others tend to keep it silent. They are not necessarily being mean or trying to ignore you. Some will be kind but feel as if the person they are talking to is like talking to a wall. Some will feel as if you don't care or you don't like them. Either way you will be treated differently.

Stage 5) As months and years go you become the outcast. Loneliness and depression set in. You feel like someone screaming in a bubble for human warmth and no one can hear you. At this point you may choose to stay or leave. If you leave the group and join a new one the cycle repeats again from stage 1. Of course for the lucky few, there might be someone there who tolerates differences and now you have a true friend who understands you.

True, I can relate myself to the above post very much.

Thanks for posting

Thats happened to me, but in all cases, I've kept at least 1 friend from each group. The group I'm now in consists mainly of people from my old groups. So I'm pretty happy with it.

I get what you're saying, but I think the 'Is there something wrong with her?' stage starts a bit earlier. This may be because I'm a teenager, so in a group of almost clone-like people, who notice even the smallest difference.

All the same, I think after stage three things can go in three ways: openly abusive, silent, or understanding.

I know the latter is probably the least likely to happen, but sometimes it does, and I think once one person is willing to give you a chance, more people will be.

Wherever you go, there will always be at least 2 people in a crowd that are intent on makeing things difficult for you.
They may be occasions where they're nice to your face on a 1 to 1 basis, as they have'nt back-up support should you decide to confront them.

I've suffered most of my working life with feeling like an outcast because of the way I am, often is the case those who may have given me a hard time end up suffering in some way.

For example; my former manager who was a nice enough bloke otherwise to "normal people" took the pleasure of making a fool out of me in front of my 4 co-workers on repeated occasions, I felt so humilated on many occasions & I almost walked out on my job, they'd only back him up if I claimed there were grounds for "constructive dismissal".

I had 2 years of working under him, then he was diagnosed with having multiple organ cancer & he died of this. - my co workers all attended his funeral , I did'nt , good riddance to him & a feeling of karma.

Make sure you can always change social groups at will.

I can relate to all of the stages except this one. I think that because Aspies don't create connections to the individual group members, if you stop being in contact with the whole group (e.g. if it is a group of people you see primarily at the same place school/work but you graduate/get a new job) then that's how you stop being in that group. People generally don't see Aspies as a real threat, so unless there is real bullying going on, they don't actively outcast them, they just don't keep up contact. That's from personal experience.

Yeah, that was me for the first 15 years of my life. Then I was able to find the right group of people to look for, and it's been all right ever since. I usually have a "mother hen" type included, for the purpose of self-awareness. That helps build up better social skills, leading to more options.

I could relate to this mostly as it was like that in elementary and middle school for me. I did feel depressed in middle school but was satisfied that I had some friends that stuck with me in those times (I recently found out one of them had AS ironically enough). I felt like I didn't exactly need other people in life although in high school currently I eventually worked through people I could be close to and found I could be happy with people after all.

damn double post.

Last edited by Sweetleaf on 25 Feb 2012, 11:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Unfortunately it kind of reminds me of this particular online aspie group....so I would hate to see how upset it would make me IRL.

Has someone upset you on this forum ?

Yes more than one person and more than once, I get kind of a double messege here.......I guess a lot of the time people are still rather helpful or at least civil and I get the messege I am not a terrible person and I'm not a waste and deserve to feel better about myself. But I have had people attacking me for having ongoing problems, being too depressed and essentially things I cannot very well change right now, posters who had no issue with me now do and well I feel kind of like an outcast here because of it.

But that is all the detail I am going into because I am sure the whole forum does not want to hear me complain about it yet a again, just figured it was relevant to say what was said in the OP applies to this group to me.

I can relate to this outside of my High School life.

Sadly. I get the silent treatment and I want them to know that I have autism (one actually knows but doesn't seem to try to help me fit in).

I kind of gave up and decided to do my own things.

lol, I know.....terrible, terrible, terrible, but I have every right to be

On a slightly more serious note though, can I be an optimistic pessimist, cause I can deal with 'crap sucks so I might as well make the best of it.' I just can't deal with 'everything will work out great.' because I get disappointed every time. Or maybe there is a better word for that than pessimism.

When I did my own thing people picked on me for that to... , maybe that explains my lack of hobbies.....I ended up thinking I either suck too much at things or that I had ridiculous/stupid interests.