Why do you find it hard to make and keep friends

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i dont know:/

I find this difficult to say but, I surmise it's due to may inabilities of not being able to relate to other people on a social level at time as well, I've not had a history of having long-term friendships and such.Still, i dfo try neverless but, I'm wrought with insecurities which just says,"Stay away from ProfessorX he's no use of a friend" Well, I try neverless..

So do I and I used to try not to, now I enjoy it because it isn't my problem so I don't have to fix it

Basically I don't put in the effort to contact people unless they contact me first. I dunno why I'm like this. I guess I just get caught up in my own imaginary world.

Luckily I have friends who actually try to hook up with me. Good on them.

I don't know:
1. Where to find
2. Which person choose, which not and WHY
3. What to tell them (Hey, I'm Valoy, I'm looking for friends?)
4. How to do it
5. About what should I talk
6. If I say too much or not
7. If I'm too pushy or avoiding
8. If they want to meet me or not
9. How to laugh and just talk
10. How to break my mental blockades that make me starchy

I know that some people find me boring, annoying and/or psycho. Many people think I'm better than others and I don't need anybody else.

I can't keep a conversation going, I'm too detail-oriented for most people, and I can't talk about clothes unless it is about a particular designer and not just dissing some other girl's jeans in order to improve social standing.

I forget to contact people, and have to spend so much time alone that class attendance or a full-time job can completely fill up my socialization quota.

I'm more aloof than anything else. I don't think I'd have difficulty making friends if I were to actually concentrate solely on that (which would have to include having someone else to do housework and such for me, because I'd need to spend about two hours a day socializing and that would take up all the energy I have); but it just takes so much effort and thought that it's ridiculous. I have enough background in psychology, sociology, and anthropology to navigate the social world; but it's a great deal more difficult than doing differential equations, and all in all, I'd rather do the math. You can take your time with math.

What I lack most of all is "social reciprocity". I don't really know when to initiate or return social interaction. I didn't know how to hold a conversation until I was about eight; now I forget to contact friends.

Looking back, everyone that I was friends with gave me a level of tension, or I even felt depressed hanging around them, because it never felt right, like friends were just against my nature, but on the other hand, I feel depressed that I have no one close to me. This could be all because everyone treated me like I was normal, not like I had something different with myself ie AS, or PD or whatever. I'm still reeling from not knowing what is going on. This is why I envy those that got diagnosised when they were young, found help, as was able to adjust themselves to their affliction.

+1
I'm not working right now, and class is over for the semester, so I am going through a rough patch of loneliness.

Otherwise, I would have to agree with everything everyone else has said:
- forgetting to call/ being too anxious to call
- feeling like it takes too much work to keep in touch
- not liking to chitchat/ hang out

I don't know:
1. Where to find
2. Which person choose, which not and WHY
3. What to tell them (Hey, I'm Valoy, I'm looking for friends?)
4. How to do it
5. About what should I talk
6. If I say too much or not
7. If I'm too pushy or avoiding
8. If they want to meet me or not
9. How to laugh and just talk
10. How to break my mental blockades that make me starchy


Dear Miss Valoyossa, I found a great similarity in what you have to say, as I can relate upon this points in a most accurate manner therefore, I'm glad to see I'm not the only person whom shows what gives them adversity for, I mean this sincerely not being sarcastic..

QFT!

I've been using the DE analogy for years, since it's so true. The problem I face with interaction is time-span: I just take too much time to evaluate a social situation and formulate the optimal response. I always realize too late what was really meant by a conversation point and what my response should have been. Forcing myself to be quick-witted just makes me sound idiotic. (My friends always quote my great blurted-out one-liners, like using "coin-op" instead of "arcade", etc.) Preparing lists of discussion points works well enough, but it takes far too much time for so little result, and conversations are far too dynamic to be fully modeled beforehand. If only I had a way to speed up my response time!
So, yes... I consider socialization to be an incredibly difficult optimal control engineering problem, only there's no math to do.

(BTW, I've found that the best time-span to use for contacting friends asynchronously is stochastic: wait a random time--between one hour and one month--between starting conversations. If you're too consistent you get boring. Randomize!)

Ok this is one I can answer. I used to be absolutely terrible and I mean TERRIBLE at making friends. I grew up for 41 years with no true friends at all NONE! I am medically diagnosed with High Functioning Autism but my social skills were anything but high functioning. My social skills were the lowest of the low in functioning. For 45 years of my life making friends was a sort of alchemy to me that made no sense at all. I watched endless streams of neurotypicals making friends and it looked like a magical process to me because; no matter how hard I tried to understand, I remained utterly clueless.

I did not make friends with people until I met a little Jewish man at work who taught me to make friends using humor. My friend taught me to use my weird autistic traits to develop my own brand of humor that makes people want to get to know me better. When I make people laugh and feel good about themselves they suddenly became happy to see me. Ask about their lives and children. Let people know you enjoy sharing with them. Build humor into your personality. Learn to read people so you know what kind of humor will appeal to them.

At first doing all these things and developing your own humorous nature will be the hardest thing you ever did. My being autistic made me very reclusive and shy. Going out attempting to make friends always made me feel like I was walking into the neurotypical world naked. Making friends forced are to share \ reveal much more of my intimate self I kept hidden. Making friends is about becoming vulnerable which as an autistic man I did NOT want to do.

Eventually with practice I developed a humor that many people love. Also none of my dearest friends are what you would call text book normal. I'm friends with the outcasts, bikers, artists, liberals, free thinkers but these friends love me and watch out for me as I do them. I've actually had a best friend for 3 years and counting something I've NEVER BEEN ABLE TO DO BEFORE.

Being autistic makes it hard to make and keep friends because; there is no strict structured road map or recipe to follow that leads to success at making friends. The ability to make and keep friends involves customizing yourself, your humor and your nature into a form that invites \ entices good people to experience your company. An autistic person has to have a very advanced understanding of both themselves and the neurotypical human social dynamic to build and keep lasting friendships. Just my two cents.

I'm terrible at this too and have been considering why.
1. One part I think is I am purpose oriented. I don't see the purpose in pointless chit chat about nothing so I don't do it. If someone is interacting with me, I assume there must be a utilitarian motive - I was recently very confused when someone asked me to a dinner saying they had to talk to me, then appeared to have no specific subject in mind. What was the point in asking me to talk when they didn't have anything really to talk about?
2. I also will not discuss my past, and whenever I get closer to anyone, they start to push this with me and it gets uncomfortable.
3. Alexithymia, I imagine, makes it difficult for both me and the other party. I don't feel affection and other people consider me not worth the effort if I don't. I'm split on this particular point. In a way it seems fair enough and I don't mind, but in another way it seems a shame that no one is willing to try having an alternative type of connection that may not be what they're used to, but may still be rewarding for everyone involved.

I too am very goal oriented. I also process the meanings of words literally in most cases. If a person says they would like to "talk" to me I say ok. Talk. Sometimes NT's say talk as if it implies having dinner or some otker situation not explicitly noted. My friends have learned not to use generalized social jargon with me. I have a friend that has a very nice expensive sports car. Sometimes he likes to take me out for a drive. He used to say hey lets go hang out. When what he really meant is lets go take a drive to wherever the road leads us. We will stop and get something to eat at whatever dining establishment is suitable in the moment. We might stop for ice cream. And we will talk about old times.

Human NT's never are specific about what they want or what they will do. There is lots of social short hand in NT culture that is not the case in Autism Culture. NT Humans turn everything and I DO MEAN EVERYTHING into a social occassion. When I am goal focued only the goal matters no social elemets interfere with my functioning. My NT friends want to play and joke, talk about odd things play whatever. These NT socialization attributes infect and confuse my goal oriented systems and I get upset. When I am given a goal I want to persue it with single minded vigor till it is done. I will enjoy life after the goal is completed.

I have no problem discussing my past because; I help people learn from my past and present autism insights. Wow Alexithymia cool what I have has a name. I can discribe emotions as they relate to logical literal parts of the NT world but, I have no purely organic human way to define emotions. For me LOVE is a series of literal logical metrics. I just explain to my NT friends that my ability to experience and describe emotions as they do is severely limited. I get nothing but pain from touching and NT's seem to get some feel good affirming rush from it I can't begin to fathom. I just chart it all up to my being autistic. I never had an understanding of emotions so I won't miss it.

I've never understood what you do with a friend. I also never seem to have time to go do whatever with a friend (not that I have any). Also where do you find them. I can understand someone you do an activity with and you are friends there, or like at school or uni but beyond that, I've never really got it.

Interesting thread necro of a very common topic... I have been asking myself the same question for about six years now. Six years ago is when I started to join hobby/interest clubs to find like-minded individuals, kindred souls with whom I might start friendships.

In those six years, I have met many interesting people but have made zero friends.

Now that I have full-time work again, I have the same thing that Callista described 6 years ago. When I am with my co-workers for eight hours a day, five days in the week, it fills up my socialization quota. I find that I need some time away from people in my spare time, so I tend to spend most of my evenings and weekends by myself.

I get along well with some of my co-workers, though I can't really talk with most of them, but it's never led to friendships.

On two separate occasions, a co-worker took the initiative of asking my telephone numbers so that we could keep in touch. The first co-worker I met twice after work, and then he stopped texting me. As I am not usually the person to initiate or re-establish contact, we haven't spoken to each other in 5 months.
The second co-worker exchanged numbers with me when she found a different job. There was talk of visiting one another, and I initiated a couple of WhatsApp conversations, but as she seemed completely disinterested after two weeks or so, that fizzled out too.

So that's the curious case of how other people have in fact been interested in me, then apparently found me boring or something, and just dropped me like a brick and went on with their merry lives and their socially adequate friends and acquaintances.

Because I think at the end of the day, most people are reluctant to strike up friendships with people who are socially awkward loners to begin with. Vicious circle.