Wanting to have friends or not

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I voted depends, which was the closest for me, because I do want friends but only one or two, not lots. The idea of lots of friends fills me with stress because of the expectation to stay in contact with them, the expectation to go along to things they might invite me to and the whole stress of what you have to do to maintain those friendships. My closest and longest friend, who now lives on another continent, is NT as far as I know but is lacking in self-confidence, and has some similarities to some aspects of my personality. I have one other less close friend who lives locally, that I see every 2-3 months and she also has some slightly AS traits but is NT as far as I know. It's important to me that a friend of mine doesn't pressure me in any way.

I voted "Depends" because there wasn't an option for "indifferent". It is maybe good to have a close friend with whom one can share things and support each other but beyond that I have no need of friendship with anyone.

Truthfully , I would like to have friends but, I'm not good at necessarily at maintaining friendship though, Tallyman is a good friend. No! I'm not saying that to be sarcastic.

It's simple. Yes, I want friends, but I'm too awkward/nervous to have or keep one.

Since my childhood it's been like that. Even now it's still the same. A long time of being alone has made me capable of tolerating being alone and even looking forward to spending time by myself at home doing such things as reading etc. But I often do feel lonely and sometimes very sad without friends. I avoid social occasions not because I want to be alone, but because, though I want to socialize, if I do, I would be making a fool of myself in front of people with my nervousness/awkwardness. People would laugh at me behind my back about it. I would feel humilated and feel even more down. It has happened in the past and I wouldn't want to experience it again. Sounds tragic, but that's how my life has been. I don't know what to do about it.

I'm really picky, but when I was in mid-school I had a criteria
1. You must not be annoying.
2. Do you make perverted comments?
3. Do you feel that society is stupid today?
4. Do you watch TV?
5. What is your opinion of me
6. What does it mean to be a good person?
I never did ask anyone these, but I would immediately befriend the right person, knowing they could fit this (there's more!! lol)

I voted no.
I can't see the whole point in having friends. They only use valuable special interest time and also consume your energy.
I have had no problems find friends earlier and I have turned down many people wanting to be friends. The few friends I have today is acceptable because I talk to them once or twice in a month and I never have to call them. They probably keep me trained in keeping up a chit chat conversation, but other than that, I could do without friends.
A perfect christmas for me is being alone with a stack of books, good music or perhaps a special interest project. If I also have downloaded a complete serie or show, watching that would top it all off. I would easily prefer this instead of a party.

Depends. I'm honestly not sure I know what real friendship is. The few so called friendship.Ive experienced. It felt like i was a moron. I mean I might as well have been a dog. I.was just sort of.tagging along behind and being invisible occasionally getting noticed
That's not how it appears on tv atleast. So not really sure I.want friends. Only seem to.waste my energies and time. I rather be alone then.

I put "depends" because most people near me on the social pecking order (i.e. near the bottom) bore me to tears with their stupidity, narrowness, and cluelessness while the people higher on the social pecking order who look like me, think like me, and accomplish things like me will have nothing to do with me because I talk funny and am too socially awkward.

Thus, I reject the ones who would be friends with me while those I would like to be friends with reject me. So, in a way, you could say I do not want friends, at least not till I am cured.

I voted "depends". Having friends is not my priority and I tend to "judge" on the quality : I expect a high level of discussion, interesting and deep subjects, share the same interests. Without that, I can't really feel at ease and I mostly observe people without saying anything. As an exercise I used to join a lot of social groups and try a lot of meet ups but it wasn't so concluding (cf the reasons above). Now I'm quite satisfied with the few close friends I have, we have the same life philosophy, share the same interests and they respect my need to spend a lot of time alone which is very important if one wants to function with me.

No. Topic specific forums on the internet are the extent of my desire for human contact. I exchange emails with my family and see them in person on occasion. That is fine. I want no more. Or, perhaps more accurately, I couldn't tolerate any more social contact than that.

To be honest, I don't exactly understand the concept of 'lonely'. I used to think that emotion had something to do with fear of isolation, feeling less safe when not in the presence of others. But in recent years I have learned that that isn't really it.

I have an older brother. We share certain personality traits. I don't believe he is on the autism spectrum but I do know for certain he has difficulty with social issues. Most perplexing about him is that he desperately wants to make friends and have long term intimate relationships. Only for some reason, social anxiety, maybe social phobia, he fails again and again at achieving this goal. To me, I am endlessly confused why he cares so much about that. Why can't you just calm down and be a recluse like me? Recluse lifestyle is good. I think it is, anyway. A lot less stress. bah... whatever. I am not equipped to properly empathize with him. He must solve these problems on his own.

I don't know.

I am surprised by the lack of that as an option.

Sometimes I think I would, but I am not sure that I have a good enough understanding of what that would entail.

Sometimes I think that I definitely would not, because I think it would mean going to people's houses and acting and I hate doing that.

I think possibly one friend. I had one friend who moved away, but that situation was unusually ordered, and I think other friendships would be less so.

Sometimes I do but mostly I like to be alone.

I would like a friend but I would more than likely be taken advantage in the attempt or rudely rejected and others just in that case state the flaming obvious another case of stating the flaming obvious is you can't buy friendship is what a counsellor once said to me in 1987 but was what I learned 11 years before in 1976 when I was about 10 years old. After mentioning to her about being used by allistic people since 1977. The only people who really accepted me for who I am were people with learning disability (called in America intellectual disability) to avoid using the Latin terminology. Some of these people treated me as one of their own before I found out that I had Asperger syndrome. No one with my interests could understand/empathise me as a person. I was only wanted if I had something to offer, to contribute and if that if you are only values on what you can contribute to a person or people then he/she/they never really wanted to know you in the first place. That I first started to learn the hard way from Easter 1974 but either way my first friends were female and I only had a few friends who were male from 1974 onwards but not the nicest children. By the time I set up a self advocacy organisation which also provided me with the opportunity for me to socialise and learn work skills at the same time and I was quite happy then. I do not trust allistic people and they will not trust my word in anything and will be the first to look away and deny abuse/bullying aspiphobia and true friends do not remain in silence when another friend gets taken advantage of or is in fact trying to prevent it.

I think introverted people rarely want to "hang out," and a lot (not all) autistic people are introverts.

But the word "friend" covers a lot of concepts, and it's not just about "hanging out."

If you are an adult, there are serious practical downsides to not having a support system. Some lucky people get that from their biological relatives but don't call those people friends because they are relatives. Other people have to get non-relatives to be be that kind of friend, and it's not easy for anybody.

From what I can tell, I don't have any more trouble at this than NTs do.