What have your friendships been like?

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I'm not really sure what changed, honestly. A few months back, I started wanting a deeper connection with someone... anyone. Perhaps I felt lonely for the first time. Perhaps it was maturity. Perhaps I finally woke up and realized what those shallow connections were doing to me and how it had negatively impacted my life.

I've got a couple of friends now that I can safely say I have deeper feelings for. It's an odd thing... actually caring what they think, how they feel about my actions, and wanting to reach out to talk to them rather consistently. I'm still getting used to it. It's different.

Τhat is what i hate.I could have had real friends if that did not happen.But you see that's what happens.There is a guy that 9i could have been a good friend with.I can be social with him and friendly.Him too.But then he learns about me and he hangs with me out of force or pity and that is not real friendship.And while my parents let's say to him to hang with me because i want friends and i am not social.Well they mess all up because i could have had real friendship but now i am 'friend' with him because of pity.While i could have a real friend,what they wanted,i have now a 'friend;.I am sure this will happen with the guy that i will meet today to get a job.This is tragic because THEY WANT ME TO HAVE FRIENDS but in the end they do the exact opposite.

Wow, good perspective. I just realized that I was categorizing people whenever they were people whom I was emotionally connected or not.

Because we as human beings are all initially connected by a "tiny string". Imagine when you are tuning the radio and all you hear is static. Then you start catching the station but there is still static. Then you do a little adjustment and you are finally there with no static at all.

Society is known for categorizing and differentiating people. Gender, religion, job, income, ethnology, etc...
Remember that we all formed from the same material from the stars.

I don't have Asperger's myself, but my best friend does, so I think my perspective might be of interest to you. (But please don't take it as "an NT's perspective" - I have a kind of uncommon personality that confuses psychologists and I think I even have some traits of Asperger's, so I'm not a good example of an NT.)

We got to know each other in the first year of high school when we were classmates. At that time, we were both 10 years old (where we live, high school starts at that age). It took about half a year until I really considered her a friend (but that was not because of her, it's been similar with all of my friends and acquaintances). At first, I related to her because we were both outsiders.

Over time, I realized that we are in fact quite different - I think there isn't a single interest we share. But my interests are unusual and I'm used to it. Our conversations often consist of sharing personal experiences, or of one of us monologuing.

Now we've been friends for eight years. She got her diagnosis of Asperger's some month ago. Although Asperger's was something like a "special interest" for me in my early teenage years, I was extremely surprised when she told me the diagnosis. One could say that, as her best friend, I should have noticed. But we just didn't tell each other that much about our private life and we rarely meet outside of school, as we both like to be at home and alone. Now she often tells me things about how Asperger's affects her life and I get to see sides of her personality that I never knew. Then I remember how much I haven't told her about myself. I try to be more open now.

To sum it up: We don't share interests, we don't really know much about each other and we don't spend much time together. So you might wonder why I consider her my best friend. It's because my friendship with her is my most stable one, because I trust her the most. With her, I can relax and let my persona drop a little. And I don't feel like a bad friend for wanting to be alone, as I often feel with my other friends. I really don't know whether we will stay in contact after school, but I hope we will.

The usual pattern for me is having a friendship with someone for 2-3 years and then they drop completely out of my life with no explanation. On 3 separate occasions I've had friends move out of state without telling me or giving me their new contact number. Any attempt I've made to find them and contact them goes unanswered. The only reason I can think of is that they just decided I wasn't worth the effort.

I have one friend now. We've known each other for 10 years. She's the exception to the rule. We don't have a lot in common, but that hasn't seemed to be a negative. We're not in touch much, maybe an e-mail every month or so. I visit her when I can. What I think is interesting is that she's the one that initiated our friendship. I don't think we would've been anything more than classmates if she hadn't. I would consider her my best friend, but having a best friend implies that I have multiple friends and that she's the one I value most highly. However, I have no other friends so the term is misleading in my case.

QUOTING DARRYLZERO ABOVE (I screwed up the cut & paste/sorry) The usual pattern for me is having a friendship with someone for 2-3 years and then they drop completely out of my life with no explanation. On 3 separate occasions I've had friends move out of state without telling me or giving me their new contact number. Any attempt I've made to find them and contact them goes unanswered. The only reason I can think of is that they just decided I wasn't worth the effort.

I was gonna' answer: Friends? What's a FRIEND? Because I haven't had one since about 3 1/2 years ago when my last one did the above....dropping completely out with no explanations. THAT REALLY BOTHERS ME...I mean if I've done something to upset/hurt/bother them, why can't they have the guts to tell me to my face? (Yeah, I already know the answer to that: no one else likes CONFRONTATION; well, I don't enjoy it, either, it's just something that I've found usefull to help me so it's one of my coping tools (although I use it less often now because it ALWAYS seems to backfire on me!)


I also once had a "christian preacher" tell me that I had 'WORN OUT ALL MY FRIENDS'; wth? This was pre-AS diagnosis & now I understand better what he meant; but he still shouldn't have said it!

That was definitely not the right thing to say! It implies that you are aware of what is "wearing" people out but continue to do it anyway. Often we are not aware of the affect we are having on people.

Well, until recently, I thought I had a good bit of friends grade school, and in college.

In Elementary & Middle School, Most of them took advantage of me.

In high school, I thought that the friendships were genuine, but I realized I was the one reaching to them, and they would never do that to me. Of course I didn't realize this until college when they wouldn't keep in touch whenever I did try to contact.

I did have a few friends in college, but they ended all of the sudden, whether by moving, or developing awkwardness in the friendship and, I decided to stop using the word friend to describe everyone around me, especially if I say try to say "Hi," to the old ones and they ignore me, Call their phones and they come up with some excuse, the list goes on....

Acquaintances were probably what they were, but I couldn't recognize the difference. I can become credulous, so I usually have my guard up.

No friends as of now. Because friends do more than say "Hi" and nothing else.....