Did You Have Friends As A Young Child?

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I am told I had friends when I was a young child. I do remember I used to have a little girl friend I would spend a lot of time with, and we would go to each others houses. But I can also remember the lunch breaks at school, sitting alone pulling leaves of plants, and having no one to play with. Occasionally one girl would come and sit with me. I remember trying to barge my way into groups of girls when I was about 9 years old, and being looked at in an odd way, being totally unaccepted.

But... I did have friends until the age of about 7 or 8. I dont remember having a huge lot of friends, but I had a few I spent time with and did things with. When my mother had birthday parties for me, a lot came, but it is odd as at school, I wasnt friends with most of them. They just came, I think, because it was a party with free food and goody bags. My parents seem to remember things very differently to me and tell me I had lots of friends as a child, but I honestly only remember the difficulties I had at school, the bullying, the clumsy efforts to fit in and be like others.

After the age of 10, I simply did not have friends. Everyone had a group and I did not fit into any group. I got used horribly for the gifts I gave people, and the rest of the time was treated like poo.


So, I suppose I am really asking, is it unusual for an aspie to have friends as a young child and to make efforts to try and have friends?

Birthday cake friends topic

This was also me, but my mother KNEW I had no playmates. My father was nonsocial as well, and she did not bother much with nosy neighbours. She had friends in other neighbourhoods, who overlooked my father's drinking and nonsocial ways.

She was concerned that my brother and sister had playmates and did well in groups. But if one did not fit in, it did not bother her, as far as I know. In fact she warned me not to hang out with certain kids whose parents she thought were quite nosy. My sister and brother had friends from a "safe group", but those friends would have nothing to do with me. So I did without.

Oh, well. I survived. Aspies can make friends--we just take a little longer.

Up until the age of 9, I didn't have friends. Other children would invite me into their games, and I'd join in, but there were no feelings of friendship on my side, and I would have been happier to have been just left alone with a book. At the age of 9, I got something closer to a friendship- we sat together at lunch, and went to each other's houses, but a lot of the friendship was her trying to mould me into her image. It was the first in a line of people trying to make me "normal".
When I was 11, I had my first real friend.
I sat with groups of people in high school, but I wasn't friends with most of the group. I was friends with one, maybe two people in a group, and because they associated with the group, I had to either stay alone at lunchtimes and risk the friendship/s, or sit with the group. A lot of the time, I got bored with the people and went to the library.
I was never really a part of the groups. When they made plans for weekend activities and parties and such things, it wouldn't have occurred to them to include me.
As for making an effort to make friends, I've never done that. My friends are all people who've approached me. If they hadn't done so, I'd be friendless, and not bothered by it, although I'd probably be curious about why other people had friends and I didn't, and how other people went through the process of making and keeping friends.

I don't remember having any friends, until I was 5. I was friends with this big Chinese boy maned Steven, who was 4.

I had 2 friends I remember that I would actually call friends in elementary school. I had a lot of people I liked and would talk to in middle school, but only a handful of friends there as well.

That never stopped me from inviting the people I would like to be my friends to birthday parties and things, but not many of them really showed up. I was pretty social when I was young, but drove everyone nuts... mom always thought I had a lot of friends, but a lot of the time it was just me following around random people and talking to them, lol, and a few friends who I was actually close to.

Oddly, I've stopped talking to a lot of those friends... I still have ways to keep in touch, but I just don't bother. They live too far away to go do much with, and have, over time, become very different from me... I still say hi now and again, get invited to things occasionally, but rarely actually see any of them. I feel very awkward around them these days.

im 11 and ive never had any friends

Back in primary school i had a few friends who i would play with and talk to now and again but ever since the start of secondary school I've been a lone ranger with no friends to speak of and its still the same today in college unfortunately

I've had one or two acquaintances outside of school who used to come down mine and play games a few years ago as well but they've come and gone.

Last edited by Mike-09 on 11 Nov 2009, 8:05 pm, edited 2 times in total.

The first friend I can remember having was when I was three. Her name was Andrea and she lived across the street from us. She always came over and hung out and I used to follow her and go to her house to play with her roller skates. She was about a couple years older than me.

Then I had another friend named Sara and she was eight months younger than me. I was four when we met and she was three. Then I met another girl named Stephanie that same year and she was a year and a half older than me. I met her through Sara. They both used to come over and play. I had friends of my own age till age ten and their interests changed. They didn't want to do the same stuff anymore and all they wanted to do was chit chat and stuff. Boring. Stephanie quit coming over because her interest changed and Sara moved away but we were enemies in school. She got mean as she got older. They both used me for my stuff. Then Sara came back when I was 11 and we were not friends in school or at home. This used to make me question my diagnoses because I did have friends at my own age and they were all normal. But then I realize I had troubles with them outside my home. I was fine with my peers just as long as they were doing I wanted to do. I think I only had a very few good friends outside my home and it was with another girl named Stephanie when I was five and six. We went to school together when I was five. We went to each others houses and then we lost in touch. I never knew why she didn't come over anymore and why i never came back to her house until my mom told me in my teens, it was when she came to pick me up one day and I wasn't at her house and neither was her. Her dad had no idea where we were and his wife wasn't home. So mom had to go looking for me and it turned out we were net door. So that day she and dad had a talk and decided they didn't want me at her house anymore. I think that's why we lost touch with each other. I bet the parents didn't want their kid at my house if I wasn't allowed over there. This girl was also special needs who also looked normal. In school when I was si and seven, I had a bunch of friends but they were just acquaintances I realize. We were all in special ed. I had very few friends in school outside special ed. Lot of kids didn't like me. Some were nice enough to be my friend but I am not sure if they liked me and thought they had to owe it to me because I was in special ed. Back then I followed kids I liked and grabbed onto them. Only few of them made the effort to befriend me.

Then by 6th grade, I had no friends of my own age. I was pushed out of the group. I just didn't know how to be with them anyway. I knew to just stand there and hear them talk about boring things and to me that was boring. But they told me to go away anyway. In 4th and 5th grade, I struggled to fit in and at times I be alone playing alone because these social groups were hard and boring so I needed a break.

So I fit in well in special ed but was an outcast in regular ed. I noticed how I had little more friends in second grade but they were just school friends, we were not friends outside school. Then when I was nine, we weren't together anymore. They moved onto other friends from their class. Funny how I was liked by lot of kids in my special ed class but in regular ed I was disliked by lot of kids and they were harder to be with.

It's weird, I don't think parents see the whole picture, yet diagnosticians ( I think I might have spelt that wrong) rely on them so much when diagnosing AS etc.
Mine totally missed that I was bullied badly at school, but that is probably because I got home and never talked about it, and hid away. They only stepped in when the teachers bullied me, which they did at times.

They remember me having lots of friends and then I am left thinking... how did that happen when my memory is of being very alone during lunch and breaktimes at school, or being ganged up on, or saying the wrong thing. I was socially awkward... outgoing but approaching things totally the wrong way.

I remember I was once asked to fetch the milk for the girl in our class who had leukaemia. I was mean about it. I didnt understand why I had to get her milk and asked why she couldnt do it herself etc, and that got me a lot of trouble, naturally.

When she died that christmas, I cannot remember reacting as my mum did. I cried because my mum was crying etc.

But yeah, It is just I read so often here of aspies who dont have friends, and sit alone all the time, yet I have also read that some aspie kids are outgoing, but just get things wrong. It really is a 'spectrum' , isn't it.

Oh definitely On church night I see it as a reminder quite frequently. There is my AS son, who talks very little to anyone, avoids them and all... and a little girl with AS that will walk up and lay on my arm while we are walking and talk the whole time, lol. She is sweet and funny, and it really doesn't bother me to be honest-I don't know why. If any other kid did this to me, it would drive me nuts... maybe I just don't know how to react, and I like her, so it's okay with me, lol.

Anyway, it is pretty funny, because my son will talk to her, but stands kinda far away while talking to her. She will keep moving closer and will ask if she can kiss him on the hand or give him a hug and stuff like that (she asks if she can do that to a LOT of people that she likes, lol), and he just keeps moving farther away, lol. Like she wants to be close to people and hang on them, but he makes sure to keep that 2 foot gap between them at all times.

That sounds so much like me as a little girl. In fact, my mother tells me that we would be sat in cafes, and after she had been talking to my father, she would look to me and I would be gone. I had wandered off and sat at someone else's table and started having an adult conversation with them. Of course, now I could never do that... I mean, It is so hard to believe I was like that once. It seems like a bit of a paradox, an extroverted aspie. I also apparently threw my doll out of my pram and put snails in there instead.

Now, friends are an alien thing to me, and so is talking to strangers, unless I absolutely have no choice.

I just did the "parallel play" thing (where two kids are both playing, side by side, meanwhile they're totally ignoring each other) until I was 7 or 8. I didn't make real friends until then, and even then it was more like "our moms will both agree that we will play together at this specified time."

I had very few friends growing up, and most of the friends I did have were made through family friends. My oldest friend is a girl two years younger than me who I met because our parents were friends. I'll call her "B" here. I first met her when she was a baby. I wanted nothing to do with her then, and allegedly tried to push her down the stairs once when she was a baby and I was two. I also went through I phase which started just before I turned three and continued on for a few months. I was at the library with my babysitter, and a child a year younger than me pushed me. After that, I couldn't stand to be near other children for a few months, screaming and crying every time other children were in the vicinity. It wasn't until I started working with young children myself, as an adult, that I realized just how abnormal this was. I eventually started tolerating other children again, but I still avoided them. In preschool, I generally stayed separate from the rest of the group, sometimes actually hiding out in the bathroom. I did eventually become friends with B, when I was four and she was two. The two of us began playing together, and remained friends. Our parents had a falling out about a decade later, and we lost touch for several years, but we eventually reconnected, and we're friends to this day. We just spoke on the phone this evening.
I had a couple of other more transient playmates in my early years, who were generally children of friends of my Mom. When I was in first grade, I made one friend without help. I'll call her L. For that year, we sat together at lunch and played together at recess every day. She came to my house a couple of times, too. The following year, when we were in second grade, L made a couple of friends who didn't like me, and she started avoiding me. I remember there being one day at recess when I followed the three of them around the school yard, trying to get L's attention. I got the attention of the three of them, all right. The three of them would scream, "It's coming!," then run from me. One of her new friends asked me several times, "C___, why are you following us?"
That same year, I had a teacher who was really biased against me, and had no tolerance for my differences. She regularly singled me out, and humiliated me in front of my peers. She also sat me near a bully who could do no wrong in her eyes. Before long, the whole class seemed to be against me, and my peers all started persistently tormenting me. That's the year I really started to withdraw. I became increasingly silent in school, and by fourth grade, I had stopped talking in school, only responding when spoken to, delivering mumbled monosyllabic responses to my shoes. On the rare occasion I was asked to play (I suspect, more to see my reaction than anything else) I replied, "I can't right now, and continued to aimlessly wander the schoolyard, lost in my thoughts. For years, I remained a virtually silent outcast who was persistently bullied and ridiculed by peers. I did go to a summer camp for children with ADHD and/ or learning disabilities. I made one real friendship there, with a girl I'll call R. R and I are still in touch today. In junior high, I made one friend through R, who coincidentally moved away from R's neighborhood, and wound up going to my school for a year. For one year, this girl was my friend in school. She tried to help me become more sociable and "normal" without success. She also defended me when my peers tormented me and called me the "r" word. A year later, she moved again, and things continued as they had been. I didn't make any more new friends until college.
I wasn't particularly successful socially in college either. I could go on, but this is far too long already.

This was exactly how it was for me. As a young child, I remember that there were kids in my grade who tried to reach out, made an effort to talk to me, and included my interests in their play in an effort to connect with me. Still, I preferred being alone at recesses, off in my own little world. I was still invited to birthday parties, sleepovers and the like during this time, and had my own even though the other kids involved weren't necessarily my friends.

After the age of 8, these groups went off and did their own thing, realizing that I was a less than suitable playmate. I had a friend who was a couple of years younger than me, a social outcast who became my first "best friend" for several years. Our relationship was dysfunctional at best; it would basically consist of her bossing me around with little regard for what I thought and felt at the time.

I had a few playmates here and there, but the only time I ever had what I really considered a true "friend" was when I was 9. That was Laura, who had recently moved to the U.S. from France. She and I were best friends. Looking back, it's strange that she didn't have a huge following of other girls wanting to be her friend, because now I realize that girls that age usually hang out in groups, and have this whole social dynamic going on. She had really long hair and was very pretty, so you'd think others would have gravitated towards her. Maybe others saw her as an outsider, because she was foreign, but I didn't really see that as a big deal.

But mostly, I just preferred to play alone. No one ever gave me any impression that I was supposed to be trying to join in with other kids, so I didn't. I was vaguely aware that most other kids seemed to not enjoy playing by themselves, which I thought was kind of odd, but that was their problem. Like, on the playground at school, I enjoyed playing on the climbing frames (which were actually fun back then, because you could be a gymnast. Not like nowadays where everything is so "safe", that you can't actually do anything.) If another kid tried to play with me, it usually wasn't much fun, because it interfered with what I was doing.

Around age 11, I was part of a social group of girls, simply because there were a lot of kids my age right where I lived. If you walked outside, there they were. I hung around with them, and was accepted, but whenever they started doing the social dramas that girls that age do ("We're not talking to Wendy today, because we hate her!"), I didn't participate in that. It seemed stupid and pointless to me, not to mention mean, so I would just go inside, line up my stuffed animals, and make them sing along with my Theodore Bikel album. Once or twice, I attempted to let one of these "friends" into that part of my world, but they clearly didn't get it. They wanted to sit around playing Monopoly and talking bad about whichever girl was not in the room. If I left my stuffed animals out when those girls came over, I would inevitably regret it. They would make my stuffed animals do things that they wouldn't really do, or squish their faces, like idiots. (Laverne the elephant would never hit Rhumbus the hippo over the head, because she was much too classy for that kind of thing, and Rhumbus was her best friend. It annoyed me that people couldn't play properly.)

Now that I'm an adult, with my own kids, one of whom is on the spectrum, it never ceases to astound me how obsessed NT parents seem to be with
"socialization" and "playdates". Those weren't even words when I was a kid. I'm so glad no one tried to make me feel defective for playing the way I liked to play.

Here and there I had a few playmates, but I never really looked forward to seeing them. Usually it was my parents who arranged me to spend time at these people's houses. I found almost every single playdate rather awkward and kind of boring.

It wasn't until high school that I really found friends.