Anyone been told ''stop following me'' by NTs?

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I hate when people say, ''stop following me'', because I find it rude and offensive, unless I was literally following them. People used to say this at school - and all I was trying to do was be friendly. But it don't just finish in the playground - even adults can say this, and it puts me off trying to get to know people.

Has anyone else been told to stop following someone, even when you're not really.

yes when I was at school, it happened a lot.

Yes, but I don't walk with people behind me so I suppose I am following people.

Yes but I really was following them. I wanted to be their friend so I'd follow them to hang out and want to play with them. Uh how do you make friends if you can't follow them? Even my own friends hated me following them. Uh how do you play with your friends and hang out with them if you can't follow them?


I will never figure this out. I am thinking there is some social rule about making new friends and I did it wrong. That word must have spread about me because I remember seeing this older girl and before I started to follow her, she said "don't follow me" or how else would she know?

It has been known to happen. Must have missed the subtle "can't stand you" signals.

Of course, they never notice when I wish THEY would be elsewhere.

Must be my fault.

I probably have been told to stop following people but I can't remember. I have definitely been told to stop staring at people on a number of occasions. I don't believe I was actually staring at these people though I was probably looking at something above their heads. I have very large brown eyes so it's hard to see whether looking sometimes!

I've been told that by many NTs during my lifetime. That's turned me off of them and made me not want to make an effort to be friends with them.

Yes. It's sad, because I always wonder what's the difference between me following them and the Rest Of The Group following them.

I remember being told that once or twice by my former best friend. That was the first hint I got that our friendship was going sour.

I myself have said that a few times to someone who actually did follow me around and copy everything I did. She wanted to be my friend so badly, but I just wanted her to stop invading my personal space and try to be an individual.

That's different. I would get freaked out if someone did that. I had a friend once, I don't think he was an Aspie because he was had mild retardation and wasn't clever in anything at all - even pronouncing words. He used to follow me and my ''friends''* around the town, literally. He never spoke to us, and just stuck right behind us, and he made me feel like I was a train and he was the carriage. That really did freak me out, even though he was a friend.

*Those ''friends'' bullied me in the end because apparently I was the one following them around, according to them. I was shocked and angry - because I, by all means, was NOT following them at all. They asked me to come and meet up with them, and when I did I walked with them (not behind them), and I talked to them, and they talked back - and it was just a normal friendship - so how's that following? When will people grow up???
If anyone should be accused of following, it should be the person who was actually following us. Even my other friend (who is NT and didn't bully me), noticed that he was following us. It was so obvious.

"if i needed a dog to follow me around, i would buy one."
mean 11 y olds...
i thought we were getting to know each other , but she was trying to ditch me.

Last edited by ediself on 26 Nov 2010, 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Back in middle school (roughly ages 12-14) this happened quite a bit. I was pretty much unable to tell when someone wanted me to go away and leave them alone.

I was probably just unable to pick up on the subtle social signals to go away.

But they wouldn't care if someone else was trying to be their friend. Why do Aspies get so left out?! I hate it!

I don't remember that happening to me, but I have been on the opposite end of a situation that may be similar to the ones that cause people to say "stop following me".

When I was an undergrad, I knew an autistic grad student. (At the time I suspected he might be autistic, but I didn't actually learn that until a year or two later.) We got along well and had some good conversations, and I thought he was an interesting person. I found that when I talked to him, the way it worked out was that 100% of my attention was on him, even if there were other people in the room. Apparently I was one of the few people around that he got along well with, so whenever we were in a group situation (for example, in social time after a presentation in the department), he tended to come talk to me. I found this frustrating because there were other grad students in these situations that I also liked and wanted to talk to, but I couldn't if I was talking to him. I liked talking to him, but I also liked talking to other people, and if he always came and talked to me whenever I was around them, I wouldn't have a chance to talk to them.

I discovered that I was starting to worry about him coming to talk to me and was in danger of starting to resent him. I didn't want that to happen, because I did in fact think that he was an interesting person and like talking to him. So I decided to tell him as gently as possible while still being direct that I liked talking to him and thought he was an interesting person, but I also needed some time to talk to the other grad students.

That solved the problem, and we stayed on good terms. But I can imagine that someone else faced with similar experiences might not really understand what was going on and might just get annoyed at the person for always taking up their attention, and might say "stop following me".

Yes, when I was younger. I remember one episode being told by an older boy to stop following him or he was going to punch me in the face. My brother and I were hanging around him, thinking he was playing with us.

But I never pestered people. I just wanted to hang out with them, whether they were with others or not. I always been told that I wouldn't make friends by sitting about on my own all the time, and I was always frightened of getting bullied if I was seen by myself all the time, so for the sake of avoiding bullies, I just had to cling onto other people. But I still got on with other students - I never made others feel awkward when I was with them. I've always believed in the saying, ''the more the merrier''.

In year 10 I found a girl who was very shy and had no friends (I don't know if she was Aspie or not), and I just knew that I will get along with her. She wanted to walk around the school with me, and eat lunch with me, and sit next to me in English and Science - and there was no bother at all. After a few weeks we got friendly with other students with special needs, and we had our own little group - which was just perfect. I wasn't any bother, and they enjoyed my company as they did eachother's, and I was never the type to cause agrovation with other kids at all - all I did was plod along and made sure our little group was going swimmingly. They even wanted to meet up, and were demanding me to come. When I said I'm not sure what I was doing this Saturday, they groaned and said, ''I don't want to all meet up if you don't come. Oh, please come, please ask your parents - please!'' So I did, and we had a splendid time on Saturday - going to the cinema, having KFC, ect. It was great fun. But a few days later one of them decided she didn't want me in the group, and it ended up breaking the group up. And this girl who f****d all our friendship up was NT (but with some learning difficulties) who just couldn't be arsed to maintain a nice group. Then she wondered where it all went wrong. She started accusing me that I was too clingy, and that someone else in the group was too bossy, ect. And I said, ''f**k sake - does that really matter?!'' And that made her worse.

Is that a typical teenage girl thing, or did I happen to ruin something without realising it?