Problems in maintaining friendship

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I wanted to ask you something about social skills.
Like a lot of aspies, I've always had problems making new friends; but I have even greater problems in maintaining friendships. For example, if I start socializing with someone, the socialization goes on only for a period of about 2 weeks, maximum a month. Then, that person no longer talks to me, and it's like if he/she has forgotten about me; and we don't talk anyomore for months, until that person comes back and tries again. It's maybe because I say something rude, and people get offended? Or maybe because I'm annoying or boring? Do symilar things happen to you, too?

I think there are a lot of reasons that happens to me. I find that if I tone myself down in general it helps. I think I can just be a little intense about everything. I think I tend to just put everything out there.

People who know me eventually ignore me in the end. Of course, they're too polite to say why I'm a turn off, so I have to guess. I think maybe I'm too intense and that can seem as threatening. I don't go with the flow, like, I don't watch TV except for news and the occasional football game. I can't double-date anywhere because I'm alone. Hard to say why I get ignored. It'd be nice if people were up front with the truth. (Like that's gonna happen!)

My friendships usually don't last because I fail to maintain them. I need too much alone time, or I don't contact them because I hate the phone, or I find interest in something else that seems more pressing than the friendship. I think that one of the reasons I've been able to maintain my one true friendship (with my husband, for 13 years now) is because when I met him, he became my special interest. Now that we've been together so long, we understand each other (mostly) and that makes all the difference.

How do you interact with the friends whose company you lose? Do you make an effort to reach them? Do you make too much of an effort? Do you have similar interests? Do you communicate similarly?

Learning to make and maintain friendships for me has been an issue of trial, error, and sheer repetition. I have made many absolutely horrid blunders in the process, but I now have people who regularly initiate conversations and seek me out if I'm not always responsive. Don't get me wrong, because it wasn't easy. This process of learning took around 5-8 years for me. Some people might have better starting situations though. I might be somewhat different in that I started from almost nothing, in regard to social skills.

Most if not all of my friends happen to be younger than I am by several years, though I've also made contact and had conversations with people much older than myself as well. What hasn't seemed to work yet is identifying with my own generation. There's a gap there that I don't think I'll ever be able to fill. But that's okay; I'm fine with what friends I currently have.

I'm not sure if there is any other solution than biting the bullet, taking a few risks, and learning to ignore some of the pain that others seem to forget so easily. I think that, especially in the beginning stages, it's important to watch out for users and casual manipulators. There are a lot of people out there who will look for ways to drain you of your resources one small bit at a time. That doesn't mean though that everyone is like that, but without good instincts like neurotypicals seem to have, it's easy to fall into traps and be taken advantage of, or be made the butt of a few jokes. Despite caution, one will most likely fall down and have a quite a few scrapes in the social arena before any success. It's important not to give up. It's also important to take a break when you feel you need to do so.

One of the things that has helped me the most is to find a single common interest to help grease the wheels of friendship. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as you and the other person are at least minority interested in participating on a semi-regular basis. It could be a game or a tv series.

In learning to make friends with people, I've learned that its often necessary to make concessions which, to me, often seemed unjust or unequal. It's very difficult sometimes to decide whether or not one is demanding too much or putting in too little to the relationship. I usually try to let the other person talk more about his own issues and life than I talk about myself. (This might be wrong though. In principle, it should be 50/50, but most people are a teeny bit selfish and tend to want to hang around people who appeal to their egos at least at little bit.). Of course, focusing more on the other person also gives me the opportunity to ensure that I'm not thinking too much about my own thoughts or ignoring the other person's interests and feelings. I can't tell you how many times I've had to stop myself and consciously switch gears in a conversation to balance out the give and take.

I hope this advice helps.

My wife's friends husbands are my friends, sort of, and I have friends at church, I consider myself to be an atheist but I love going to church because the people I go to church with are sincere and genuine, I generally feel very safe there, I still have social anxiety, but not as bad as anywhere else.

I finally found a friend. She has been my best friend for two or three years, and while she is old enough to be my mother, I love her to pieces.

I think it's more like finding the people who are capable of being our friends while working on our social skills.