Am I a bad person?

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So at the beginning of the year, I met a new person. He seemed a bit odd, like he may also have some Aspie-qualities. Most of my friends wanted to withdraw from him immediately, but I thought he seemed interesting and decided to give him a chance. As a result, he started to regularly hang out with our group of friends. However, as time went on, some pretty undesirable traits about him became noticeable. He's pretty unhygienic, very clingy, always just shows up. As time went on, my friends became fed up with him, and eventually I did too. There were just some traits of his that really bothered me.

Most of my friends now take it upon themselves to avoid him whenever possible, as much as possible. For a time, I just went with the flow, but I always felt a strong sense of guilt. I'm almost certain that when I was younger, I was in his shoes, and although I don't really enjoy spending time with him most of the time, I did empathize with him. In fact, a lot of the things that bother them is aspie-related traits (he has difficulty interacting in group settings) although this isn't a problem for me.

Recently, I decided that enough is enough. I couldn't talk to my friends about this in terms of my own Aspergers, which made things difficult. This is because I feel extremely uncomfortable discussing it with most people. The only person outside of my immediate family and therapists who I've spoken to openly about it is my girlfriend. However, another friend who was also feeling guilty and I decided to speak to our other friends with this and say that we would stop lying and avoiding.

This is how it has been for the most part. However, there are times when as mean as it sounds we don't want him there, and we can't not lie a little. Each time I feel guilty, but in a strange way I feel it is necessary. While I am empathetic, I simply do not enjoy this relationship. I try my hardest to be nice, but a lot times it means sacrificing my own happiness as well as my friends (again I know it sounds mean). Still, I can't escape that fact that I know that I am a selfish hypocrite for this, and I know that I have been in the same place.

So is this understandable? Is it ok to be trying to withdraw from this kid even though I know what that feels like? And if it isn't, how should I deal with this situation instead? Please help, at this point this has been troubling me for months, and I don't know what to do.

You tried to be his friend but it didn't work out. You're a lot nicer than people who never even gave him a chance. Just tell him you have nothing in common. Which is basically the truth isn't it?

I can understand your predicament and it sounds like you care, so that hardly makes you a bad person. I don't know how I would go about withdrawing though, obviously how you go about it is important.

Two questions:

1) Is he capable of getting the idea when people withdraw from him (eventually)?

2) Is he capable of understanding that you may just "drift apart" and understanding when that is happening?

If he is, then withdrawal does seem gentler. It isn't really a lie if all parties understand what is being communicated in the subtext. If not, you probably have to take a deep breath and be explicit with him.

This is why I never get myself into these situations.

What makes it really difficult is that it seems that he isn't getting the withdrawing unless it's to an extreme degree. I guess to be more specific, we've gotten to the point that we plan pretty much all of our interactions around how we can best "withdraw" from him, which as you can imagine is extremely stressful. Although he is starting to get it now that we're being more extreme about it.

In which case I would continue doing that until he "gets" it enough to move on to another group.

Something very similar happened to me. Me and my friends started hanging out with an interesting, out-of-the-ordinary guy and things were fine. Then it became obvious that he is very uncomfortable to be around. We started ignoring him and now he knows that we don't like him. We see him once a year or so and are friendly but we all understand that it just won't work out. Of course, one of us eventually had to be blunt and say that we don't like him.

It's understandable. You shouldn't have to remain silent and uncomfortable about it.