Trouble keeping friends?

Post Reply New Topic

So it seems. It helped that in high school I was in a particular academic program with about 40 other students who all took the same classes for four years and were quirkier than the general HS population, so we oddballs got to spend a great deal of time with each other and by graduation were very close-knit.

Unfortunately in college now class sizes are up to 200 and only twice a week, I can't participate in the one club I do want to join because of a physical condition, and the society for my major is geared mainly towards juniors and seniors (I'm a freshman). So, I'm kinda bummed so far.

The fact of the matter is, and this also applies to most neurotypicals: not everyone you meet is going to be your friend. Most people meet a wide range of people, but they aren't going to necessarily be friends with every single one. Some people are better at making friends than others, but even if they are, this doesn't mean that you should see yourself as inferior to them. Keep in mind that the people who are busy making piles of "friends" often have very shallow relationships with other people and I have a feeling that is not what you want.

Glad to hear that even though you have difficulties, you still have some close group friends that you can rely on. Be thankful for that, as this is what truly matters: having people who understand you. Friendship is about quality, not quantity. Cherish what you have.

It's exasperating. I can't ever put my finger on it and doubtless they can't either. As I get older it's more heartbreaking because I truly do not want to be married to isolation.

I have one friend and he is long distance. I am so lonely, but thankfully I found all of you recently. I do talk a little to the people at college but it's not the same as having friends.

I've lost almost all the friends I've ever made. I have a huge trouble making friends, more people dislike me more after they start to know me a bit if they liked me at all at first, and others I will think we are friends and then they just drop it. Either things get unpleasant or they simply stop talking to me or responding to me. In the past I would get very panicky when a problem came between me and a friend and keep getting back in touch with them or trying to solve things, this appeared to just drive people away even more because I was being "pushy" or clingy etc, I was told. The friendships mattered a huge amount to me but apparently trying to keep them made me seem even more unpleasant. So eventually I tried to tone that down (I still felt horrible but tried not to be as "clingy" or forcing contact) a bit more, in terms of if things lapsed with someone I would not keep contacting them if they didn't reply to me even though I really wanted to. This also didn't result in patching up the friendships though. Almost every friend I have had has just stopped talking to me with no explanation (in a few cases this was preceded by them getting mad at me, but not in ways that seemed should destroy a friendship). Those I contacted to try to figure out what was wrong would either not respond or get mad at me (and resume not talking to me). Those I tried not contacting to let them resume when they felt comfortable with it never resumed. This has happened with both peopled I've made friends with online and in "real life."

I really don't know why people just suddenly cut off all contact with no explanation... but they rarely tell me even when I ask. The older I get the harder it seems to be to make more friends and the more other ones are gone so currently I only have one friend, who I see at work but we are not as close as we used to be. We almost never do anything outside of work anymore and she has been distancing herself for some time. After numerous attempts of trying to keep doing things with her and her forgetting (and in some cases scheduling things with other people instead), I tried to adjust to the distance she apparently wants just to preserve what's left because I don't really have anybody else, but it's not very satisfying.

I did have two other friends who after not talking to me or answering me for years or giving any explanation, resumed contact with me as if nothing had happened. But due to the large lapse of time, and the complete lack of any explanation (in both cases I kept trying to contact them and they didn't reply) we aren't exactly close and I'm afraid to ask what happened as this seems to precipitated people leaving again, but we're barely in touch (and they no longer live near me so it's mostly online). Another person did this but then disappeared again almost immediately. I feel almost certain that any remaining ones will eventually do this again simply because this always happens.

It seems I often seem to think I'm better friends with somebody than they think... I'll have like one or two friends at that time and they'll have numerous other people to rely on and I'm never the "main" one so they shift support elsewhere when I become annoying I guess.

I used to have better luck online but after the last online friend I lost years ago (who also was the only one I knew who also had Asperger's and also just stopped talking to me after seeming to get mad at me and saying he was going to be away for a while) I was too discouraged to continue with everything else I was dealing with in my life at the time... it seems so little worth it unless you find someone who places similar value on the friendship, which seems almost impossible to find. I'm not blaming everyone else as evidence points to the fact that I'm difficult to be around, but it's very lonely sometimes. I wish I had answers.

i have lost friends without saying anything wrong or doing anything wrong
they kept saying i am weird, too quite, too shy, i dont smile etc
so they kept a distance from me

I think this pattern has just started to appear for me since it's the first time I've really been in one place for this long (15 months) in a long, long time. For me, it may be a lack of reciprocity. I am always almost completely passive because I don't know how to take initiative and organize things or make suggestions.

So I may not even be that annoying, just inept. Hard to say. I had two friends basically cut me off when I failed to get a job through the on-campus interviews at my law school even though I got one shortly afterwards (yeah, law school people are super weird in the most frustratingly NT way possible).

I'm wondering if a partial solution might be to go back to my parents' religion and join one of those communities (since there, at least, is a basic support group).

Question, does intervention or therapy help with overcoming weirdness at all? Sorry, I am new to being diagnosed with ASD.

sorry you are going through this (and sorry to myself also )
you are going to a religion just because you need a support group.
Usually i find people who come to religious groups etc weird, eccentric and delusional.
They are generally depressed and frustrated with life....i had joined my spiritual groups earlier but dropped out
sooner or later because at some point they started demanding money and forced charity etc.
I dont fit in anywhere else too........

Intervention and therapies like ABA (Applied behaviour analysis) etc help but its for small children they are involved in group play, activities so that they learn to socialise
But in your case and my case its hard now since we are adults and learning socialising now is kind of difficult

mostly i get tired of people

I'm actually the same.

I get tired of people with shallow personality really really fast.
It's really hard to find people with similar mentality as me~

I probably shouldn't expect to find clones of me though.

Oh my god. Yes. Yes. And yes. I can meet and start friendships a lot of the time but then either I mess it up somehow or start to panic when things seem to be going well. Either I annoy the person or they say I'm too weird or something. So after so many experiences with this, I start to panic when things seem to go good. One of the reasons for my anxiety is the number of times people pretended to like me and then decided to make fun of me behind my back, spread rumors about me, or do the lame old pair up with another girl to gang up on me. If I had a dollar for every time that happened...

bingo happens with me too

I sometimes have issues with keeping friends. Mostly friends who are "normal". I get along best with people who are bipolar. Like half of my friends are bipolar. I sometimes wonder if I'm bipolar. My issue with maintaining friendships is when I first meet someone I can idolize and make them out to be ideal. But for certain people it turns and I demonize them and only see flaws in them and nothing else. When somebody doesn't want to do something with me I feel like they don't give a s**t about me, and I try desperately to fix it. This has ended some friendships for me.

sorry you are going through this (and sorry to myself also )
you are going to a religion just because you need a support group.
Usually i find people who come to religious groups etc weird, eccentric and delusional.
They are generally depressed and frustrated with life....i had joined my spiritual groups earlier but dropped out
sooner or later because at some point they started demanding money and forced charity etc.
I dont fit in anywhere else too........

Intervention and therapies like ABA (Applied behaviour analysis) etc help but its for small children they are involved in group play, activities so that they learn to socialise
But in your case and my case its hard now since we are adults and learning socialising now is kind of difficult[/quote]

Is it though? I have heard people with AS just develop more slowly, so our learning age might be younger than our actual age. Not sure if this works socially or learning ability. Could it?

I can so relate to all of this. I have/had one close friend, the first I have/had since I left school, I'm now in my thirties. She overreacted to something I said and threw me out of her house when I was visiting and now is ignoring me, saying 'I'll be in touch' - well I know what that means. It's been a few days now and my husband said send her another text but I so don't want to appear clingy/desparate. I thought I finally found someone I clicked with, but there you go!

As someone else mentioned on this thread, I think higher of someone/think we are closer than the other person does. It does get me down to be honest. I wish I had access to the unwritten social rules that we are all meant to adhere to. Best check out Amazon and find one and add it to wishlist.

Last edited by Angelmoon on 04 Dec 2012, 6:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

yeah exactly!! once my hurt feelings subside, i just want to scream sometimes. and i don't know if it's just me, but it infuriates me that i'm supposed such a horrible person that i need to be socially ostracized and other people are horribly vindictive and ill-willed when the only crime i've done is NOT understand social situations and interactions. it seems if you're good socially, apparently you can get away with almost anything.