I got a free friend, and no idea what to do with her.

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Yeah, so there's this club. It's called SIFF club for short. So basically, a "disabled" person who signs up gets a college student to volunteer to be their "friend" for as long as they want. So I was matched up with this one college girl.

Anyways, I have no idea what to do, where to begin being friends with someone, and it SEEMS LIKE SHE DOESN'T EITHER. SO I sent her an email today saying that I don't think we can be friends.

I probably should have asked around here sooner, but I got stuck in a cycle of depression for a week or so and it caused me physical pain just to think about socializing.

The thing is, I don't like meeting new people. I don't like going to new places. I don't like trying new things that normal people like to try. I can barely even tolerate eating around other people, and that's the most common thing to do.

I knew from the start that this was probably going to be too challenging for me to keep up. We've met twice, and it was extremely stressful just trying to get her to agree to decide to go to any place. It must have taken a dozen emails just to meet up, and it's not like we're dating or anything.

SoOoOooOo, anyone have any suggestions? I want to be friends with someone, but this just seems wrong somehow.

What else are you going to do that's a better idea?
Have you thought of how she is going to feel if you reject her?
Are you going to go through you whole life without friends?
What's wrong is that you have nothing to fear and you know it.

So if you knew it was going to be so bad, why did you sign up in the first place. Also, here is how to initiate a first visit "Hey, I'm gonna watch the new Vampire Diaries tonight, wanna come over and hang?"

_________________
I'm giving it another shot. We will see.
My forum is still there and everyone is welcome to come join as well. There is a private women only subforum there if anyone is interested. Also, there is no CAPTCHA.

The link to the forum is http://www.rightplanet.proboards.com

Certainly you don't have to do the club if you don't want.

If you do want to participate, the club probably offers ideas for what to do and it's really the job of the college student to help structure the time or ask for help to do that. She may though feel confused by your behavior that she misperceived as rejection and didn't want to be pushy (before you sent the email). If there are senior mentors or a club director I think someone else to help sort things out would be good. Otherwise, if you still want to participate understand the possibility that even if the college student is interested in doing this, unless she has experience with people with ASD, you might be speaking a foreign social language to her and true communication will require a lot of effort. Sometimes getting past initial hurdles things do go well, if you wanted to give this another try, it might still work out.

My opinion, I think that sounds like a stupid club. You can't force friendships. And these people are only being "friends" with you because they feel sorry for you. It's quite sad actually.

I tried to handle the situation sensitively, asking all the standard sensitive questions in emails, but she disregarded them completely.
If I ask her what she wants to do, she just turns it back on me, and asks me what I want to do.
She is almost 10 years younger than me, adolescence and college can be confusing times in any person's life.
Maybe I'm imagining this would be more awkward than it is because I'm male, and there are stigmas in society about this sort of thing. I don't want to ask her to do something that would make her label me as a creep. Too many people already think I'm a creep.


@ Waterfalls: I think I agree, maybe I should email the leader of the club and ask to start this friend thing all over again, this time being more direct about my challenges and needs.

@ OliveOilMom: Haha, I might consider your idea if you would be the chaperon.

@ Soccer22: maybe you're right, but I want to develop a concept of what real life friendship is for NT's, and this club represents a free supply of volunteer NT friends.

Can you ask for a new friend?

Yes. I think I'll ask for a friend who is into computers and intellectual stuff.

That sounds like quite a good idea actually. Though If you don't feel comfortable with this particular friend you could ask to be matched with someone new.
But do consider the feelings of the 'friend' you rejected. She probably had good intentions and rejection hurts NTs as much as it hurts us.
Maybe you could make contact again and try to explain? It might help. Though don't do it if you think it would make things worse.

I hope I'm doing the right thing.... I tried to be sensitive about it...
I'm still waiting for responses back from my emails to the club.
Sometimes college students can get too busy with school stuff...

I'm a "buy the food and then eat in my car kind of guy". Reading through your posts your obviously are having a harder time of dealing with life than me though. Ah well, you got personworm here and every one seems to think he's pretty good. Even the members who have never heard of or had any back and forth with me. And that's the disturbing thing. I got my eye on all you, hehehe. Sorry for being an idiot.

Maybe you took that friendship too seriously? You could ask for a new friend and attempt to be more easygoing with that relationship while you try to sense how close you should get.

@ Taylor1002: I could paraphrase your comment as "be a jerk." At least that's my experience.
You may be right, but I don't know what it would be like to be more easygoing.
It's a social behavior/routine/protocol, and all of my social behaviors are learned through study, well, except for the ones that annoy people I guess.

The only way I know how to be acceptable in a group is by doing absolutely nothing for several weeks, observing their behaviors, analyzing which ones are acceptable to the group, and then practicing one behavior at a time around them until I'm just like them.
What I'd rather do is learn how they think so that I can truly understand what causes the behaviors in them, then I could create a mental "program" that duplicates it. Most people I've tried to talk to either don't know how they think, or they know, but find the subject to be too distasteful to be discussed openly.

@ personworm: Ha that reminds me of when I was in school and my mom was alive, she would move my wall of cereal boxes so she could look at me, but seeing people watch me while I eat makes me not digest.
I just haven't gotten enough practical support that I need in order to cope with life. You read every post? Wow you must have strong eyes. I would need bionic eyes to do that. Mine get tired and sore. I even have to do special eye massages if I read too much.

Oh, I get it.