Just what does "friend" mean anyway?

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Friendship is a two-way street. We must accept people and their faults, and they must accept us and our faults, as no one is perfect.

Now, that does not mean that we need to be friends with everyone, nor do we connect with everyone.

I think the hard thing is finding the people we connect with and knowing how to forge and develop a friendship.

If we assume that no one is worth our efforts or worth our overlooking some of their faults, then we will not be able to find those potential friends. If we don't curb our own negative behavior, we will make ourselves look in others' eyes as not worth their efforts in overlooking our faults.

At a certain level, we have to try to not be abrasive and also to be extra patient with others as we search for those we might connect with.

No one is ever completely "real" when they are meeting people for the first time. It is too scary for everyone. We let people see the "real" us at deeper levels as we learn to trust them. Trust can sometimes take a long time to build, depending on someone's personality and past hurts. And I think people on the spectrum tend to have trust issues - either trusting too much or too little.

At a certain level, we must be willing to be hurt as we search for friends, especially if we are the ones who find it difficult to trust. It can be scary. So much of life is very scary. But we must push through that fear. Be careful, though, to not reveal too much. The more is revealed, the deeper the potential for hurt. If it is difficult to trust, start off small and slow. But start off somewhere.

I was taught from a young age to hide my "smarts." I think I know now what my mom was talking about. It wasn't intelligence. Likely, it was my apsie traits.

But, either way, I was taught to downplay a lot of characteristics. Taught to lighten up, taught to not speak. You know, try to adopt some "traditional" female attributes like being meek, mild, and submissive. I'm not really completely all those things, but it took the edge off.

Also, boys tend to be more physically aggressive than girls, spectrum or no. I did hit another girl on the playground once. But just once.

[/quote]
... Pretty sure that trying to suppress any perceived intelligence is par for the course for church-goers.[/quote]

Yeah, I suppose I walked right into that insult.

But, I can assure you it depends on the group and where it's located. New England churches have a pretty high regard for intelligence and education. Not so elsewhere in my country. New England churches also tend to have a higher regard for women, too.

I have gone to church with plenty of professors across a wide spectrum of disciplines. Some world-renowned musicians, too. No lack of intelligence, no lack of talent.

I ask why *you* reopened a topic you asked me to close. I respect your wishes. I ask you to show respect as well. You seem to not have personal experience with church going, so I ask you to not talk about/make judgments about which you do not know.

Magnanimous i too am having trouble with the whole "friend" thing I've never understood when someone actually becomes your friend as for you saying your a nihilist i to am starting to have this outlook on life

nerdygirl i don't thinks that's an insult to you per say as i too have seen this with a lot of people of faith by this i mean they dislike you questioning their faith using intellect and reason

You appear far from "emotionless", or having less/controlling emotion. You appear very angry. Anger is very much an emotion, and a deep one at that. People are frightened of it. People can smell it miles away.

Likewise, I've never been sure what constitutes a friend. When people say they're my friend I find it alarming because I've never thought of them that way. Ever. Then they become somebody that I used to know.

I've sent you a PM, Magnanimous.

I see friends as people who I can talk to, love and care about. (Of course I still care about other people)
There are the normal friends, and classmates; The kind of people that I talk to, but it's usually not a conversation as interesting as a conversation with my best friends and it's never me who starts the conversation.
I always hang out with my best friends and every time that I hung out with them, I always go home with the fun memories.
There are best friends who I barely talk to, but they will always be my best friends. My normal friends would also be my friends forever even if we never talk anymore.
I also have a lot of internet and foreign friends, talking to them feels actually easy because I'm waay better at writing than talking.
(In real life I would never talk like this to someone, maybe my best friends but we never have this kind of conversations)

I'm a shy person, but back when I had special education from kindergarten to 2nd grade, I never felt shy.
In my class there were no girls in kindergarten, and 3 girls in the 1st- and 2nd grade, these classes were really great, everyone was best friends with anyone and the whole class was always invited when someone gave a birthday party!

There is the game of self-protection goes on with NTs. People build the wall of noncence around them and keep it up, hiding behind it, taking bricks away one at a time, always checking for your reaction and when they find it wrong, they leave. Aspies usually make a lot of mistakes playing this game, never knowing what was the mistake, realising something went wrong after they were left alone. There are many rules in this game.

One musing on solution...
perhaps if one were brave or had nothing to lose, one might open up first and say to a new fellow "see, I have some autistic traits, so rules of communications are sometimes (well, often) vague for me, and if I say something wrong, please, tell me what, coz generally I mean no insult and have no wish to hurt feelings."

Perhaps it might even save time and efforts in the end, whatever the end, happy or not, would be.