How many close friends?

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I only ever had 2 close friends & they were both my girlfriends; NOT at the same time of coarse.; 8 years apart. I'm trying to find another girlfriend to be my close friend.

I have three close friends. R, P, and A.

I have been friends with P for 35 years, with R for 32 years and A for about 18 months

P and A are usually always there for me, at least when they can be, R is there for me when it's convenient for him, he's very self absorbed. I would always be there for P and A if I could, and R if it wasn't too difficult. I have been through some seriously difficult times and way too many escapades and "rescues" with all of them, from both sides of the rescuing.

R and P tried to, and did change me, but we met when I was trying to fit in and asked for help. They never tried to change things that I didn't want to change. They didn't so much try to change me, as help me reach my goal of changing myself. A doesn't try and change me. They all genuinely like me, and I genuinely like them.

I have many interests in common with all of them

I could tell them anything and have, and vice versa. If I ever needed to "get rid of a body" or "hide the ten million in stolen drug cartel money" they would help me. They wouldn't like it, but they would help me. - of course those are extreme made up examples, but I could count on them for it if I needed it. Not that they would be any good at it. R might actually be.

I know a lot of the same people as R and A but although they are close with them, I am not. P isn't close with anyone but me. R and P know each other but are not close. Neither of them know A.

All three of them are taking many of my deepest, darkest secrets to their graves, as I am theirs.

Frances

Not sure if i've answered before- but now I have 2 close friends, boyfriend included.
Only one criteria - can tell them anything without fear of judgement.

*counts again*

One. He came back.

Lost all three close friends within a month this year. Had one of 7 years, one of 3, and one of...1. I have several RL friends I don't feel close to - that's something.

0. I don't really feel lonely though but I think a lack of good friends is leading to problems with motivation...I don't really feel depressed. Just apathetic (I've been depressed before and I know that's not what I'm feeling right now).

I'm going to get involved more on campus next semester instead of just commuting to class and back, hopefully that will help.

Acquaintances though, man, I have a ton of them.

0..


There's one girl I walk with from school to the station 4 days a week, she's the closest to a friend I've had since I hit puberty. Under friend I apply the ruling that it must be someone I do not pity or so. There's one person I'm very friendly with (ex co-worker) on facebook but she's quite stupid..

I never seem to be able to define friendship properly. When is someone my friend?

three people... friends to me are people i trust. people who don't pity me and who i don't pity or look down on. they are people i would give much to protect and if i lost one it would haunt me for months to years.
and as a side note... in somethings im smarter then all of my friends. but in others they are smarter then me. it really depends on the topic or situation that we are in at the time.

I have two.
One for the past 11 years, the other, a cousin of his for 8 years.
The 3 of us used to hang out all the time together, but I have since moved far away.
I still talk to them quite regularly on the phone.

But then I also consider my stepfather one of my close friends.
I don't talk to him extremely often, but we get along great.
I consider myself quite fortunate to have a step-parent I can also call a friend.
I also consider my immediate biological family to be friends.
(My mom, My dad, my sister)
Though family members who are also friends are kind of their own category.

I think I might have 1.
For the most part, I have a large group of more or less peripheral friends, where how peripheral they are is determined by where I am, when that is and for how long I am staying there.
This year I've been going to university, so my clique of friends have consisted of people from my "class" (we study the same subject).

Why would you bother ?

3, all of them are NTs but they're quite weird for an NT, oh and another one who's close and nice to me, he fits all criteria except no.3, he keep trying to change me, but we know it's for my own good.

I use to have one, but now we're on the rocks so zero. But I see my great grandma who also hates people twice a week. She makes me supper and we watch the news together.

I voted Zero!

But I am neither alone nor unhappy. I do have friends, just none fitting all 6 criteria. So not "close" friends?
Except my husband and my son, but are family considered friends?
Then there are my two sisters. I too think the definition has issues.

1) Been friends for at least 8 months.
2) Someone who's always there for you.
3) Someone who genuinely likes you doesn't try to change you.
4) Someone who you can talk about a lot of different things with.
5) Someone who you can call or text to do whatever, whenever and it isn't weird.
6) Someone who you form connections with around multiple different things not just 1 or 2 activities or because of mutual friends.
7) Someone who you can confide in.

I have problems with 2 and 6. All of my (mature female) friends I have known for years, they don't try to change me, we talk about a lot of different things, they don't think I'm weird and I can confide in them. But I have never actually called on any of them to "be there for me"??? It's not as though I would run to them crying. That's not me. I would think it might put people off. So maybe that applies more to young people? Although I never did it.

As for #6, each of my friends IS because of a specific activity we have in common and outside the activity we don't get together. Or rarely. Except one friend. But oddly, she is the one I wouldn't confide in!

Those sound like pretty good criteria, becasue looking at a couple church friends and one college friend it shows me just how undeep my friendships were in grade school and high school.

I really saw great playmates as best friends - I never really sensed how other people did confide in others or anything. One of the worst thigns was that my closest friend at that time was into being reallyrandoma nd all kinds of silly stuff but he grew out of that and I stayed that way and he didn't really accept me by college.

I didn't mind it when he'd tease me that, "Your language is so flowery it needs watered" when we were about 12 - it was the kind of thing we laughed about easily. I don't think he meant any harm by it, either. I laughed, too. But, it makes me wonder now if he stopped really liking me by college. Becasue he started swearing and tellign raunchy jokes and it just got worse and I really didn't know how to tell him to stop other than to say "stop." I tried rasoning, like saying to think of the others around us who probably didn't want to hear it, but he didn't care.

I still pray for him, but I don't know if he can really grasp what it felt like. I've told a mutual friend so he probably knows about my likely having Asperger's now (in fact our mutual friend has a child who definitely has it) but I just care abotu him too much to try to communicate with him now because I just think I scared him too much taking a few things he said scarcastically as if he was literally asking me them.

I have a variety of people I'd call friends now, and 3 I'd label really close friends. I must say it's very satisfying, but even they don't know totally about my Asperger's possibly, and they don't need to hear about it. they jsut accept me for who I am.

I think that grade school friend and i would have drifted apart eventually, but it's sad that it had to happen the way it did.

Sorry, you probably wanted to hear more about the friends I have now, but it feels good to get that out. My college friend I still talk to on the phone a few times a month, we like sharing about sports, movies, all kinds of things like that. We have a lot of the same interests, we can still call each other and expect the other will call back if we have a problem.

The 2 church friends who are close (among a number of good people I know there) have been good friends since I've known them, and the way we all are when we watch games together is sort of like the weirdness my grade school friend and I used to do. They're as random as I am at tiems, though with them, it's NTs who just have very quick wits and great senses of humor. In fact, the one is constantly telling these silly stories, some of them true, some of them not. I have to ask him sometimes, "did this really happen," and sometimes it didn't (like saying he ate lunch with a star on the Packers) but sometimes it did and it's confirmed (like his dad had a gas station attendant believing he was a coach; this friend is really a chip off the old block. )

So'd I'd call these 3 close, maybe the 2 latter closest because we see each other so often. However, I have quite a few others who aren't quitewhat I'd call really close.

My only close friends have been psychopaths, who eventually fall out with me over a girl, or beautiful girls, who I find it hard to avoid slipping into more intimate relationships with if they're my only close friend. Neither really works longterm.