Need fellows aspies advice on a close friend

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Hey everyone Long post so i appreciate anyone who lends an ear,
I'm writing this to get some other perspective of how i'm viewing this situation because i realize all i'm seeing is nt's way of viewing which seems to be very different from my own......BUT BASICALLY

I'm 23 years old now and back in high school i didn't have many friends at the start. I also didn't want many unless they seemed to offer something special that was worth my leaving alot of my special interests for. I did enjoy the idea of friends but after many failed friendships i wasn't going to give into one unless it seemed worth it. In junior year of high school this jock kid from the football team (who i guess didn't fit in with much of the rest of the football team) offered me my friendship. With it I got a couple of other friends that were associated with him and basically he really did appreciate who i was and didn't mind bringing me around his other friends and having me become friends with them as well. I should also mention that i'm bisexual and as a good looking guy i may have had a little bit of a crush on him as well but it served no purpose because he was obviously straight.

The friendship with him went over so well and since he hung out with me every day he sorta became a special interest for a long while and he didn't even seem to mind the fact. However a year or two later i got into some disputes with some of our mutual friends and it pretty much seemed that he chose them over me mainly because as far as social status goes they probably offered more. This was devastating to me because he was still a special interest not to mention a friend and i wasn't seeing him anymore. The friends he chose over me were very flaky individuals but offered more as far as common interests went along.

Over the next couple of year away at college i moved on and made some new friends for my time away at school. I just recently got back home and so is he (not to mention he broke up with his girlfriend and those flaky mutual friends aren't answering his phone calls) and he's contacting me every day pretty much to hang out. He even will listen to me tell him stories about my bisexual adventures and give advice and i listen to his. Also he pretty much reminds me each time we hang out that he's one of my best friends which i do believe but i also think its because he has gotten older and realized that the other friends he had didn't last (he has a bad way of wording himself sometimes almost a little aspie like but his cockiness always kept him from admiting it and i think that turned other friends off how he acted better than he was or at least thats what other guy friends told me). Not only is he being a very good friend but he once again offering me a social circle of....well women because they overlook the cockiness as something to be attracted to. He's also no longer a special interest so i don't see him in the same light as i used to but still remember when i did and how much what he did hurt me. I even mentioned it once but the way he responded was almost as if he wasn't aware of what he did and that, if i had been like most other nt's i woulda had other friends on the side and not been as bothered by his actions.

Thats pretty much what i'm getting at. Do you think i'm overreacting by handling this as an aspie when hes looking at it from an nt's perspective of like him i shoulda had more friends? Is it worth forgiving what had occurred especially since it wasn't his fault that he was a special interest and my brain gets fixated on special interests unlike 99% of the population? Like he seems to be genuine with our friendship but the fact that he doesn't have a large amount of other friends plays into how accepting he is of someone who's a little different (more friends= more likely to conform to nt ways, while more rejection from friends=more likely to fight away from nt ways). Any advice is greatly appreciated

I'd say forgive, but don't forget. Take what he is offering currently at face value, but keep in mind that he ditched out on you once before, and as such it could happen again.

He will never truly "understand" your perspective, and that has nothing to do with AS/NT or whatever. Different individuals have different deep-seeded thought processes and outlooks; I don't know about you but I have never once felt that someone else truly "understood" me, and I think that's just the way life is.

I know that's all pretty vague but for what it's worth I hope it helps a little.


edit: and just so you're aware of where my "perspective" lies as pertains to the spectrum, I am undiagnosed and I test slightly on the side of AS (for example aspie quiz 117/86).

I agree with amazon_television. Keep in mind what happened in the past so that you can use that information in the present or future. Friends come and go in life (I'm in my 40s), and some come back after a lengthy departure.

In my experience , people tend to do the same things again and again. Basic personality traits are very stable over time. So I don't think you are overreacting, and it doesn't matter what percent of the population you represent. If you're comfortable in your current friendship, then continue. If not, move on.

Note: I am significantly socially impaired, and am a very bad judge of people and their actions/intentions. So other WP folks, please contribute.