A failure at friendship.

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Since elementary school, I have not had a close friend. My probable AS has made building friendships difficult. Thankfully, I found a close friend through WrongPlanet and literally cried tears of joy when I realized it. After a while, however, things went downhill. I would reflect on my friendship and ask myself whether my friend really wanted to be my friend. So, recently, I sent this person an email ending the friendship with them and criticizing them in several areas. For example, they would not chat as much or voice chat at all, which we had done many times before. (They were sick and had lots of homework, but I didn’t believe that because the their expression of these facts and their explanations of these matters did not go into the kind of detail I would have liked.) Also, for example, they did not seem to care that I had decided to buy a gift for them. They replied to my letter, criticizing me and in reciprocity ended the friendship with me also. I started to consider what they said in their reply to see what I could learn from the situation so that future friendships do not end the same way. Unfortunately, my sleep and normal thinking has been disrupted for the past few days as I have realized that what the person said in their email is true. Furthermore, I believe that I am the sole reason for the destruction of this friendship.

They wouldn’t chat as much, and they wouldn’t voice chat at all. They had reasons for it: “I don’t feel good,” “I am tired,” “Something is wrong.” When they would say, “something is wrong,” I would ask what, and they would say, “I don’t want to talk about it.” Also, when their AIM Away Message would be up, their screename would not always show as inactive. When their screename showed as active, that meant that they were chatting or had just chatted with someone. Instead of accepting them and being a good friend, I believed, from this person’s statements and their responses, and their AIM status, I thought that they were conveying to me that they did not want to be my friend. To further complicate matters, when I would ask them if they thought I was their friend, I perceived their replies as ambiguous. I suppose I was just reading what they said the way I wanted to hear it: that they were telling me they did not want to be my friend. It was ironic that after years of isolation, bullying, and people coming into my life and then leaving after they decide I am too strange for them, all I wanted to hear was that another person had rejected me.

It bothered me that they didn’t seem to appreciate that I was going to send them a gift. It has been years since I last attended someone else’s birthday party or had to give a gift to someone from my own money and at my own pleasure. When I decided to send a gift to this person, I wanted to see how they responded when I told them. When I perceived this person’s response as ambiguous, was I a good friend who sent the gift anyway? No. Instead, I assumed that they weren’t my friend and, worried more about losing my money to someone who I perceived as not being my friend than actually being a friend, canceled the order for the gift. Moreover, I should not have even asked in the first place whether the person liked the gift.

I twice canceled a gift order. After the first time I canceled the order, and after I told them the first time, not in a letter but in AIM, that “this friendship is over,” this person said, in reply to my letter ending our friendship, they "started to review" their friendship with me. But they STILL remained a friend after this point and up until my letter ending the friendship (I really left no choice). THAT is an example of true friendship!

Now I realize that I must change or else future friendships will end like this one. I need to focus less on how the other person is fulfilling my idea of friendship and more on the ways in which I can best fulfill the responsibilities on my side of the friendship.

I have sent this person a letter of apology, but given my behavior, I don’t expect a response. I was very rude and inconsiderate of the situation that this person was in and how it has affected their ability to chat and voice chat, and based my confidence in the friendship on childish whims. As sad as it may sound, the way I treated this person, if I were them, I don’t know if I would be friends with someone like me.

I think you were being too possessive, which is a hard thing to avoid when you have a tendency to focus intensely on someone or something, and it also sounds to me like you were using the gift as a bribe or a test, to see how appreciative this person could be, and when they failed the test, you felt you had reason be critical of this person, in your mind.

If the friendship is strong it should survive this, but the other person might need some time.

I think you are being too hard on yourself and you are coming across as being incredibly needy. Move on. Unless you are leaving something out of this story, you have nothing to apologize for. It seems to me your "friend" does. Are you falling into that trap where you must barter for friendship? Let me quote Mr. Dylan, "Stop looking for a friend and start dancing. Don't you know all of the friends are taken."

I've had similar thoughts with my friends. However, I never actually took the steps to end the relationships because it required too much emotional energy. Instead, I just stopped calling, visiting, IMing or emailing, assuming they would never initiate communication with me again. To my surprise, after about a week or so, they almost always called, visited, IMd or emailed me.

Evidently, they enjoyed my friendship. They just didn't want to spend as much time talking about our common interests as I did. I think this is related to the fact that they usually have many more friends than just me, and their interests lie in more than two narrow areas. I usually prefer to have only one or two friends at a time who have to be very interested in one of my two obsessions. Over time, I have learned that I have regulate how often I communicate with them. This is probably overkill for a lot of people, but I have to keep relationship rules simple, so I remember to abide by them. To prevent over talking to my friends, I have scheduled days for talking to them, literally. On Tuesday and Thursday, I IM and email one of my friends. On Mondays and Wednesdays, I IM and email the other. If they start an IM or email session on a different day, that's a different story. However, if they do, I try to keep my responses on a one to one bases.

i have a friend whom i used to come off as very clingy. luckily for me he'd tell me when i was being 'too clingy' and i think i've grown out of it.

i also had a 'friend' in which i was too clingly, but this guy didn't even give me any clues (it was an AIM conversation). I only knew that he was annoyed with me when i figured out that he blocked me AND he talked about me on his podcast/blog and he labeled me as a 'stalker'. Ugh.

I can certainly relate to what you're saying. I've spent most of my life building walls between myself and others. The walls, much like you describe, is a way of survival. Lately, while I guard the walls I am cautious about others but allow dialogue to begin. I would encourage anyone not to give too much but find a common ground. It's hard going at it alone. Similarily speaking, if the other person is also AS then the stress of sociallizing will be equally stressful. I takes a lot of physical and mental energy and effort for many AS to socialize.

Each friendship is as unique as the person it is with. Don't bring these rigid, controlling ideas of yours into them. Let friendships define themselves. But it's good too see that you understand how you behaved probably wasn't the best way to tackle the situation. But don't let this sour any future relationships! Learn, grow and move on to better and new things!

As an aspie, I can relate to the phenomenon of "building walls" between you and other people.

Friendships are almost as tricky as romantic relationships. Everyone seems paranoid to a degree about the people they let into their lives, so I generally try to be a very low-pressure friend. I don't call people unless they've left me a message or I haven't heard from them in a month. Of course, this risks being too distant, and sending the message that I'd prefer not to bother with them.

Part of the problem, for me, is that I'm not reliably in the mood to interact with people. At least half of the time, I just want to be alone. Having friends is a lot of work, and the person must be rewarding enough to warrant that time. If I had a ton of friends, they'd always be calling me, and I'd feel like I was disappointing them if I didn't reciprocate. I'd also have more events to remember, many of which I wouldn't.

Ultimately, there just aren't that many people I want to talk to on a regular basis. I've had a few very good friends, but they're pretty rare. I think I'm also a bit damaged by the fact that the closest friend I ever had engaged in an affair with, and ultimately married my (now ex) wife. It's difficult for me to be open and relaxed with other guys since that happened.

just turn off your hyper-systemising; that very big, sub-optimal bit of software that's clogging up your head

we should probbaly only row in one forum at a time...

forget software, call it 'logical process', or 'working out what is going on by deductive analysis'...