The perfect friend

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Many years ago as a teenager and into my early twenties I used to envision that one day I'd meet my perfect friend. We'd just click instantly and be soul mates for the rest of eternity. Brothers in arms so to speak. Obviously this never happened.

I've had friendships down the years that I have lost through various reasons, often because I couldn't be bothered to put in the effort necessary to maintain them properly because I didn't feel I had that much in common with them. Now in my early thirties and pretty much friendless I realise that I should have really put in more effort to keep the friends that I had. I was hoping one day to meet someone with the same outlook on life, similar interests, sense of humour. Basically a twin of me! But I now realise that I will never meet anyone like that or even close.

Anyone else ever had/have this stupid idealistic vision?

For a while during my early teen years, I thought I found the perfect friend, but I screwed that up royally. Now, the logical part of me keeps saying that there's no such thing as a perfect friend, but the emotional part of me desperately wants to believe that that perfect friend is out there somewhere.

Yes. I want to find someone who is similarly intelligent and shares my artistic interests. I think that there are some people who are like me, but the chances that I meet them are almost zero.

You can probably be surprised at who can be a friend, however. I have one or two friends who I have almost nothing in common with, except we have a connection because of an unusual ability to understand each other.

Typically, each friend or group of friends only matches with one part of my personality. I have powerlifting friends; I have music friends (and different kinds at that); and I have those who like to use drugs and throw parties (if you've never been a part of that scene, the weird stuff that happens is part of the fun). I have one friend who fits into the music (partially) and powerlifting groups, but other than that there is no overlap.

I thought something similar when I was at primary school. (aged 5-11)

I thought that anyone who talked to me wanted to be my friend, so when someone did talk to me I made every effort to keep them talking to me. I would think..."Now is my chance to have a perfect friend who is just like me,"...so I talked about my interests in hope that they would want to talk about them as well. But they didn't and apparently I came accross as being "needy".

By the time I was in middle school (aged 11-13) I was aware that people sometimes just talked to you to be polite, not necessarily because they liked you. This did cause some problems though as I then couldn't tell who wanted to be my friend and who was just being polite, so I used to say things like..."If you don't want to be my friend then don't talk to me,"...which I am guessing ruined some potential friendships.

Yes, I've gone through and am still going through the same thing. Most ppl I know are gone so quickly because of me. I have but one friend now who I haven't been putting a lot of effort in, yes it makes me feel terrible. I get depressed every now and then b/c I feel embarassed about my AS and how it affects me. It's akward and stressful communicating verbally and getting excited about anything. I get excited about some things but not in the way that feels "normal" like other ppl do.

I wouldn't necessarily attribute your situation to AS. I'm about to turn 30 in a few months. What has happened to you happens to even those who are in the NT world. As people in their twenties enter their thirties what happens is that people start getting into relationships, having children, and start focusing more on their families. I'm single myself; and while I'm not agitating to enter a relationship, part of me does have that insecurity as I watch more and more of my friends get married and "settle down". The other thing is that the 20s and 30s are fluid times for most people while they figure out what they want out of life. Your growing apart from those friends may not be entirely due to them not wanting to be your friend, but more a matter of both and you them simply in going in different directions. While this doesn't really offer you much comfort it is the best explanation that I can offer.

In short, yes I've had the same stupid fantasy. Not exactly like that, but for a time I was way wayyyyy too picky about my friends. If there were any major differences in political views, religious views, humor, communication style, and if we didn't have at least several main interests in common, I felt like I could never be truly close to a person. Of course, I realized that there is almost no one who fits all of those criteria. I've been a lot happier socially since I relaxed my criteria for friendship. Who cares if someone's political views are different from mine? Opinions like that are mostly BS anyway... what's important is that we have fun together and treat each other the way we like to be treated, and although it's not even easy to find people who meet these criteria, it certainly can be done.

I think that everybody has different traits, and if you get more then one friend with traits you like in a friend, you would have the perfect friend within all those people

I HAVE the perfect friend
He took ages to find.. but he's amazing!

I met him at college 4 months ago (when I started) and we've been friends ever since day one, aka the day I started college.

He is staying with me now actually until we go back to college which is on Sunday.

Basically what makes him the perfect friend is that he listens to me, never argues with me, knows about AS because he has it too (slightly worse than mine)

I wished for that too, but we moved around a lot so...