Wanting and not wanting friends

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Maybe instead of friends, some here might prefer groups that share your interest. I used to belong to a club based around the common interest of bicycles. I learned about it from a newspaper column which listed activities of various local clubs. Now, of course, there are web sites. One that I have encountered is linked here: Meetup.com

I do like to have friends. I always have done. Having no friends causes feelings of isolation and depression, and I start getting in jealous rages because of my cousins having friends of their own and me not having any. I do have a few friends now, and I know how to maintain friendships (I think).

When I was aged roughly between 11 and 14, I went through a severe stage of depression and self-hatred because of the lack of friends I had. When I was under 10, I had my cousins, but when most got to teenage, they started going about with their own friends, until I only had 2 of my cousins left, and they were a lot younger than me, and people were always saying that I should get out there and hang out with people of my age. I always said, ''yeah, I will get my magic wand out and wave it, and some friends may pop out!''
My mum used to be so hurt for me about not having friends that she became rather critical simply because she was so upset for me (because most kids aged between 11 and 14 think that having friends is the most important thing in the world). So she ended up getting in contact with social services and arranging me to join a little club at the youth centre where other teenagers went also with disabilities, because she hoped that this might boost my oppotunities of getting out and about more. But the teenagers there were a bit too disabled for me - most couldn't talk or didn't care to make friends, and weren't really my type either (although they didn't judge me, so I felt more at ease with them). But when I left school and went to college, I got mixing with some other teenagers who had other high-functioning disabilities, like Dyspraxia, Fragile-X, mild/moderate Autism, ADHD, and those sorts of things. And I finally made friends! I've only kept in touch with 2 of them though, but now I have gained more social skills since then, I've made some more friends at my voluntary job (who are NTs), and a few on the bus, and a couple in the library (what I only go in occasionally), and some on the courses what I've been on, and so now I feel a lot happier and more socially motivated. I feel anxious about other things, but having friends does me good.

I've never been very good at doing the friend thing. I'm quite comfortable with the concept of camaraderie within shared experience if that makes sense. I get along just fine with co-workers, for example, but have only very infrequently tried to have any sort of relationship with them outside of work. In the past, these feeble attempts have fizzled out quickly so I don't really try anymore. Recently (about a year ago), I finished a six-year work assignment where we all got along great, but the second the assignment ended so did my association with these folks.

I get along good with my neighbors as well but don't really socialize with them unless it is in the context of some shared interest (hockey, for example). Socialization for the sake of socialization and talk for the sake of talk are both outside my zone so to speak.

all the way up through middle school I thought that I didn't need friends or relationships. I was perfectly happy by myself and had no interest in interacting with people. Once I got to highschool I started to see the value of friends and just having someone who shares my interests to talk to. However, I found it much harder to create relationships with people since most people had already known eachother since elementary school. Befriending someone meant getting inside their already established clique, which was much harder for me than a single person. It took me until my junior year of highschool to even get to the point of talking to someone on a daily basis. Ironically, looking back now I realize that I had some of the best friends of my life in middle school when I felt I didn't need them, and now thmy biggest regret is that i didn't keep them.

It depends on who you associate with and feel comfortable with and except you for who you are and are fully prepared to get to know you and everything about you. I prefer to have the occassional social intereaction with people then, I like the comfort of being in my room alone for days on end by myself. I have had too many bad experiences with making friends and then finding the people I have just made friends with are troublemakers or control freaks who wont let me associate or see anyone else or are drama queens and attention seekers who put me down, judge me or redicule me for being who I am they are constantly trying to mould me into being someone I am not and they want me to be who they want me to be and not except me for just being me. I recommend do not become friends with people who don't like the word Aspergers or anything to do with it. I am banned from discussing anything about Aspergers over my friends mothers house she hates me going on about my Aspergers and explaining the reason I act the way I do I feel I have to always explain myself over there and justify myself its a weird situation. I rather have friends who except you for who you are and are willing to go out of their way to really know you and your aspergers who go out to the library and borrow a book on aspergers and read up on aspergers so they know more about you those friends are the rare ones and hard to find I have a dozen friends who are just like that and they never question me on the way I act and I never ever have to justify myself or constantly talk about my aspergers to them at all, they help me alot they know that certain noises and situations causes me to have a meltdown they know what to do when I start having a meltdown they help me with my anxiety and try to make me comfortable when I am freaking out in a shopping centre at someone elses house, a party, or a social event I attend such as going to a bbq, wedding, birthday to going to the movies, tin pin bowling, computer game arcade to a concert they help me to understand certain situations example friendships, bullying, family, other friends personal situations, fights and social situations to explaining peoples facial expressions and body language and what emotion I should use in a certain situation such as a death in a family to friends getting married or having a birthday to explaining other peoples emotions there the kind of friends you should have. Acceptance, Patience, dedication, caring, not judgemental, who won't complain or talk about you when you turn your back, who is geniune not a fake who is willing to go that extra mile to get to know you for who you are and is willing to accept your Aspergers and all and who really wants to know you and they go out of their way to learn about your disablity whether its Aspergers or another disability its that dedication and geniune willing to know everything about you and accept you and your disability and l that is what I like in a friend and to find one of those is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

I have no friends at all right now, i don't talk to people outside of my house but uhmm i really want friends who share interests with me to talk about and i wanna like create a rule with them that none of both parties should ever think silence is awkward, like.. just don't talk if you don't have anything to say.

i find friendship important but i won't ever do it for the sake of it.