Were Your Parents Social?

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Curious if others' parents were social (had friends, went out, etc).

For example, I know my mother had friends in school, but they seemed to drop away after college. She has several coworker-friends (though they don't go out), one set of neighbor friends (rarely go out or talk beyond facebook), and her family. My father, I don't recall him ever mentioning friends from school nor do I recall him ever having any close friends. He hangs out occassionally with his boss and boss's father who he grew up with (his father was friends with my grandfather) but it's specific to my father's interest (auctions) which they share. And I can literally only think of one person he's hung out with beyond my family as a "friend", and he was the father of a girl on my soccer team. It only lasted while I was on the team and generally limited to the season.

My parents were irritatingly social.

Whenever we had "company," I was sent to my room. (not because I was autistic, but because I was a kid, and kids were seen and not heard before the 1970s).

My dad is very social. He has really social hobbies and he knows a ton of people, pretty much anywhere he goes he runs into someone he knows, even out of state. But because he is kind of indiscriminate on who he gets to know, he routinely falls out with people or stops talking to them because they did something to piss him off. And then he talks about wanting to get away from people, like wanting to get off in the wilderness somewhere, but the reality is I don't think he can go more than a few hours without talking to someone.

My mom is not very social at all. She has always had a handful of friends from work, like 1 close friend that she might see once a week or every other week, and maybe 1-2 others that she doesn't see as often. She doesn't go out much, and I don't think she likes having people over. When people come over to my parents house they stand out in the yard talking to my dad, and they rarely come inside.

when my parents were younger they had lots of dinner parties and social events. Now they don't do that any more. If they entertain it's just simple like a couple of friends or relatives stopping by for a chat.

My parents are not at all social.
They rarely socialize with anyone but each other.

The woman who gave birth to me was extremely social. I remember as a child, she was a gym trainer and she use to teach gym classes. After her gym class, she would sit for thirty minutes to an hour talking to people and I just wanted to get home.

My father on the other hand was opposite. I swear my father had AS. He was an emotional robot. When he came home from work he liked his alone time. He never went out and when we did it was to the movie theater. *nods*

Sister social to a point. She is very social. very friendly people like her. She isn't always so recipitent of them though. And after a while she just gets tired and fed up.

My relatives:

-Uncle, very social and talkative. But was diagnosed with ADHD
-Aunt, not social, lives in her mother's basement, being quite serious, has no motivation to get a job, and never goes out
-Grandmother, extremely extremely social, controlling, manipulative, lying, everything of the word
-Grandfather, not social, spends all night on his computer, sleeps all day

My parents are very social, very NT. my cousin joked that my dad should run for mayor because when we're going around town with him it seems like there's always someone on the street or wherever who knows him.

My mother would go out to eat with her one friend maybe once a year. They worked together every day, though, so I imagine that was also social for them.

They usually stayed home all of the time.

Both of my parents preferred their own pastimes. My mother liked gardening and phone calls to actually meeting anyone, and my father liked reading and science fiction.

Mom: a bit
Dad: not really, though verry friendly, just like me he just doesn't keep in touch with his friends

Neither of my parents have a lot of friends.

My mum is very unsocial and my dad is a little bit social. My dad doesn't have a lot of friends but he is loquacious , at family dinners he'll talk on and on about his interests and he's fine with meeting new people. Also, my parents are divorced and he has a new wife now, so he had to have met her somewhere and socialized with her along the way. My younger sister is very social, has lots of friends and has a boyfriend with whom she now lives. Both of my parents have autistic traits, lots, but my sister doesn't have any that I can see, it's weird.

My parents didn't have much contacts with relatives and not many friends until their Thirties. Like me they are late bloomers, my Dad knows half the village because of his work but has no friends of his own except an older man who started going swimming with him once a month, and then my parents and he and his wife go swimming and eating lunch together every other month.

Growing up, my parents entertained a lot (e.g. dinner parties) and attended many social events.

At the dinner parties, my mom used to "employ" me and my sister. I remember helping out - polishing the silver, setting the table, passing out hor d'oeuvres, serving drinks, clearing the table, cleaning up, etc.

So, while my mom is quite social, my dad is not. While my dad worked, my mom was the one responsible for maintaining the relationships with all of their friends (including business clients). So, I just figured that's how it worked once you got married.

As such, when my wife and I got married, I convinced her to register for "dinner party" stuff at our wedding. Because I figured we would start entertaining as well. She went along, even though she thought it was a stupid idea. Of course, she was right. It's never been used.

My parents are polar opposites in terms of sociability.

My mom has always been an outgoing, social person. She is able to make friends anywhere she goes, whether it's at her job, her church, the neighbors, volunteering in my brother's class...you get the idea. She is the one who has her friends over at our house, drinking coffee and talking. She can read people very well and can point out aspects on their behavior/personality that I never notice.

My dad on the other hand has never been particularly social. Although he did have some friends/acquaintances growing up and in the military, he doesn't have any now. He always tries to weasel his way out of social events, especially if they involve my mom and her friends. He's very introverted and prefers to spend his time alone or with us. He displays some autistic behaviors and I believe I inherited mine from him.

My mum was very social and was a social butterfly (always had friends, was engaged 8 times, married 3 times). My dad on the other hand tried to be social at times but:

1 lived in Adrian land (Adrian was his name)
2 Was avoided by people because he was considered to be socially inappropriate behaviour wise (was constantly told off for saying and doing things he shouldn't...ie "adrian you can't say things like that!! !", "Adrian you can't do things like that!! !!"
3 Could not make friends
4 Was also told by psychiatrists that he was psychopathic because he had difficulty showing empathy.

However I disagree with the latter...my dad, whilst not traditionally affectionate, had his own way of showing his feelings, clearly indicating that he had them (a psychopath does not I believe?). For example he was the one who called me little bumble which is a very affectionate way of referring to someone so he obviously had some love for me. As I said the man just lived in his own world and marched to beat of his own drum. He also did not like his routines being disturbed and would become very upset if they were disrupted too often.

All the same, he was my daddy and I loved him. I loved my mum too and she didn't come without her problems either (psychotic depression in her later years being one of them...she became convinced people were trying to poison her although she was 73 by this point and I wonder if she was starting to develop dementia or something).

I am a cross between my mother and my father in certain ways (my mum was a social butterfly but was also incredibly academically bright...finishing top of her school grade wise and obtaining a scholarship to the grammer school back in the 1940's when she was a youngster. My dad on the other hand failed to obtain pass grades academically and was not as bright as mother was).

I don't experience pshychosis, I am usually considered to be too reasonable by psychiatrists, even if my thinking can be off sometimes I am willing to listen to any evidence that I may be misinterpreting things and am willing to change my perspective/thoughts/belief if said evidence warrents me to do so. I also don't see things or hear things and I most definitely don't think anyone would want to poison me, although I do feel rejected by the world sometimes as though almost no one seems to like me because I have such trouble with the social side of things. It is upsetting when people don't want to speak to you because they think you are too weird and they insist on telling you this to your face rather rudely.

Anyway, I seem to have a cross between my mothers academic brightness and my fathers social difficulties and personality traits. Ergo I am a bizarre mix of both of them with a little bit of individual me thrown in (I think I have some of my aunt rachel in me too..she was the one who was into needlecrafts and things. I follow her for that, she was a hairdresser by trade, ran a successful business and was the more creative one in the family.).