Your psychological need for Affiliation

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"Need for Affiliation" is defined here.

I want to find out how strong this need is among people with Autism. I have heard about people who feel fine without personal or intimate relationships (including friendships), and others who have difficulty making and keeping friends but want to interact and belong, i.e. they need affiliation.

This is part of my journey to figure out my own need for affiliation (if it is there and how strong it is).

I used to, but I found out I am happier when I am alone. People tend to irk me these days.

Even though most of the time I prefer to be alone, there's a part of me deep down that wants to belong somewhere. I think that's why I keep coming back to WrongPlanet; this is the only place I feel I have a chance of fitting in.

Even though I can spend a long time by myself and be happy with it I do like to be around other people. I have made a lot of bad choices just to be close to someone.

i to have lived a life of always settling for less than i thought i deserved with the women in my relationships with social interactions. i never really felt part of the human race or a sense of comunity. at 47 getting a diag. things have recently changed for me now i go to aspi support groups and also ijust relized since ive joined this forum started studying everybody. idont feel lonely i feel a sense of belonging

I do not have a particular "need" for affiliation (I am quite content to be on my own) but I become fiercely loyal to any group I am affiliated with. Part of that, I believe, is a sense of duty to any group to which I belong; I don't wish to let others down and so I will work harder if my efforts are for a group I identify with rather than if it is purely for myself.

i spend most of my time on my own. nearly all of it.

i would like to spend more time with people but a few things happen.
1. I am an apsie who does not know when enough is enough or when to stop talking. i also do not know when to stop posting.
i do not know when to get off phone.
2 i say inappropriate and blunt things.
3. i can keep going long after people have reached burnout.
4. i end up getting overwhelmed and really meltdownish with groups and so i stay away from them

it is actually very painful and the solution my whole life has been to isolate really. I also get so exhausted from trying to comprehend and listen to people talking to me.

i am actually an AS extrovert but because i cannot guage the stopping and starting of conversations very well, i tend to sit and stim. and just stay on my own.
i know 100's of people - but they feel like objects to me.

i like the affiliation i get from a few favourite people on WP. I do not think that is cliquey. i think it is just trying to make some screen friends.

As much as I don't like other peoplel, I do admit I need them in my life to survive. I need some social contact or I will go crazy. Having a family to come home to is a wonderful thing, and that generally is all the social I need... Too bad my parents want me out of the home as soon as I am done school.