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10 Truths About Making Friends When You Have Autism

AGXStarseed

Well-Known Member
(Not written by me)

I’ve heard some harsh and untrue comments based on personal theories about people with autism making friends. Some people go so far as to claim those with autism are unable to make friends, and that comment alone is shocking. We may have difficulty making friends, but we’re certainly able to make friends. It needs to be the right kind of person who’s willing to understand and accept the individual for who he or she is. If there were less statements about how “those with autism can’t make friends,” I think that alone would make it easier for us to do so and for other people to open up to us. The way the media presents autism is important, and if we can present it in the right way and help eliminate these stereotypes, things would be much better for us.

As an adult with Asperger’s syndrome (high-functioning autism), the general public’s perception of autism makes me want to fall into my shell and recluse myself from the world. So my advice would be to stop talking and start listening to those on the spectrum.

Recently, I asked my Asperger Syndrome Awareness Facebook community this: Do any other Aspies struggle making and maintaining friendships?

---

These are some of their answers.

1. “I find as you get older you learn to adapt better in social situations, but sometimes we just don’t want to be social — not because we are depressed — we just want to be alone.” Melanie Reinburg

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2. “I have very few close friends, and many of them also have Asperger’s or another form of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We get along because of mutual understanding of each other’s strengths and limitations.” — Rhiannon Hartwell

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3. “I can make friends. It’s maintaining them [that’s] hard.” — Evenstar Hebert

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4. “I always waited for people to ask me to join them, and always have. I went to a couple of groups (and still go to them). Over time I’ve become more and more confident though.” –Jack Pickering

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5. “Quite a few, I have found, say all the right things, pretending to show themselves as understanding towards Asperger’s syndrome (AS), but still seem unable to cope if things become difficult.” — Lucy Maull

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6. “Friendships? Not a problem. Relationships, however…” — Jonny Gill

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7. “I just enjoy being with those few close friends who I have a great bond with. My acquaintances just don’t know how to relate to me completely.” — Chris Buley

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8. “The right people will show up in your life [at] the right time. It doesn’t mean they are meant to stay forever. Those that never fail to be your friend are untouched by time and space.” — Fabiana Fabis

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9. “My desire and need for isolation is so great and I almost never feel lonely… nurturing my budding friendships with the time and attention needed is very difficult for me.” –Dymphna Dionne Janney


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10. “I’m learning to let go and focus on the few friends that are truly worth the effort (and are actually the ones that feel just as different as I do)!” — Renata Jurkevythz

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By Bryan Chandler



SOURCE: https://www.yahoo.com/health/10-truths-about-making-friends-when-you-have-124615316498.html
 
I hope you're right and making friends is possible. I'm 29 and have no friends. It's not for lack of trying, I've joined art groups and an ASD group and tried to befriend people I worked with but nope, still friendless!
 
i truly want to stay in touch with my Aspie friend, but it doesn't seem like he feels the same way. reading this makes me wonder if he thinks I might be too much work :(

(i also recognize that he may just find me uninteresting or horrible... but would prefer not to dwell on that possibility :rolleyes:)
 
i truly want to stay in touch with my Aspie friend, but it doesn't seem like he feels the same way. reading this makes me wonder if he thinks I might be too much work :(

(i also recognize that he may just find me uninteresting or horrible... but would prefer not to dwell on that possibility :rolleyes:)


I bid you good luck in that endeavor
 
I have a few close friends, a lot of casual ones and more acquaintances that I can recall names for until I see them or, hear form them. Making friends isn't my problem, nor keeping them, it's deciding who is worth bringing into my inner circle and, who to keep at a distance. Most I keep at a distance, they have not earned enough of my trust to be that close to me but, I do enjoy their company from time to time.

I don't keep in tough with casual friends as I probably should but then, they don't makes any greater effort unless they want something of me either so, I suppose that's well enough.
 
I've never had a problem finding friends. But I've also never told anyone other then my parents and wife about the aspergers. The friends I have probably think I'm a bit of a flake because I go thru months where we'll hang out and months where we don't. But there not reaching out either so it works. I'm also not the friend they come to if they need a shoulder to cry on. I'm the friend they go to when they need a rational opinion. I also don't confide in them or anyone for that matter and I don't expect a deep emotional connection with them. I've had some of my friends for 30 years and we still hang out and talk.
 
Although I am very confident my social skills are poor. I have only realised how poor recently. It takes all my energy to maintain my relationship with my wife and close family. Friendships I have had in the past have related to special interests. These can come and go.
 
i truly want to stay in touch with my Aspie friend, but it doesn't seem like he feels the same way. reading this makes me wonder if he thinks I might be too much work :(

(i also recognize that he may just find me uninteresting or horrible... but would prefer not to dwell on that possibility :rolleyes:)

Tell you a story. Back when I was friends with L. (we're not not friends now, we just don't talk anymore), we went to lunch one day and I asked her what she wanted most that she didn't already have. To my astonishment she started to cry and said, "to be part of a couple." She'd been very interested in Terry, and they had been living together, but then they weren't. She said, "It's like, he would want something and I would have to go running."

Looking back, I think L. was really HFA--she was odd, musically gifted, and technically a wizard in her field. Not emotional in any obvious way.

I also think Terry was NT. Scads of friends, often the center of a crowd, not that he tried to be, it just happened. Also a genius at what he did.

It's hard, I think, to be around an aspie if you're not similarly wired, because it seems that some of us want our partners around when we want them, but don't want them around when we don't. My husband has gotten used to me needing to finish a project and not be disturbed, especially when I'm writing. And I'm aware that I'm short with him because I'm working to maintain that atmosphere in my head where the words write themselves and things are clear as I take a deeper dive than ever into whatever the current Special Interest is. It's not "fair." It is reality. I'm terrible company when dragged away by force from what's engaging me. So my poor NT friends get shafted, and then they go away, and I can't blame them. I do miss them. I'm still put together this way.

There's a poem (there's always a poem) that ends something like this:

"She could not, even for him, forswear what she was.
To the end of her life, she cursed the circumstance."

It feels very much like that to me, when I think about relationships that I've loved. It was as if I couldn't be allowed to love everything I love, because one thing that I loved wanted all my love back.

I don't know what your aspie friend is doing, but probability favors his many other loves, and I doubt they're other lover/partners. Not that it isn't possible, but if he's aspie, it just isn't likely. It looks like indifference, but it could just as easily be "I want to do this now."

Just my musings.
 
Tell you a story. Back when I was friends with L. (we're not not friends now, we just don't talk anymore), we went to lunch one day and I asked her what she wanted most that she didn't already have. To my astonishment she started to cry and said, "to be part of a couple." She'd been very interested in Terry, and they had been living together, but then they weren't. She said, "It's like, he would want something and I would have to go running."

Looking back, I think L. was really HFA--she was odd, musically gifted, and technically a wizard in her field. Not emotional in any obvious way.

I also think Terry was NT. Scads of friends, often the center of a crowd, not that he tried to be, it just happened. Also a genius at what he did.

It's hard, I think, to be around an aspie if you're not similarly wired, because it seems that some of us want our partners around when we want them, but don't want them around when we don't. My husband has gotten used to me needing to finish a project and not be disturbed, especially when I'm writing. And I'm aware that I'm short with him because I'm working to maintain that atmosphere in my head where the words write themselves and things are clear as I take a deeper dive than ever into whatever the current Special Interest is. It's not "fair." It is reality. I'm terrible company when dragged away by force from what's engaging me. So my poor NT friends get shafted, and then they go away, and I can't blame them. I do miss them. I'm still put together this way.

There's a poem (there's always a poem) that ends something like this:

"She could not, even for him, forswear what she was.
To the end of her life, she cursed the circumstance."

It feels very much like that to me, when I think about relationships that I've loved. It was as if I couldn't be allowed to love everything I love, because one thing that I loved wanted all my love back.

I don't know what your aspie friend is doing, but probability favors his many other loves, and I doubt they're other lover/partners. Not that it isn't possible, but if he's aspie, it just isn't likely. It looks like indifference, but it could just as easily be "I want to do this now."

Just my musings.

this is so, so helpful and informative for me, A4H! thank you so much for sharing. really. :)
 

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