How has your experience been with making autistic friends?

[SimplyWandering]

Often I hear people suggest I should find like minded individuals, however when I meet those on the spectrum I can’t help but think that people who are not autistic think we are all the same and should be able to understand one another.

From my experience it could not be further from the truth.

what are your experiences?

 

[Nitro]

Often I hear people suggest I should find like minded individuals, however when I meet those on the spectrum I can’t help but think that people who are not autistic think we are all the same and should be able to understand one another.

From my experience it could not be further from the truth.

what are your experiences?

I have only met three confirmed persons on the autism spectrum outside of my family.
I base my friendships on how I have been treated by them, not by their neurology.

Most people don't freely share their assessments with others, well for one, because it isn't of concern to most.

 

[Bolletje]

I have one friend who is on the spectrum who I hang out with in real life as well. We have a lot of shared interests, which is why we're friends. We've been friends for over 17 years but he's only just found out he's on the spectrum.

Other than that I have two friends on the spectrum who I've met on these forums. We've bonded over shared experiences and shared interests.

For all of my friends the things that join us are shared interests, shared outlooks on life, shared personality traits, shared sense of humor and so on. I think the autism is really secondary to that.

I've met people on and off the spectrum I really click with. There are a lot of people on and off the spectrum I don't really gel with. Neurology doesn't affect whether I want to hang out with people. For me the only added bonus of friends on the spectrum is that we share some experiences and sensitivities.

 

[Streetwise]

Often I hear people suggest I should find like minded individuals, however when I meet those on the spectrum I can’t help but think that people who are not autistic think we are all the same and should be able to understand one another.

From my experience it could not be further from the truth.

what are your experiences?

Never communicate with anybody on the spectrum apart from this forum there are maybe 2 or 3 who I would call friends I also communicate to an equal degree with some neurotypicals on Facebook

 

[clg114]

I live in a low populated state and socializing is not my thing, so the only other Aspies that I know are family members. Our youngest son and youngest granddaughter are on the spectrum. Our youngest son is 36 and is self diagnosed, with my help of course. When he was young, I did not know that I was a Aspie. So he seemed perfectly fine to me, although my wife expressed some concerns. She kept saying that he was his fathers son. It was a long time before I realized what she meant by that. Our youngest granddaughter is 10. When she was little, I recognized the sighs, but our daughter and son in law did not believe it until she went to school. They bought it up and she got help. Because it is very hard to get a diagnosis with the DSM-5, she is un-diagnosed. However, she is getting the proper consoling to help her live in a NT world and take advantage of her very high IQ.

I believe your neurology has little to do with who you get along with.

 

[Rasputin]

I was invited to an autism fundraiser event recently, and met a young woman who disclosed she was autistic and was also invited to the function. She saw me sitting at a table drinking a glass of wine and eating, and asked if she could join me. We talked and had a lot in common, were both math majors in college, and had similar experiences. I could not tell that she was autistic or different in any way from anyone else. We spent most of the evening together at this event, but had not met previously.

 

[Fino]

I've pretty much always had one or two friends on the spectrum, but I've never been close with any of them.

 

[AnnadinNoliman]

I think friendship is all about shared interests and experiences, so like someone you share a lot of interests or experiences with I feel like have a slightly higher chance of getting along with you in a friend capacity. Like as a lesbian other lesbians have a slight advantage in being friends with me just because we have a lot of shared experiences from that identity. But most people I hate as a rule, it's just a matter of probability. I'm more likely to be friends with someone I have stuff in common with. If not sexuality, perhaps autism, perhaps some other interest like tetris or juggling. And then there are the random people you just love being around but have very little in common, which has happened to me too.

All this to say of course autistic people don't all get along, some of the people I hate most in the world are autistic, but it is a shared experience that gives us a bit of something to build off of in friendships.

 

[Loren]

Unintentionally, my closest friends have turned out to be Aspergien, or, have had traits of which are typical of AS.