Is it normal to have no friends?

[DaisyRose]

I’ve always struggled to keep long term friendships. I hope I’m not the only one to experience this. I wanted to ask others to pitch in an share their experiences. Currently, I have no friends except my parents. I’ve always had a hard time making friends.

 

[Shamar]

I’ve always struggled to keep long term friendships. I hope I’m not the only one to experience this. I wanted to ask others to pitch in an share their experiences. Currently, I have no friends except my parents. I’ve always had a hard time making friends.

I have never struggled to have friendships. Mainly because I never had any (see the "About" section of my profile for details). Your problem is fairly common here on the forum, but not on the outside.

 

[Misty Avich]

My friends are basically all non-NTs, or colleagues. If I am friends with an NT they're usually twice my age.

I've never been able to make friends with my same age NT peers, and I get frustrated and even hurt when other Aspies on or offline say they have NT friends in their age group. Some Aspies get invited to parties as teenagers. I never did.

Even though I'm PDD-NOS, my teenage social life was typical of a low-functioning autistic, even though I went to mainstream school and desired to have friends. I gained a best friend when I was 16 but she turned out to be a very jealous and controlling person and turned nasty with me when I wanted to do my own thing.

I do dwell on my social experiences, or lack thereof, because as a PDD-NOS with OK social skills and no issues with eye contact and can get along with people and all that, it's pretty mystifying. I've often beaten myself up about it.

 

[Rodafina]

@DaisyRose
It is very very common among those of us here on the forum. You are not alone with these feelings. Even though many of us go through life feeling alone and even though many of us have difficulty making and keeping friends, we are not alone in feeling this way.

But I don’t think we should stop trying. For me it took about 42 years and I finally understood myself and the world well enough to realize what a friend is. Even though it feels impossible, remember that we never know our own futures, and having a friend in your future is not an impossible thing.

 

[Luca]

You're not the only one. I have a big group of surface-level acquaintances but very few close friends irl. Most of my close friends are actually online friends.

Most of the time, I make acquaintances through other friends, and the friendships are pretty transient and don't last more than a year, especially if it's a big social group. I tend to fall to the bottom of the hierarchy pretty quickly.
I'm lucky to have a few very close friends who I've had for a long time, but outside of that, any meaningful interaction I have with anyone is usually online.
Making friends as an adult, outside of a school setting, is incredibly difficult.

 

[Aspychata]

I thought we were friends. I think your art is great. If you wish to pm me, go ahead. Don't be so down on yourself. Friends come, friends go. It does change, due to life changes. Don't beat yourself up. I just broke up with a long-term girlfriend who decided she had a right to judge how l live my life. I said goodbye. I have known her for five years. She has no right to judge how l live my life. I have never told her how to live her life. It was hard, but she didn't respect my boundaries.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

With aspies, it's a little harder to make friends. But the thing is, when you find someone with similar interests, on the spectrum, it's like fireworks go off. It's wonderful. There's actually someone out there just like you who celebrates all your nerdiness. You can talk for hours about your special interests. Be patient. I promise there are friends out there for you. The Lord never gives us more than we can handle. And I think there is someone on autismforums, maybe a few someones just waiting to become your new best friends.

 

[AndyFBlues]

To answer the question, it is not normal to have no friends, at least for the general population. The majority of people in the world do have friends. On a forum like this however, I would expect the opposite to be rather common. I can't say that I have any friends. Sometimes I feel a bit lonely, other times it doesn't bother me at all.

 

[Jacks Brain]

Normal as you get older, even for NTs.

 

[Mr. Stevens]

These situations can be tough, because we're given fairly specific definitions of friendship, romance, family, etc. that don't necessarily apply to everyone. A lot of this is cultural. A lot is probably just advertising. The messages are widespread, but not very realistic, though it's easy to forget this. It's kind of like how people talk about certain things online (alphas, simps, dating disparity) that you don't hear them discuss in real life. At least, not in the same way.

Friendship can be whatever you and the other people want it to be. It doesn't have to be Sex and the City or some other image people are giving you. I have a few friends I keep in contact with pretty sporadically. We all have our own lives. I have another who I see once a month or so, which is fine with me. For most people, that probably wouldn't be friendship. For me, it's perfect.

Then I have friends I keep in contact with here, which is probably not really friendship to other people either. But, it makes me happy.

 

[Luca]

It's kind of like how people talk about certain things online (alphas, simps, dating disparity) that you don't hear them discuss in real life. At least, not in the same way.

Lol, I did know someone who talked about this stuff in the same way in real life, and that's an abusive ex-friend who I could write an extensive saga about in the form of a thread, but the details aren't that relevant to anything on here.
He was also one of those people who said things like "I'm your only real friend, your other friends don't like you, I'm the best you're ever going to do."

 

[Mr. Stevens]

Lol, I did know someone who talked about this stuff in the same way in real life, and that's an abusive ex-friend who I could write an extensive saga about in the form of a thread, but the details aren't that relevant to anything on here.
He was also one of those people who said things like "I'm your only real friend, your other friends don't like you, I'm the best you're ever going to do."

Oh, that's gross. You found an evil Jiminy Cricket.

 

[Luca]

Oh, that's gross. You found an evil Jiminy Cricket.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

I’ve always struggled to keep long term friendships. I hope I’m not the only one to experience this. I wanted to ask others to pitch in an share their experiences. Currently, I have no friends except my parents. I’ve always had a hard time making friends.

Welcome to the club. Probably, the most profound bit of information I've found on autism is that the word "autism" in Greek means "self" or "auto". Which pretty much sums up our social lives, that is, being by one's self.

There's a long list of reasons for this phenomenon, but it is all related to our social bonding and communication difficulties. Furthermore, it's also a "two-way street" because others will sense this difficulty, not know exactly what is going on, it will trigger their amygdala (fear center), and they will pull away from us just enough to inhibit a social bonding experience. We can try all we want, but if others are sensing "something is different", then they are far less likely to create a bond with us.

I think it was much easier as a child to create friends because children are less discriminating between what is normal and what is not. However, as we get older, teens, adults, people tend to focus upon differences and then the lack of friendships slowly becomes more apparent.

I have a long list of "good acquaintances", people I enjoy being around, but there's just enough of a "glass wall" between us to prevent an actual friendship.

 

[Aneka]

Teens and young adults are literally the most excluding. I'm an adult in my mid-twenties who went back to school for qualification and I'm pretty fed up with my younger classmates' behaviour. I'm the scapegoat. I don't want to be friends with them I only want communication to function.

 

[Forest Cat]

He was also one of those people who said things like "I'm your only real friend, your other friends don't like you, I'm the best you're ever going to do."

He would be an excellent cult leader I think. One of those creepy Jim Jones types.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I had only one friend at a time as a teen and young adult. Then my involvement with outdoor activities led me to people with harmonious interests who were welcoming. The result is about a dozen friends who have been together for 40 years. We support each other have travelled together, mourned, sat shiva, and buried children, friends and spouses. I love all of them.

 

[Tony Ramirez]

It's normal but it's not fun or great. It's quite lonely and depressing. I have friends now but when I did not have for decade's it was quite depressing. I use to get so depressed I even felt suicidal. Now I am fine.

 

[Kisa the tea]

Online friends I find easier to make because I can take time to respond and there's less to worry about.

Offline friends are what I have trouble with. My anxiety disorder definitely does not help.

 

[Ken]

Currently, I have no friends except my parents.

Well, at least you have that!

My parents were never my friends.

Currently, my only human friend is my wife. But that is not a "perfect" friendship. There are only a few interests that we share, so we try to capitalize on that.

Throughout my life, my best friends were all non-human. These were the friends that understood me and I understood them. They all enjoyed my company and I theirs. So, I have had lots of lasting friendships, just not with humans. Many will discount that, but I believe that is due to a lack of perception. Other animals are people just as much as any human. I never considered any of my friends as "pets".

As far as human friends, I never really had any. Actually, never wanted any as they were always too conflicting and way too much drama.