Sense of Belonging.

[GHA]

The most frustrating thing about Aspies?? They appear, and I repeat appear to live for themselves. My son is 31, he loves his life, while the rest of the family is doing all what they can to help him, but he does not show any expression of appreciation. Its all about him......at least thats the expression he gives. I understand him but the rest of the world doesn't.... Friendship and relationships are all about give and take..

 

[Explosition_Rooster]

The most frustrating thing about Aspies?? They appear, and I repeat appear to live for themselves. My son is 31, he loves his life, while the rest of the family is doing all what they can to help him, but he does not show any expression of appreciation. Its all about him......at least thats the expression he gives. I understand him but the rest of the world doesn't.... Friendship and relationships are all about give and take..

Hmm. Interesting. I wonder if that's what my parents think about me?

 

[Ste11aeres]

The most frustrating thing about Aspies?? They appear, and I repeat appear to live for themselves. My son is 31, he loves his life, while the rest of the family is doing all what they can to help him, but he does not show any expression of appreciation. Its all about him......at least thats the expression he gives. I understand him but the rest of the world doesn't.... Friendship and relationships are all about give and take..

Part of that is that it is so hard for us to focus on multiple things, and sometimes so hard for us to take care of ourselves...As a result taking care of ourselves,-
which is something that is necessary for every human being-every human being must, and I repeat, must take care of themselves,
-absorbs our attention.
Neurotypicals can easily go back and forth between thinking of themselves and responding to other people. As Aspies we cannot so readily direct our attention back and forth between different things. It's not that NTs care more about other people and Aspies care less, it's that every day for an Aspie can be a struggle for survival,
On the flip side, some Aspies can, when they fall in love, completely forget about themselves and focus on the other person to the point of appearing very very crazy.

Also you used the word "expression". That's a very important word here. Sometimes we don't express ourselves in the same ways. We may feel appreciation but not show it in the same way.

Also I've observed many instances in which an Aspie was trying very hard to show love and appreciation and the NTs response was "It feels fake." "It's so unspontaneous" "He's obviously trained himself to say 'I love you' and this means it's not real."
Oh great. So we work so hard to show love, harder than you realize, and your response is that the obvious effort that went into it makes it fake.

 

[Historianthomas]

Yea lowering expectations can be a big part of it. I had a horrible habit of expecting too much from people, but I finally realized that not even I could live up to my own expectations, then I was forced to lower them, and that can help a lot.

I am trying to lower my expectations with my close friend. I think part of the problem is that if we fear that our friendship will fall apart any minute, then we set up expectations as proof. The problem I am finding is that it is never enough. In the mean time, I get so wrapped up in my fear that I unconsciously drift away because it is so painful.

 

[Matt88360]

I read a lot of biographies for the same reason. I try to find out what makes people tick, and at the same time, try to find people I can relate to in order to break out of my mental isolation.

 

[Banquo]

The most frustrating thing about Aspies?? They appear, and I repeat appear to live for themselves

I think I might appear this way. A big part of this is that I will only join a conversation if I feel I can add to it, there is little value in talking for the sake of it, therefore much of what I say relates to my personal experience/knowledge. I can see how this may look like I always turn the conversation to be about me.

Since I don't speak during conversations where I cannot add anything I can also see that people might think I am not interested in other people. I am, I am merely listening, I have no issue with being a passive member of the conversation if I have no value to add. I have noted that many people are uncomfortable with this and will speak with the seemingly sole purpose of being involved. Maybe that is actually them needing a sense of belonging where I don't. If we scale this up we can see that they are investing more effort to maintain their social network however the network is very loosely tied and potentially held together by a requirement to be seen to have friends.

My few good friends are NT, but they have one common trait - they are all individuals - happy to not have loads of friends if it means not being true to themselves. I think many NTs are just as insecure about friendship as we are, but they have the ability to accept these loosely tied acquaintances as friends whereas my aspie brain has a definition which they do not meet.

Apologies for rambling...

 

[tryingtoregister]

Apologies for rambling...

This is probably what always gets us Banquo.. Anytime I say a few sentences consecutively I start to worry that what I'm saying won't make any sense, that when I'm done the other person will just look at me and say "The hell you talking about?" or something.

 

[GHA]

I think I might appear this way. A big part of this is that I will only join a conversation if I feel I can add to it, there is little value in talking for the sake of it, therefore much of what I say relates to my personal experience/knowledge. I can see how this may look like I always turn the conversation to be about me.

Since I don't speak during conversations where I cannot add anything I can also see that people might think I am not interested in other people. I am, I am merely listening, I have no issue with being a passive member of the conversation if I have no value to add. I have noted that many people are uncomfortable with this and will speak with the seemingly sole purpose of being involved. Maybe that is actually them needing a sense of belonging where I don't. If we scale this up we can see that they are investing more effort to maintain their social network however the network is very loosely tied and potentially held together by a requirement to be seen to have friends.

My few good friends are NT, but they have one common trait - they are all individuals - happy to not have loads of friends if it means not being true to themselves. I think many NTs are just as insecure about friendship as we are, but they have the ability to accept these loosely tied acquaintances as friends whereas my aspie brain has a definition which they do not meet.

Apologies for rambling...

Yes, NT's are are as insecure as Aspies about friends... The difference is, NT's go an extra mile to keep their friendship.

 

[Ste11aeres]

Yes, NT's are are as insecure as Aspies about friends... The difference is, NT's go an extra mile to keep their friendship.

I would say the extra mile thing is an individual thing. Some Aspies are pretty detached and cause the dissolution of friendships by over-detachment. Sometimes an Aspie goes too far in the other direction and does a super-clingy almost-stalking thing for someone he/she likes. The same person can sometimes act in one of these two ways, and sometimes in the other at different periods of their life, or in regards to different people.
I've done both. But in the cases where I am super detached, it was usually because of a lack of connection between me and the other person.
I definitely did the extra mile to keep a friendship with my now-best friend. We had some difficult periods, and he used to be unenthusiastic about me. I on the other hand, tried so hard (too hard at certain points in the past, bordering on crazy) to stay in contact. Then I realized I had to be different, allow him to decide for himself whether he wanted me around. Somehow we kept in contact, and he was friendly, although at that time not as much as me. But lately he realized he does really like me and really care about me, so it had a happy ending.