Social situation

[daniegirl6224]

I need your help gaining more insight into a social situation. I made a friend like 5 months ago who is also autistic. We really bonded over the autism, and I opened up to her more than I do with most people. Most of our friendship has been over text, we have only hung out a few times. But I feel like she is one of my closest friends.

I have been questioning the friendship because she often doesn’t text back. Like sometimes we have really good back and forth texting conversations, followed but a few texts from me that go unanswered over days, maybe even weeks sometimes.

Problem: I am not sure if this friend wants to be friends. I may be overthinking it, but I question if I have annoyed her or offended her somehow or if she simply doesn’t really like me .

The flip side: she is autistic and has struggles of her own. When I am struggling, I tend to shut the world out just to cope, and she may do the same thing. She also may not understand how reciprocal friendships work. She may not even realize that she is not being reciprocal enough for me.

Should I ask her about this? How should I go about that? I do not want to keep reaching out to her if I am annoying her or something.

Thank you for your help

 

[Rodafina]

I admit to having become too-close-too-soon with people and have ended up slowly withdrawing from the friendship because I realized I was in a situation where the expectation for communication and socializing was way more than I could handle (even if it wasn't very much at all).

It feels bad because I think that I let some people down by getting easily overwhelmed with messages and the expectation for regular communication even though I originally wanted to be close and connected. These are good people that didn't do anything wrong, but I'm just not able to maintain more than a few close relationships in my life. I wish I had the chance to explain to these people exactly what happened, but instead, I just slowly drifted away further and further into silence and not even being friends anymore. That wasn't really fair to them and I'm sorry about that.

I think it's worth a try to ask her straight up. You may both just have a different capacity for communication right now. Maybe it can still work out if you have clear expectations for what feels comfortable to both of you. One way to start the conversation might be something like, "Hey, I feel like sometimes I might be sending you too many messages, but I'm not sure and just wanted to see how you felt." Not sure if that would work, but it could get things started.

 

[daniegirl6224]

I admit to having become too-close-too-soon with people and have ended up slowly withdrawing from the friendship because I realized I was in a situation where the expectation for communication and socializing was way more than I could handle (even if it wasn't very much at all).

It feels bad because I think that I let some people down by getting easily overwhelmed with messages and the expectation for regular communication even though I originally wanted to be close and connected. These are good people that didn't do anything wrong, but I'm just not able to maintain more than a few close relationships in my life. I wish I had the chance to explain to these people exactly what happened, but instead, I just slowly drifted away further and further into silence and not even being friends anymore. That wasn't really fair to them and I'm sorry about that.

I think it's worth a try to ask her straight up. You may both just have a different capacity for communication right now. Maybe it can still work out if you have clear expectations for what feels comfortable to both of you. One way to start the conversation might be something like, "Hey, I feel like sometimes I might be sending you too many messages, but I'm not sure and just wanted to see how you felt." Not sure if that would work, but it could get things started.

Thank you so much Rodfina I really like your example on how to bring it up to her

 

[Tom]

I think I wouldn't address it at all and not add expectations to what should just be a friend thing. Just act as if everything is as usual. If she doesn't respond let it go and wait for her to do it. If she doesn't for an extended time then maybe its going away. Natural ebb and flow of relationships.

 

[Masked Man]

I feel like when this situation occurs, I tend to mirror the other person's behavior. If I text them, and they don't text back, or are slow to do so, I just won't text again. I'll let them initiate the next text.

Also - I can tell you what my experience was like being "friends" with another autistic person on this site. This person would email me numerous times per day and their entire email was everything they hate. That's it. There was no back and forth conversation. This person never once asked me how I was or anything about me or my life. It was only monologuing and complaining. I stopped responding after a while because it was clear that this person had zero communication skills and just wanted someone to confirm their own beliefs.

I'm not saying you're doing that but just be careful because I think some autistic folk have a tendency to do this.