What are your experiences with Asperger's social groups?

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I have started going to one recently. I was reluctant to go, but my parents said I should try it out. The first day, I didn't really make friends with anybody. My mother found another mother, and told me to talk to her son, which was of course very awkward. I (and the other mother's son) struggled through that.

The next day, my NT brother came with me. He talked to that other mother's son, let's call him T, and immediately seemed to get on with him. That was good as it let me be more friendly with T, but it wasn't really an accomplishment of my own. So I did gain a new friend from that group, but I kind of cheated, and I've become the 'third friend' if you know what I mean.

I started going to another one even more recently (i.e. was forced to by my mother). It is a more broad group, with all sorts of people with special needs, not just Aspies. I have had even less success with this one. I simply haven't really gotten on with anyone there. I was a newcomer to it; everyone else there knew each other. They still don't really know me. In that group we do activities instead of just being sent into a room to talk, which makes it a lot more fun for me, but I'm distracted from the actual socialising that I'm supposed to be doing.

Overall, my experience with social groups has not been very good. Personally I think an environmentally specially set up for socialising, considering the unpredictable nature of socialising, is not going to be very good for socialising.

I've been curious about this ever since I read about Aspie social groups in one of Tony Atwood's books. I was puzzled by the concept: how would a group of Aspies relate in a social setting, given the wide range of social ability and interest, plus the social deficits and communication difficulties some have?

I suppose I should see if there is one in my area. Then I could comment on this poll.

Most of the time with me, it was fine. I wasn't particularly comfortable most of the time.

but my recent downfall was this group called Best Buddies. It's where you're "assigned" to a "buddy", and you can arrange dates to be together. There are even group outings, too. But all the while, I've never seen my buddy. Apparently, she was a Canterbury student. But she never showed up.

The first Best Buddy program I've been in happened around the bus strike. But I've been able to go to every single group event, and my "buddy" just never showed up. She has absolutely no excuse for not showing up.

If I ever see her, and she tells me that she was supposed to be my buddy and still wants to be friends, I'll know exactly what to say. "Forget it," I'll say, "I don't want to be friends with you if you can't show up to anything." and it'll go on from there.

So, now that my rant has come to an end, I really don't want to go back to the program. But I'll be forced to.