Did You Have Friends As A Young Child?

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yes

I grew up without any friends.

After high school I became a social butterfly.

My mom had this group she went to of other moms and they all had kids almost exactly my age, so those were my playmates/friends for a long time.
I also had a few buddies at school, but one that I thought of as a best friend started being mean after we came back to school one summer in early grade school. She had a new friend, and whenever she was with that girl they would tease me. D:
Then for a while I guess I didn't have any close friends up until 7th grade when I started going to a special school and made some REALLY good friends from grades 7-9 that I still see today. I also made some great friends in art school. That's also when I think I started really learning how to act more "cool", like how I talked and acted. (not spazzy.) That might have been part of why I started getting more NT friends. (Not like super NT, but NT artists, lol.)

Last edited by wigglyspider on 15 Nov 2009, 5:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

I did have friends from when I started school but I was always known to have behaviour problems....
I was lucky that I had a group of friends until at the age of 7 (which i realised it was when i was going to turn , I was transferred to another school after my diagnosis at that age (which I never knew about it until when I was 13).
I still had friends then and was pretty popular with my peer groups, but there was this one girl who i strangly admired, she also had been diagnosed at the same place as me.... used to bully me, turns out now shes good friends with me (even went out together )

Up till I was in secondary school, I wasn't very popular with people, but I was lucky to have a few... I was also socially awkard outside my school.
Not many people wanted to hang out with me, so I always ended up with just one person or a group i wasn't fully happy with or just aquantances.

Since I left that school, i still didn't have as much luck with friends, but I was lucky now that I fit to a group... 2 of them who I mostly hang out with though and those 2 are real good friends.

Theres this girl who i've known since for ages since when I was really little and went to the same church was a real friend that i had while i was growing up, I even still talk to her at times, we never had any arguments before or upsetting each other, my mum even thought she was better for me than the other friends that i've made.

Its been tricky trying to impress but I was also happiest when i was having my own space.

Sounds like my mother and grandmother raised me quite similarly. I was an only child though.

Neighbors, friends, family members (other than my mother and grandmother) were all cosidered to be nosy and intruding factors and therefore not very desireable.

My mother's take on thing was that it was Ok to have friends as long as one didn't confide in them, loan or borrow things to or from them, or have them over the house. One should keep one's friends at arms length and avoid forming deep attachments to them because they will make demands on you and invade your privacy. Not very friendly.

My grandmother (the head of the house) believed that if one was truly strong one didn't really need or want anyone. One could hardly avoid having (as she put it) hangers on but it was important to keep people from getting too familiar or they would ask you favors, want to visit, etc.

My parents didn't like me to go out to play often because they were afraid I might interact with other children or neighbors and become close, because they didn't want the scrutiny or social obligations. They both were also paranoid/overprotective and were afraid I'd get molested, beaten, kidnapped, or dirty playing outside on a regular, predictable basis.

I'm guessing that the social aversion/shyness/awkwardness part of my being aspie suited them just fine!

Still, I was pretty good at attracting a series of brief close friendships that would fizzle once they realized my parents policy of leaving school life at school meant I couldn't have them over (or go out to play with them more than a few days a year). My parents didn't like to meet other parents or volunteer for the school so that didn't help.

I had only one birthday party where others of my age were invited (my longest running female best friend and my boyfriend at the time) when I was 17 and my parents went out of their way hinting that the party needed to be over almost as soon as it started.

As far as I remember, I wasn't usually a loner at all until I was about 11 or 12 years old, and would seek out and enjoy the company of other children. I felt generally good about my friends and classmates, although I was often quite content to play alone, and when in company I could be quite domineering or hostile, often getting into fights or ignoring the "common sense" of social rules. I never "ran with the pack," but there wasn't really a pack to run with, just individual kids I'd got to know gradually, one by one. I was lucky that there was practically no bullying at my first school.....the sport of ganging up on a scapegoat didn't really seem to take off until the kids were quite a lot older.

Even later on, although I often acted a bit strangely in company, I was more or less still accepted - groups of kids would occasionally decide that I was a pain in the butt, yet I always seemed to find people who either didn't know what I was like, or didn't mind. It was a very rare thing for me not to have at least one regular friend, though I tended to stick to small numbers, and the associations would rarely last longer than a few months. Looking back, most of the kids I hung out with were themselves outcasts to some extent....they were often the targets of bullying.

My parents didn't seem to put a very high value on social things, and tended to discourage me from too much mixing with others, so during my childhood and adolescence I saw my parents as my main "social impairment." When I wanted to look fashionable they wouldn't let me. Socialising was seen as frivolous and possibly dangerous. Years later, when I'd won the freedom to decide these things for myself, I tended to put any social ineptitude down to lack of practice.

I never had more than one friend at once and we'd spend all our time together but those never lasted because I'd end up saying something stupid and be too ashamed to speak to them again or I'd just stay at home instead of go places with them. In total I think I've had five friends in my life time and I haven't kept in contact with any of them and I'd be far too embarrased to do so now since they all seem to have these great social lives and a multitude of friends.

I spent the last 2 years of high school and my 2 years at college without making any friends and all I do is waste my time away between going to work and sitting at the pc playing my current mmo obsession. I decided about three months ago I was tired of been alone, I was pretty content with it until then I suppose - I dropped alot of weight to try and feel less anxious about my appearance and went to see my GP about getting CBT which is when he said I've probably got AS and then refered me to a specialist.

I'm hoping that by the time the University terms start (september) I'll be atleast be able to socialise a bit and make some friends..

I never really had friends past kindergarten. I had acquaintances, but that was about it.

I'm honestly a bit jealous of you guys, although I must admit I was more severe than most Aspies. The doctors wanted to diagnose me as having classic autism at first, but my intelligence was the sole thing that pushed me into the AS category.

I always had one friend at a time, and then I would only hangout with them continuously.

No

I had some good friends until I was about 6 (until primary school, basically). Actually, my first 5 years were really nice: I had friends, I was kinda gifted since I had learnt to read when I was four and a half, and I suppose that they were impressed. Trouble started when i turned 6, they started to pick on me because they weren't impressed anymore, they were jealous. I suppose that 6 is the age when "normal" kids start to pick on other kids because they're different.

Yeah, but not very many. During early school days I usually just played by myself during playtime. I did get friends as I got older though, though I still struggle.

It seems to be a real mixture. I am glad I am not alone in having had some playmates.
What I found was that I got used a lot by 'playmates'. Once they realised I was quite naive, gullible and desperate, they would use me for whatever they could get off me, then return to bullying me with the leader of a little school sect that preyed on those that were different for whatever reason.

I can remember doing a lot of socially inappropriate things, and upsetting those I did spend time with, to the point that one of them sprayed perfume in my eyes in my house one time. I kind of lost interest altogether in socialising after 10 years as the interests of the other girls were just so alien and different to mine. I wanted to write poetry and talk about poetry all the time, while they did the whole boys, parties and shopping thing. I was very much alienated among my peer group, and even the girl I mentored when she joined our year, turned away from me and joined one of the established groups of friends. I can remember feeling very angry and confused by that, not understanding why she had done that.

There always seemed to be one 'protector' figure during my school years... a tougher girl who would sort of watch out for me, or mother me. Once they left, I was back to being alone all the time.

I have memories of many times when I would hide in the toilets or flee from groups of girls who were trying to kick me and verbally harrass me.

But I never understood just why I seemed to be unlikeable to others. Even the teachers seemed wary of me.

The wonderful birthday parties I had as a smaller child are funny, as the majority of those girls, well, once back at school, they didn't give me the time of day. I think kids just accept because a party is a party...free food, free games, free goodys. My mother did all she could to make sure I had the best parties. But in the end it was just another way the other kids could use me for what they could get.

I am now very untrusting of peoples' motives and learnt the hard way that humans will use you and feign friendship to get what they want.

But why on earth did it take me so long to stand my ground and pick up on that when I was a kid and teen ?

Growing up I usually had one or two good friends, and a lot of people who I thought were my friends but who actually found me annoying

I had a few friends here and there, but most of the time the other kids wanted to avoid me as much as possible.

the creepy thing is the few friends I had back in preschool actually grew up to be utter pricks....including my then-best friend.

I had a friend or something in kindergarten, but I don't remember much about him.

After that, I knew some folks I'd hang out with here and there; they were the type who were good to me when it was just us, but treated me like crap around others.

I finally met my now former best friend shortly after that, and he and I were very close 'til almost 10 years ago.

I knew a few people here and there within that time span as well, but I don't really think they were that fond of me in fairness.

It is what it is.

Let's start counting how many friends I have/had

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no "real" friends since birth