why can't I have real friends?

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I hear you, definitely. (Part of the reason I refuse to join Facebook, btw.)

What everyone has already said makes a lot of sense.

IMO, those who ignore you probably aren't worth it in the first place--at least, that's been my experience.

When you meet someone with whom you can actually connect on a deep level, you'll know it. Everyone else would just be superficial at best, anyway. You're not missing a thing.

I agree with LabPet: WP is "our" FB We're all friends here.

Trust me.....you'd be complaining if you had friends too. I tried for the longest time taking advantage of the fact that I was gay to be able to befriend guys and girls and get both to like me to a fair amount because I was nice and funny and people understood the condition I had and guys are more likely to be friends with a guy whos friends withs girls (altho they'd probably be using him in a way) but once I moved very few stayed in contact. Turns out this wasn't just me but happens to NT's a lot too....they have a million "real friends" but just wait until a crisis happens or they have a girl they both want....then they'll see. Facebook is just a way to make yourself look popular and continue High School into the real world. I'm autistic and I have over 1,000 friends on there and over 1,000 pictures tagged of me....how many of them actually get me? Maybe 2. It doesn't mean what you think it does....trust me

It's a good question but friendship in any form is highly overrated.

Well, I don't have real friends either. A lot of us here don't. In many ways it can be refreshing as you can take a more individualist path if you so choose.

It's not your fault. Don't blame yourself for the rest of the world being phony.

See my thread "The Aspie Glossary" and the discussion that has ensued.

I have this problem too.

I am NT, and I can say that there are varying degrees of friendship. I am in my mid forties, and I have come to realize that there are aquaintances that you are just pleasant to and may have a few things in common, but you never really get together to do much, so something like FB is good, because you can sort of keep up without too much energy. Then there are more casual friends. These friends you might get together with every so often, but you might not share everything with. This is probably the majority of friends. Then there are "real" friends. As time goes on, you realize who your "real" friends are because they will make an effort to stay in touch and be there for you through tough times. These friends really understand you. These friends come along few and far between.

As far as Facebook, it is really kind of silly in some ways. It is good to be able to see what is going on with people real quickly, but do I want to keep up with all of these high school friends? Not really. I care about them, but I just don't have the time.

Try not to let FB upset you too much. Just keep pursuing your interests, and work on being a good friend yourself, and I think you will find a friend. Friends come and go, and it is not always because they don't like you anymore, it is just that things change and people move on with life, and make different friends. I am sorry it has to be that way, but that is just sort of the way life is. If you can make 2 or 3 "real" friends in a lifetime, I think that is great!

Hang in there!

School was like that for me. I went to a garde school where nearly everyone was richer than me and that formed a barrier as much as autism did. There were these three kids who called themselves my friends. But they went over to each others houses all the time and I never did that with them. They talked to each other over the summer but never me.

When I realized that it was the first of two ugly realizations. The second was that they were "mean girls" who were constantly shifting into groups where two would fight with one other. And in that scenario I was the naive person they could use against each other.

So I tried hanging around other people but it was always the same. We didn't go to each others houses or communicate during the summers.

Then another social misfit (nonautistic but had psych problems) started contacting me all the time and she later claimed to have been my" best friend" at a time when I saw myself as having no friends because I didn't feel close to her. But since she initiated most stuff and I always went along with it I guess she thought there was more there than there was. She could be kind of mean too, not like the other ones but always claiming to know what I was thinking and judging me.

It took me a long time before I had any friendships that weren't hugely lopsided like that. And most of those turned out to be... autistic people. Go figure.

Lopsided relationships where I am the person the other one is trying to connect to make me feel terribly guilty. Because I know what it's like to be on the other side. And yet... I can't seem to control whether I am really interested in being friends or not. It just either happens or it doesn't. And if it doesn't I just get exhaustion but no enjoyment out of interaction. And since interaction is always exhausting it has to be either enjoyable or somehow necessary to make up for it.

Other thing is even with real friends I can usually only maintain contact with one at a time and forget the others exist. I expect a person would have to be rather patient to be my friend.

Thanks for the answers, guys.

Sometimes I wonder if the friends I did make were only friends because they wanted to fix me. I get myself in an independent situation where I no longer need fixed and they fade away.

I'm trying not to take facebook too seriously, and I would love to just not need friends... when I was a kid, I didn't need friends. I was perfectly happy by myself. I don't know what changed it. I know myself pretty well and am usually good company for myself, I just wish I could experience friendship like they do. It would probably be an overload. Maybe I wouldn't like it and would prefer my more austere relationships but I'd love to just experience it for a day.

Kiley, you're right that I'm quiet and a fringe-hanger. I have one close friend who knows a lot about me and she should be good enough, in the past it has been, except even she pulls the whole not talking to me while posting on everyone else's facebook wall... but then again, that's facebook and should I really put so much stock into a line of text on some internet page? Facebook posts can be done in seconds, it's not like really spending time with someone.

I'm a clinger, I guess. I have a hard time accepting that people move on, I just want things to be the same forever.

I might bring this up with my school counselor on Friday. She isn't convinced I have AS, but that's also just words on a piece of paper - I'm just me.

My daughter has Aspergers and is 17....she has a hard time keeping friends. God bless her...She just keeps on trying. She makes efforts to reach out and say hello, and she is learning to ask questions to get people to talk to her. I would encourage you to keep trying. Try to be a "detective"....ask people questions about themselves: What did they do last weekend, are they planning on going on vacation this summer, are they going to college, etc., etc. Just try to get people to talk to you. I only pray that my daughter will make 1 or 2 good friends...and you know what? This year, she has made 2 friends. Very nice, caring girls. It will only be for a short time, though. They are graduating high school this year. Hang in there!

I have a preset of questions I ask acquaintances online or when I meet them, ask for something. I think it's useful to have people put up with you but at the end of the day I can't help but believe there must be more to friendship then collecting archives of data on people.