Do you find it hard to form close friendships with most peop

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Yeah, Joe90, I can relate. I can do small talk, but I'm never able to turn those connections into actual friendships. I do have a couple friends, but we only talk about things like what we did on the weekend; I don't tell them personal stuff about me. No one really knows the real me. The trouble is, my interests are mostly just things that I think about in my head, and they're hard to talk about with other people. Sometimes I think I am too weird, too different from all other people, to form a real connection with anyone. Most of the time I don't think about it, so it doesn't bother me, but sometimes I really wish I could have someone who knows everything about me.

I definitely agree with those who can make acquaintances that never go any further. In my case I do want friends and feel very lonely. I've never managed friendships, apart from maybe two people. I'm trying to do sone reading up to see how I might be able to improve my social skills.

I can't make any type of friendship let alone a close one. Well I speak to people in my class at college but there is less than 10 people so, it's not that difficult.

I wouldn't mind a friend though I'm not entirely sure how it would work once I had one. I don't quite get the concept of friends what you do with them.

I've always wondered how people make friends, like does it just happen or do you ask can we be friends or what?

I'm regularly too dizzy or blinded from chronic bodily pain to maintain relationships, so I've not had an acquaintance in a few years, let alone tried to make a friend. I think good friendships require a certain companionable chemistry and enough common interests to unfold... So, no manner of being proper and kind seems to do much more than ease potential tension in passing interactions with strangers. All of my good friends who have come and gone have had at least a couple of strong common interests, and were fairly easy to be around as far as being compatible in personality, and presented some good innocent rivalry to keep each other sharp.

I don't meet people at all, I've always had a cold relationships with my peers.

I think it might actually be the other way around in truth, maybe your the type that can and want to form closer last relationship and most people don't know how to be close to the level you can and can't relate to it. I think many people seem like there close to some friends and seem to maintain a lasted closeness. Hoeven they are doing so with a limited closeness by gettinger into those "ramble" or "chitchats" about "nothing" that most of us Aspie 's don't really understand because we naturally want to talk about stuff that is more meaningful.

I'm 45, and I have some really good friends. Not many, but enough for me. The three things they have in common:

Time - I've spent a lot of time with all my best friends.

Activity - I've done *stuff* with all my best friends - not just hanging around, I'm talking about things I don't normally do. I even went skydiving once.

Sympatico - Sometimes you just feel a kinship - maybe common interest, maybe similar life philosophy - I can't spell it out exactly, but my best friends are the people I'm most comfortable being around.

So, that leads to the following advice:

Put in the time. If you want to make friends, you have to spend time with people. It can be done at work, but work is also pretty good at putting boundaries around relationships. See if you can find other places to hang out with people.

Engage in activities. Figure out what you like to do (that involves other people), and do that - chess club, soccer, volunteer activities, etc. These things are a fabulous chance to spend time with people, without being awkward - because you already have a reason for being part of that group.

Lastly, if you have friends, sometimes they can help you find other friends (or activities). I'm not sure there is anything you can do about this one, but I do know that some of my best friends were introduced to me by other people I knew.

Ditto. I could have written this. Especially that my interests are hard to talk about. And wish I could talk to someone who understands all the things I think about. It's kind of a catch-22.

I have a partner who knows me fairly well but we still struggle to communicate in certain areas, it is a difficult relationship to maintain and often leads to conflict. I have a few other friendships however I have grown quite distant from them in the past few years which isn't all that unusual for me. The exception is a friend who I have known for near 10 years now and while I trust him it is extremely difficult to have meaningful conversations with him as he himself is not overly comfortable in social situations. The skill that lets people really know has really fallen out of practice..

Small talk is much worse than trying to have a meaningful conversation for me. Though awkward and rare, the meaningful conversations are usually on equal ground so the other party knows what is being said is important but small talk? I am very much aware that nothing that is being said is of any real consequence and I would much rather be getting on with whatever I was doing in the first place, I also find that I never really have much to say in the first play and tend to just nod a lot.