How Many Friends Do You Have

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Thanks for the topic OP. I feel a lot better about having 0 friends. It is a rare thing for me to be part of any majority.

To the OP - I am very sorry about your Mom.

I have one friend, we have been friends for more than twenty years, she has gone from friend to more like a sister. I am counting her as a friend and not family because there are no blood or marriage ties.

In analyzing my life I have realized that I am, for lack of a better term, a one-at-a-time person. I have one friend at a time, one love interest at a time, one pet that I give the most attention to and bond with at a time. For instance right now I have one close blood relative (mom), one love interest (husband), one friend (mentioned above), one pet that I give most attention to (one dog of two that we have). I don't do this on purpose, I just realized it recently and still need to analyze more deeply.

The only way I can describe is it's like I don't have the energy for more than that. It has been pointed out to me recently (by a professional) that I can set boundaries in a relationship, that I don't have to be completely open with friends and can therefore have more than one. I don't know how to do that. I also have serious trust issues from being bullied so It's easier just to stick with the people I have.

It does suck when bands that I like come into town and no one I know will go with me because they don't like them, or don't know who they are. It's also really going to suck trying to network for a job when I graduate from this midlife career-change degree.

I have zero friends. It doesn't bother me. I get enough social interaction in my special recreation programs, at church and with my family.

If I had any real life friends, they'd probably be bothering me all the time.

Thanks... I will add that one to my collection and take a look later. Right now I'm collecting possible alternate sources of help and at present think that a site called loveisrespect.org (National Domestic Violence Hotline site) may end up being my first stop if the email to the church fails to be answered (still no answer as of the 4th day). All options are fair game right now though. The local therapist who diagnosed me 7 years ago is also high on my list, although she is in it for the profit.

That's why I don't have any.

This is the situation I am facing and that seems to be the standard reaction of other gays to me. They tend to lead me on to cause me to spend time writing to them only to ignore my reply or to reply with some lame one-liner like "LOL". In many cases it is a form of abuse known as gaslighting (Google it) but gaslighting is always an intentional act to cause a person to feel self-doubt. In the case of the pastor in question and that church's organization it may be a reaction of ignorance or knee-jerk misconceptions about autism as they label me as some "crazy" who is automatically considered to be wrong. Churches and many of their people do tend to be the most judgmental groups out there.

That church organization's website DOES have a "Report Hate" submission form, which they encourage people to use to report abuse. However I can just see their faces if I were to report that church organization and that pastor using their own Report Hate submission form. They would probably ignore me permanently if they have not already done so. They also have a document online on church policy regarding pastor abuse of others that covers this sort of thing so maybe they are worried more about about the lawyers than about showing simple compassion and kindness. Bureaucrats!! !! !

I too have strong religious beliefs but I do not “wear them on my sleeve” and have always considered them to be uniquely personal beliefs that I do not expect others to share. By the same token I also expect others to not try to impose their own beliefs upon me so I have difficulty with the evangelism that is so common with most churches. I accept all religious beliefs (or lack thereof) as equally as valid for those people who hold them. It is my strongest lifelong belief that the most evil thing one person can do to another is to try to influence, alter or affect another person’s mind, thoughts or views. This came about one night in the Spring of 1972 as a result of overhearing one of the few friends I ever had make a very harsh verbal anti-gay attack on another dorm resident who had done nothing at all to him. I felt so strongly about this that last Christmas I sent the victim an anonymous Happy Holidays card (he is Jewish) to apologize for the behavior of my friend 44 years earlier and offering a vague hint as to who I was. I see a huge difference between religion and church. Religion represents a collective belief of many people on something good while the church represents the opinion of a few mortal humans (such as those at Nicaea), which they seek to impose on others. The difference is like night and day. To me, evangelism represents the arbitrary judgment by one person that another person’s views are inadequate for that second person’s needs, which to me is pure evil and judgment. I believe there need to be more qualifying statements of “I think”, “I feel” or “I believe” prefacing all statements of religious views but too often churches state their own views as fact, placing their words in God’s mouth as a result. This comes at least in part from my Aspie dislike of unsubstantiated opinion represented as fact.

Yup. Lonely Aspies should be careful what they wish for, as you clearly are. I had a great time with my hippie anarchist chums, but towards the end I noticed I wasn't getting much done in terms of my lone special interests. It must be worse for people who have to work really hard to fit in and put on a cumbersome social mask every time the doorbell rings (I was so damn lucky that they were on my wavelength and I could pretty much be myself around them), and getting rid of people without hurting their feelings can be quite a social challenge. It seems impossible to have a reliable on/off switch for it. Once I opted out and moved out of the area, people moved on and I found I couldn't easily re-connect with them.

I've had a similar experience with getting rid of my only friend recently. Except nobody's moving anywhere. He also has autism. By the way, I'm not an Aspie. I have classic autism.

Everyone that told me that they were my "friend" in the past, either dumped me or we grew apart

If they dumped me, they usually fit at least one of the following categories:

They called themselves "we", "people" or "most people". Then they acted like they had a moral right to veto anything I did or said because "people don't like it". But when I tried to veto something they did they. Grunted "people do it all the time"

They were totally judgmental and made a running commentary about what I did and said

They did not let me disagree with them, not even vague things without functional implication

They treated me however they wanted. Any response other than passive aggressive tolerance got a "you got mad"

They asked none of your business questions. But when I asked the slightest thing they said "why"

Off leash dogs

Cancelled on me often. Little or no notice. Like she had the nerve to tell me that her dad's birthday was next week and she had a lot of homework

They accused me of trying to "kill" them.



Homophobic

They acted like every thought and emotion that went through their precious lil head was the latest greatest scientific discovery . Then when I talked they half listened, interrupted, and squeaked "huh" and "what"

Every word you said describes my life experiences to a 'T'... with all the 'i's dotted!! !! !!

Later...

Here is an interesting link I just found that is somewhat related in that it says that a person should not try to continue relationships (friendship, love, family etc) with those who show such ongoing abuse and should instead focus on oneself to prevent loss of self-esteem. This is in effect to avoid the effects of gaslighting, which describes the abuse shown in all that you wrote. Of course this is also so difficult when we are also dependent on those same people who abuse us... but one of the secondary effects of gaslighting is also to create that sense of dependency by the victim.

> http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/07/i ... s-to-hurt/

I don't know if I included this in my earlier posts but here is a very good link describing gaslighting that comes from the National Domestic Violence Hotline website. They may become my next step in looking for help.

> http://www.loveisrespect.org/what-gaslighting

Overnight, I have decided that I WILL send my story to that church's Report Hate link if they fail to respond to my second email. It will probably also get ignored by the ostrich with its head buried in the sand but it will go directly to a higher level person in the organization and they DO need to look in the mirror at the ignorance of their attitudes regarding autism.

Does a girlfriend count? If so, I have one friend, my girlfriend.

If you aren't counting girlfriends, I have zero friends, and that's all I need.

I've never needed any friend other than my girlfriend.

Michael829

Genuinely struggling to answer this. I have precisely 1 friend who I see regularly one-on-one. A pool of a couple of dozen people who are "situational" friends- I see them at things I do regularly, am sort of close to a couple but barely know others. And several dozen "old friends," only two of whom I speak to regularly (even though they live far away and some others live much closer.) I'm never sure who considers me to be a friend, and have somtimes made things awkward by assuming too little or too much friendship. Long on company, short on intimacy.

I've learned to not place so much importance on arbitrary distinctions such as "friend". I don't think there's really a clear, agreed upon definition for this. However, there is one friend I "have" that I have distanced myself from since we both decided to quit drinking. He went the AA route and I went the more general route. Over time it felt more and more like I was talking to a religious person. He started using all the code-terms of AA and started exuding the attitude of alcohol is "evil" rather than "unhealthy".

I can't really deal with it. Ironically, he seems even more obsessed with alcohol now. I just wanted to move on with my life and I felt like he was making me want to drink because of the constant portrayal of alcohol as a "forbidden fruit" as such. I'm very much of a freethinker and naturally want to do what people tell me not to do, so being around that "AA-speak" just makes me want to rebel!

I've found it healthier for me to just move on and not talk about it all the time!

It is very interesting to compare the results in this thread to other threads. I just can't believe how people answered 50+ on some of those threads! How on earth does that work? I can't even maintain friendships unless the person I am friends with is in my class at school, so how do people maintain 50+ friends ?



I am sorry that you don't have the opportunities anymore. I know that if I didn't have school, I would have no friends because, well, I have no clue how else I would meet up with people unless I were to join some sort of meetup group, and even then, it would be so hard to make friends since I can't initiate contact with others (they have to approach me because I don't know how). It is hard enough already, and I have a terrible track record with maintaining friendships .



Thank you for this. I have had OCD since birth, and it has been unrelenting for me since May 2016, which was the worst obsession trigger I have ever had. On bad days, I can have up to 500 compulsions, and constant obsessions. I have been through almost all forms of OCD, including moral scrupulosity, religious obsessions, existential obsessions/derealization, intrusive violent thoughts (fear of acting out or harming somebody), sexual obsessions, hypochondria (that is the big one), magical thinking, checking, memory hoarding, some symmetry obsessions, and "just right" OCD. I am glad that your niece was able to make it through it. Right now I have almost completely given up, and I don't even know what is going on anymore. OCD has really helped me in certain ways, though. It has allowed me to never take any feeling for granted, and it has made me a better person. Suffering can really make a person not only stronger, but also more loving, caring, and accepting. Thank you so much! I have my fingers crossed that everything is just an obsession and will one day go away.

My OCD has definitely been present since birth, and my first major obsession was at the age of 6. I think that all the disorders you listed are present at birth, but sometimes are not triggered until adulthood. OCD is neurologically based in my eyes because it is closely related to other neurological disorders (autism, ADHD, Tourette's, etc.) and it stems from a broken connection between the frontal lobe and basal ganglia in the brain, which causes the anxiety.



Oh my goodness, that is very rare. I am very sorry. Again, my heart goes out to you and I hope you are able to find a social outlet that is able to help. Other people can really suck sometimes! Just remember that not everyone is like that, and there are people out there that are genuine who you can meet.



Of course! Having friends in real life is definitely not always the same as having friends online, and I understand your need.



Definitely true as well. Certain Aspies I love, others I cannot stand! I am sure understanding NT's exist- the person I met at camp is NT, and they are definitely understanding.



I am sorry you had to encounter bullying! People can be so cruel.



Thank you! I am going to reply in a separate post about the story since I feel this one is getting a little long . No problem! I would never think less of you/be offended about anything.

I have at least 50 acquaintances---but maybe three or four friends (none of the "best friend" variety).