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

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And how does it make you feel?
It makes me feel depressed if I think too deeply about it, even though I'm on Sertraline what prevents me from being able to think too deeply about anything. But sometimes I still get a moment sometimes where I feel downhearted about it every now and then.

I can get along with almost everyone, the only people I don't really get along with are those who aren't very nice people, or who look down on certain people, etc.
I can empathise with people, share my feelings, listen to them without interrupting, recognise non-verbal social cues, engage in small talk, and show interest in them like asking stuff like "how's your kids?", "did you have a nice weekend?", "how's your husband doing? I heard he's not very well", all of those general stuff. But for some reason I still can't form close friendships like how I see others doing it.

Ok yes people chat to me at work, and I chat to them as well. That's good. But I see others having much more in depth friendships with each other, deep enough to do more things than just meeting up for lunch, but I mean things like going on holiday together, being invited to each other's parties or weddings, going out of their way to help someone move house or something, etc.

Ok people at work are nice enough to me, I can trust them, they would phone me and tell me if my shift has changed or something, which is friendly and thoughtful. But I feel I'm not close enough to feel able to do things like invite to an event, or be invited to their events.

I can't be doing a lot wrong, because I'm very good with my boyfriend, and I've not been with him a year yet but I feel like there's a strong connection and he even says I'm the most trusting, thoughtful, empathetic girl he's ever met, and I know that because I find I'm very good at putting myself in other people's shoes, even if I've never experienced their problem before.

I think the milder our ASD is, the more complex our awkwardness is. It's like we're just a tiny fraction away from the social line and we just cannot rise above it enough to be able to form those closer relationships with outsiders. Does anyone else on the very mild end of the spectrum feel the same way?

yeah, definitely

i switched schools when i moved last summer and, even though i found a group that i can be with, i don't feel like they're my close friends

my close friends are the ones i've known since elementary school, but since i moved (pft only like 12 minutes away from my old house, but far enough to go to a new school) i can't see them at school everyday and yeah

if you had asked me a while ago if it was easy for me to make friends, i probably would have said yes bc i had all my friends that had been around since elementary school (and most of them were still around in middle school), but now that i'm with a completely different crowd of people then no, definitely not

i hope that makes sense.....i feel like my wording messed up somewhere.....

Yes. In real-life, I can't make meaningful friendships with people, even though I am a likable person and know how to talk with people. On the Internet, I find that sometimes I make friends with people, but on the Internet I almost unequivocally make friends with lonely people who therefore find me emotionally useful to correspond with. As a result, we are not really friends, or at least I do not feel like we are really friends, as I recognise that I am a temporary interpersonal measure that they require in their life for a period of undetermined duration. Then, we cease to be friends as they do not require me any further.

As a result, I relate to your post. I am incapable of close friendships, though I am great at making acquaintances.

Yes I only have 2 friends from elementary school, I'm in highschool now.

I probably do but I don't usually try. When I find someone wanting to be friends I often internally groan.

Yes and it's very frustrating! I want to have more close friendships, but I don't know how.

all I've known in people usually just drift away, I make effort and effort from them making it work isn't returned. More serious relationships drift away sooner or end up hostile and don't understand or explain why. This is the same for any situation like work, I do something nice, it ends up hostile and before I know it, I'm banned from communities or sacked without very much explaination.

Yes but it doesn't really bother me.

I think after what was supposed to be a support group turned on me (to be fair, it was maybe 10 people out of 65, they were just the "popular" clique of the group) I don't really think I can bring myself to want to trust anyone again. I don't know if it's a bad thing or not, I just do not want to open myself up to that kind of betrayal again. I've experienced it too many times already.

The thing is, I'm good with small talk and stuff like that, but I'm scared to have more in-depth conversations, because I worry they might think I'm being nosy or something. I think it's from set-backs I've had in the past with people, so now I just stay quiet. I don't talk too much about myself either. A lot of Aspies say they don't or can't talk about anything unless it's about their special interest. That's not me at all. I don't even have a special interest any more, and when I did I just kept that to myself.

I never know how to be interested in people without them accusing me of being nosy. There's this woman at work who really is nosy, she likes to know everything, and often when people are having a private conversation and she's walking by, she will stop and listen and make her way into the group. If I ever do this, people either give me the ''we're not talking to you'' look, or worse, say ''we wasn't talking to you!'' But it doesn't even have to be a private conversation for people to say that to me. Once when I used to volunteer at a charity shop, it was raining hard outside, and when I arrived into the shop, the other volunteers were talking about the weather and how it affected them this morning. It affected me too, and I said ''yeah, I'm soaking wet too!'' I said it in the same sort of manner as them; laughing but serious, if you get what I mean. So I wasn't complaining, I was just sharing how I felt getting wet, which was how the others were feeling. Then one of them said ''we wasn't talking to you!'' And that hurt me a lot. And it was humiliating. And it wasn't a private, personal conversation. It was an open conversation, sort of mixed in with an open greeting type.

So now I just keep quiet, and wait for someone to ask me something specifically, or talk to me specifically. I am put off participating in a group conversation.