did your parents force you to make friends?

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I was somewhat forced. My mother tried to put me in a community centre thing (don't know the real name for it). the peeps there were VERY different from me.

Sort of - I remember getting invited to a classmate's birthday party back in fourth grade, and my mom telling me that I needed to "be polite, friendly, and play with the other kids". I got along well enough with the classmate in question, but I think there must have been other things going on that would cause her to say that.

These two things sound pretty normal actually, I think it's a sign of care that a mother wants her friendless kids to fel good about themselves and promote friendships, especially if she never heard of autism and might think her child'll grow lonely or is really missing out.

Yes. I was shoved out the door and told to go play with a bunch of people I hardly knew and wouldn't consider friends unless I was being extremely lax with the term. So I ended up hanging out a lot with a group of people, just sort of staying off to the side and never involving myself with what they were doing.

My mum was always telling me that I should join in, and in the end I got so angry. But I think she was just doing it to help me. Besides, I didn't like playing on my own much as a child, but at the same time I found joining in hard.

My mom didn't force me to make friends, but I was one of those kids that cried a lot because I felt no one liked me. My mom would ask me what I was doing to cause them not to like me. I had no answers because, to me, I didn't act any different from the other kids. All of us were obnoxious at times, so why was I shunned? I didn't understand it and longed to be treated like everyone else.

I got taken to a lot of parties for kids whose parents my parents knew. I didn't know the kids and they always had a lot of their friends there, who I didn't know either. They weren't interested in talking to me, because they all knew each other...so I was just a spare part.

My teachers at school also tried to make me sit to eat lunch with certain people...but these were people who he known each other most of their lives and weren't interested in an "intruder".

Yes! It's funny how people fail to see that.

I thought my parents were bad, but damn, felinesaresuperior, Keeno, myth - sounds like you had it much worse. I was "lucky" that my parents never cared enough to try to "fix" me in that way. They did tell me to "go and play with others outside" on the assumption that it was just a matter of going outside and when I ran into other kids there I would just naturally play with them, but at least they didn't interrogate me about it afterwards. I think my mother gave me a hard time about having few friends (and interests) from time to time, but fortunately she gave up fairly easily.

I can also identify with being made to sit somewhere until I say something. I don't remember being made to say "I love you" specifically. It was probably something like "mum, I'm sorry for what I did". I'd have to stand in a corner (facing the walls) until I said it. Firstly, I stopped calling her "mum" very early - it seemed too... affectionate... somehow and I found it very difficult to say. Secondly, I didn't think I was sorry, so why would I say it? I understood even then that I could speak the words and not mean them, but I thought "that couldn't possibly be the point of this - how stupid would that be?" Nobody explained to me why I should be sorry, they just assumed that if I thought about it enough I'd realise it myself, but I didn't. So eventually either I'd mumble something that was "good enough" (by that stage!) or they'd just give up and release me, telling me to "think about it some more".

My parents and family definitely disliked many of my Aspie traits.I am not sure that I blame them .I was often called ''antisocial''.

Oh, yeah, they did...without success. I had one very good friend and that's it. She's still one of my besties, 10 years later. Right now I have two good friends, including her and I feel that's enough for me. I love both of them.

My parents both are practicaly poster children for Asperger's and they were never that fond of socialzation and friendship themselves. They were never eye-contact Nazis and my mom has remarked several times that she finds eye contact threatning. My parents NEVER forced me to make friends but my mom would always try and encourage me to make friends with this terminally ill girl in my special ed class who she felt sorry for. I now realise that I only wanted friends so I could lecture them about my obsessions. When I found out that wasn't what a friend was, I had no desire to make friends. In my teens, I had finnaly learned to be comfortable in my own skin and found other people just got in the way.

My brother who only once complained about having to hear about meerkats for the umteenth time and probably only complained becuase he was under the influence of a domenering girlfriend and My neice who lived with us for a while and was really more like a little sister than a neice was basicaly the closest things I had to human BFFs. My mother has always basicaly my best friend as well.
My dog (a little German Shepard mix) was my BFF. He had to be put to sleep two years ago due to cancer and although I still consider him my BFF, it's not like I can do things with him anymore. My bearded dragon is my best friend.

But anyway, no. My parents never really forced me to have friends. I never really had any real "social skills traning" either and whenever I was entered in any kind of program with that intent, I would scream and yell about how much I hated it (which I did) and never had to go back. My parents did try to get me into a special social skills class but they claim they weren't able to afford it at the time ($4000) and insurance wouldn't cover it either. I don't know. I think my parents really knew what a little Hellraiser I could be and if I didn't want to do something, there was NOTHING one could do to make me do it and I would just get kicked out and the whole thing would just be a waste of money. My parents have always told me that if a friend makes fun of you for your intrests/obsessions, then they are not really your friends. My parents taught me the actual VALUE of GENUINUE friendship and they also taught me that life isn't a contest to see who has the most friends.

My mother never forced me - I think she knew better, from a very early age she seemed to acknowledge that I had my own mind and so was going to do whatever I wanted regardless of what she did or said, and she knew I was okay as I was so left me to it.

In school the teachers gave me a hard time for not joining in, I always found ways to avoid working in groups, the school responded by trying to put me in 'special education' classes which didn't work (at the time these classes were only set-up for those with learning difficulties, thus they kept having to kick me back out again) or forcing me to go to therapy - my therapy included group work with other kids, but I refused to play ball every step of the way and my mother allowed me to simply stop going.

No, but they forced me to take meds to sit still, shut up, pay attention from eight grade until graduation. Apparently I annoyed the hell out of my teachers and I moved around too much. Interrupted class. Had outbursts. Couldn't connect to others socially. Stuff like that.

No, my parents never tried to force me to make friends, and they never needed to. I tried on my own, but I didn't know how to interact normally with other children, so most of them hated me. After years of rejection, I gave up and receded into a shell, and now it's very hard to come out. I do wish my parents and teachers had helped teach me how to interact with the other children more. The teachers literally did nothing.

Meh.

I've heard many times I should invite my friends from school over but nothing has ever been forced on me.

That sounds terrible, maybe parents should realize friends are nice but its kind of impossible to make friends with people that aren't interested in that. And considering I was mostly an outcast being friends with me was bad for people socially, but yeah I am glad my mom did not try and force more social interaction on me so much as that would have meant being forced to hang out with people that didn't like me and picked on me to no end.