People with Asperger's who have multiple friends

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I have a couple of friends that I've known for many years but I haven't seen any of them for a while (approx. 2 and 5 years) as they live far away from me. They rarely visit (it's hard for me to visit them as I'm a carer for my wife and a father) and as I've gotten older I find it very hard to maintain friendships. The last time that one of them came down to my area (he was visiting his mother who lives a few miles away) he got together with a load of other friends/acquaintances and they all went out for a drink together. I wasn't invited, which hurt a bit.

That's fine though as my wife, of 30 years, is my best friend and that's good enough for me.

I think this is a crucial point. I'v noticed that whenever I try to push myself to expand my social circle a lot, my subconscious goes into rebellion, and I unintentionally push people away.

Have anybody seen/read the film/book High Fidelity by Nick Hornby? It's about a guy who goes on a quest to find out why all his girlfriends ditched him. He finds out that in most cases it was he who put them in an impossible situation, where a breakup was the logical conclusion. I really had an Eureka moment when I read that book.

I agree. I had a lot of social success this fall, as measured by being invited to places and spending mutually enjoyable time with other people. I was SO exhausted. I recognized in myself that I actually can't, don't have the ability to, socialize as much as I think will make me happy. I'm trying now to just make one social engagement a week. But I'm swinging the other way and getting too lazy to do anything. Lazy is a bit of a mean word. I'm focusing on other things. Other important things. I run my own business and all this socializing influenced my income considerably. My numbers are lower this year than they were at this time last year, and that's not good. I was just getting to the point where I was able to relax a bit with money. I guess I relaxed too much.

It really helps me understand my social struggles more. I simply can't put in the energy needed for relationships and put in the energy needed for the rest of my life. It's the spoon theory. I only have so many spoons and if I try to use more spoons than I have, I get cranky and I start acting like a jerk. And then I think no-one likes ME. But the truth is they don't like getting in my way when I'm being a jerk.

I have a few close friends, and I really like all of them a lot. They seem to understand me, and they all put up with me talking about my special interests a lot and we will do things like go out to get food and hang out and play board games and watch TV shows or movies.

Years ago, when I was an undiagnosed grade schooler, I decided I could either remain the quiet, mumbling, withdrawn type or I could go for broke. I went for broke. I'm well into my 30s now, and even today people think I'm a loudmouthed attention seeker and a weirdo, but sometimes I'll meet someone who actually laughs at my bizarre jokes and who thinks I'm neat. Sometimes these people become friends. Rinse and repeat enough times and one can accumulate a decent number thereof.

Being funny helps, and believe it or not it's something that can be learned (though largely through trial-and-error, which can be painful). The quirks of aspyness can be made to work in one's favor. "Oh my god, WaysOff, you sound so deadly serious when you crack jokes and that makes it so much funnier!" But that flat, deadly seriousness, which apparently is a whole layer beneath standard-issue deadpan, was always unintentional on my part.

If you haven't seen them in 2 years they are most likely not your friends and probably don't even think about you.

I'm the same in this regard. People say my deadpan style of humor is absolutely hilarious. I never intended it to be that way, but I guess my monotonous tone naturally makes me seem a lot funnier when I say something that makes people laugh.

Well, that's sweet. Thank you! Or, on the other hand, jobs and families take up more and more time as you get older? I'm just as guilty as they are for not keeping in contact.

*Hugs underwater*

I've found exactly the same thing. I purposely have less than 10 friends on FB, or I go into panics deleting everyone. I kept doing it, and deleting my FB account...until I decided to have a handful of people on there. I've thought of deleting my account since, when I've been upset, but I've far less incentive to do that now, and haven't since I made that friend count change. It was very much an unconcious thing, I didn't know why I needed so badly to delete everyone.

Well, I'll say that I'm lucky and that I usually find people who want to socialize with me before I can find anyone I want to socialize with.
I've asked several people why they got close to me in the first place, and they answered that it is because I am spontaneous and honest, or because I don't care about what others think of me, or because I am funny, or really any other answer I got was along those lines. Of course, sometimes I've also been approached by people who thought that I was gullible and that they could take advantage of me, but I guess they understood they were really wrong on that fairly soon, and that they're actually 10 times more unintelligent and naive than I am
But then again, ever since I was 14/15 I got really tired of my previous withdrawn and mopey state, at the same time I gained more self-esteem and therefore I developed a kind of "screw everyone and everything" kind of attitude, that still persists nowdays

Some Aspies seem to have an ability to have close friendships with NT peers (NT meaning non-ND). I only have a few friends and they have some sort of neurological disorder. And it's not a group either, it's more like individual friends, who don't know each other. The only NT person is my boyfriend.

My cousin is NT and makes friends more quickly than most NTs themselves can. It's like she has superpowers or something. When she starts a new job, she doesn't know anyone there, then hey presto after the first day has finished she already has made at least one close friend, and then already she gets invited out with them the following weekend. The only negative thing is that she's so outgoing, that she cannot settle too long in a love relationship because she knows too many people and gets asked on dates too much.

It's pretty simple. They have more friends because they communicate with people more frequently and with a higher number of people. If you want to have friends, you have to initiate communication and continue to do it with each person over a period of time.

I agree that it's just not true that people who haven't seen each other in a while can't be friends. I know lots of people, most of whom are NT's who have wonderful friends that they don't get to see very often. But when they do get to see each other, they are very close. Its just part of life. Sometimes you can't keep up with everyone. It doesn't mean you don't care.

Very true. Thank you spoons I have one friend who I've known since I was a baby (our mothers were both in the maternity hospital at the same time). I've been to every school with him from nursery through to 6th form college. He moved several hundred miles away to uni and has been in academia ever since and even though we haven't seen each other for about 15 years I know he's still a very good friend. When I do see him it's like we've never been apart.

*Hugs right back, although awfully late* I'm not joking about being terrible at corresponding with people. It's been, what, more than a month now. Yet I've been thinking about what to answer.

I'm really a lot more social than you. And I have a fairly large aquaintance. But those are a mix of people who are only facebook friends and friends I have through others. My real circle of friends is tiny, and we don't see each other often. I've learned to keep some relationships on a low burn, which at times makes life easier when you end up bumping into each other.

I was reminded of this when I went to a party a couple of months ago. The party was nice, it was outdoors and very low key, nothing stressful. And I got to know a lot of people better. And now I have to say hello to them when I meet them and have conversations with them. And by now I know how little we have in common, and some of them scare me, even though I think they are probably perfectly nice people. But they will misconstrue what I say or don't say, and it goes downhill from there. And I am so incredibly tired. I just want to go live in a cave.

I have a few groups of friends /aquaintences

One is music related. By music I mean I played in a band or at local music jams.

2 good friends that I can get fart real. The rest are aquaintences

The other is Church large and small group.
About 4 are fart real friends
The rest are aquaintences.

Both places I can be silly to serious.

A third group are work.
Though I don't see them outside of the job, but I seek out a few as work friends. One actually came to my mother in laws funeral service.

I hope that helps.