Do you ever wonder if you make a desirable friend??

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IMO what really matters, in a friendship (or at least a close friendship), is not how often they want to see you, but how much they care about your well-being.

Do they make any effort at all to help you when things go badly for you? And do you, in turn, make an effort to help them when things go badly for them? The more you and they care about each other's well-being, the deeper the friendship, even if you rarely if ever actually see each other in person. (The ultimate level of friendship, rarely attained in real life, would be the ancient Greek legend of Damon and Pythias.)

Of course, enjoying each other's company is an important part of friendship too, but, to that end, online company can be as good as in-person company, IMO.

Back in the days before the Internet became popular, I (like lots of women back then) stayed in touch via phone with friends whom I rarely saw in person, yet we considered ourselves to be very close friends.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 26 Feb 2021, 1:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Currently I don't have any close friends other than my boyfriend. But I've had close friends in the past and hope I will again. When I was in my twenties and thirties I managed to have several close friends.

I think it's more productive to think in terms of mutual compatibility rather than some absolute, totally-ordered scale of "worthiness." Of course, many of do need to work on making ourselves easier to get along with, but we don't need to conform to NT standards in order to make friends with our fellow freaks. See Autistic-friendly social skills vs. blending in with NT's.

i have some friends, some which have ASD, others which do not.
I have to admit, that making friends with ASD can be a lot harder work than having non ASD friends.

In my experience this can be due to the problems that ASD does cause especially with communication.
In the past, i have tried to develop friendships with a few ASD sufferers.

For example, one guy who i know from a drop in service, i started exchanging emails with.
Well, the guy did reply to emails. But not always on topic.

He did on occasion ask me if i wanted to hang out. But when i replied that i did, and lets make a day / time
By the time he got my reply, he had changed his mind. This happened several times, until i just got fed up.

This is the kind of thing that happens with some ASD folk in my experience.
So takes perhaps a lot more time and effort to nurture.

Most of my NT peers don't give me a chance, but I know that I can be a very good friend, much better than some NTs even. But all NTs are really interested in are your interests, so if you're a woman under 40 and you don't wear makeup or go out partying or go to the gym or whatever then they immediately think there is something wrong with you and avoid you like the plague. If my NT peers weren't so shallow then I'd be rather popular. I can be funny (as in "ha ha"), I have an open-minded personality, I have a great sense of humour, I am easy to talk to, I listen and empathise to other people's feelings, I am loyal, and I can be very trustworthy.

The people I am friends with are either not NTs or have mild learning difficulties (not sure if they class as NT or not), or are quite eccentric, sensitive or overly empathetic like myself.

But whatever I do I just can't seem to attract women my age. I start up an acquaintance and then they ghost me, and I don't know what they want. But I guess it's because I don't drink. Yes, in the UK if you're under 40 and you like to drink and go to bars at weekends then you will automatically have a group of friends (but not necessarily people you might have met at a bar, I just mean your same-age work colleagues or something).

I feel an important element to making and keeping friends----is the ability to listen to them if they have problems, and to not impose your values upon other people, or try to "run their life."

Another important thing: don't lose your temper with people over every little thing. If somebody eats meat and you don't, don't go all Greta Thunberg on them!

The people that irritate me the most are self-righteous people, and people who believe every little thing is a reason to get all upset at the world.

What has Greta done to offend you besides stating her preference?

I prefer to spend time on my own a lot and am flaky often. I'm also very quiet in group conversations. So I will go with no.

I once had a friend who was like this. She tried to control me and if my opinions weren't the same as her's then she would get all funny with me.
I think she was jealous of me though, because I had more money than her, was slimmer than her and had more guys liking me. So she tried to put a stop to it by making me eat more, making me spend more and forbidding me to talk about any guys except for my male relatives. It was hard tearing myself away from her though, although I did manage to break free after she stopped talking to me just because I wanted to go to college and she didn't want to.

But I'm nothing to be jealous of though! Who'd want to be me?!

^That person you described really sounds like a winner!

Relatable. It's so normal here and then when i get out it's so not normal to others.
I think might partially be my country men but I don't want to fall into that again and focus more on other countries. Ill just suggest that people's tolerance for that differs.

Do I need to explain...?

YES

i am pretty lousy at consoling/comforting another living sentient being.

Or someone who has 'acquired' the coronavirus.

The problem I have is it is hard to find friends who aren't gang-stalkers.

The point was that I seem to always be the one to make contact and plans. In other words, I'm the only one who seems to put in any effort. It's not the rarity that I see as a problem, it's the fact that I do all the work. I don't think that'd be the case with an actual, good friendship. I personally agree that people don't need to see each other often to be friends, but if all the planning and contact making always falls on one person, then it doesn't really feel right.