Did You Have Friends As A Young Child?

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Yeah, I was a popular person when young.

I thought I was popular cause everyone knew me.

I later came to realize that said popularity was similar to what Charles Manson had....


Now I am actually sorta popular at my job, but for the right reasons. Popular as in...they like me.
Good enough for me

Last edited by TheDoctor82 on 15 Nov 2009, 6:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

I always had at least one favourite playground friend when I was in infant and primary school. When they had another friend come join in the games, that was when my troubles would appear.

Do imaginary ones count? , i didn't really have any real ones

The friends I had in Kindergarten all changed
into different people that I don't know anymore,
it is like they all died.

But, at least I made a couple of buds
in high school that I still talk to
and one outside of high school he
was a cop at the time and he is still
a good bud.

I live iwth my brother now and I still
phone them on weekends.

i never realized that having "friends" was a possibility.
i always was completely content with my own company and i always felt anyone elses attention was like a pollutant to my experience.

I had 3 friends, NT's, but now, only one of them remains.

No, I don't think that's unusual. I believe that we seek out friendships, in our often stilted and distorted way. Using myself as an example, I did form rudimentary friendships while in elementary school. But it was weird...

I latched onto certain people while repulsing others. When I was in Kindergarten, I imagined that I had a girlfriend (based on my ridiculous misunderstanding of what that meant) and that I had to defend her against other boys. One time at recess, a boy was talking to her, and I went over and walloped him in the head, knocking him to the ground. The teachers were, of course, horrified and confused. It seemed perfectly logical to me.

I had one good friend, whom I spent all my extra time with. It sucked when he moved away. I was very often alone on the playground, analyzing patterns in the fence, staring at clouds, and becoming hypnotized by the sway of the trees in the wind.

In later elementary and middle school, I had a group of similar intelligent-outcast types that I was "friends" with. But even within that group I was an outcast. I was always the butt of every joke, and the continual victim of deception and ridicule. I wanted to be part of some social circle, but I was inevitably rejected.

By high school, I had basically given up on friends and relationships, and I retreated into my safe fantasy world, never to return.... Well, not really. Responsibilities of life have forced me to not retreat into fantasy as much as I did. But I still don't have any friends, and I don't feel a strong motivation to find any.

I remember being alone during breaktimes throughout most of my schooldays, but would passively accept any advances. It's never occurred to me to make friends. My mother would arrange for her friend's children to play with us and I remember being bossed about by them but liking it because, otherwise, I would not know what to do.

One girl really liked me when we were 11. I was going through a lengthy phase playing with a bunch of vines growing through a fence at the time and she would try to join in but become bored; I preferred to continue. Another girl around that time, who was extremely mature, would often approach me and we would circle the building continuously along a wall trying not to touch the ground. She also made friends with the most outcast girl in the school. She had a strong ethical compass.

In high school, the most outcast girl was fascinated with me and spent a few months with me before she moved. I was relieved when I could be alone again. The most popular girls invited me into their group, thinking I shouldn't have to hang around her, but I declined the offer, not understanding it.

Another girl, who was absent most days but never discussed her problems would sometimes sit with me. I remember not listening very well. She didn't like how I sometimes ate lunch beside the girls in special ed. She eventually never returned to school due to the nature of her problems (of which I never learned).

One girl approached me a few years later and fixated upon me, but only at school. I would enjoy telling her all my stories. She eventually took advantage of me and talked incessantly about her problems and borrowed books off my library card, returning them overdue.

At university, I would only be approached by people wanting a date or relationship; I did not know how to discriminate and would accept. I made acquaintances through such people, but not to the extent that I gathered any phone numbers or would speak to them with my partners absent.

I've always, as far back as I can remember, had a small number of friends. The only exception was my time in the Navy, when friendships were more or less impossible to maintain.

I don't remember too much about my childhood friends. I know I had a couple of friends and we'd hang out in school and elsewhere. I used to think I was popular during the first few years of elementary school because I would always get invited to birthday parties, until I realized that the parties I'd been invited to were ones where the entire class was invited, too. That didn't last long. At that age, though, it's mostly about playing and not really about "connecting." At least to me. I think much of the time I preferred reading my books, especially my scientific encyclopedias.

By the time I got to high school I didn't have friends, though there were people I'd hang out with from time to time for various reasons. I knew we weren't friends because when I was having issues I would get mocked and made fun of instead of getting any semblance of support. I learned pretty quick I had to be self-sufficient and independent because no one else would be there for me.

I can think of maybe two people in my life I've considered friends, and it was because they seemed to accept me for who I am, made me feel cared-for, and didn't make me feel like an outsider/freak. I've lost touch with one and am still friends with the other. In both cases they initiated the friendship and both occurred in adulthood. The times I've tried initiating friendships usually resulted in a bad ending.

I suppose now would be an apt time to ask, when do you stop calling someone just an acquaintance or classmate, and consider them a friend?
I simply refer to anyone who talked to me or came round to my house sometimes, as a friend, regardless of anything else.
These days, I tend not to call anyone a 'friend'.
I have to admit, I ask my mother regularly, what is a friend, how do I define a friend etc?

Those I considered to be friends when I was young , were only nice to me when the head bully wasn't around. As soon as she was, they would gravitate to her and join in the bullying. The odd thing is these same girls also sometimes had me round their houses, and they to mine.
So were they friends or something less than friends?

I assume I was trying to make friends when I used to barge in on groups in the playing field during breaks, trying to butt in, or maybe I was just trying to join in. Whatever the case, I was always roughly rejected , laughed at or ignored.

I was very much like this as a child. Strangely, it all completely changed when I hit adolescence.

I agree it's not easy to define friendship. Wikipedia to the rescue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friend

"....for some, the practical execution of friendship is little more than the trust that someone will not harm them."

There's something of that in me, although I think that the (negative) risk of harm is probably best kept at bay by working on the positive aspects of friendship. I once remarked that I though friendship was little more than commensalism.

Strange that this topic should come up, because I found a photo the other day of the neighborhood kids and myself in the kiddy pool when I was about 7 or 8.

I often felt like I was in my own little world and would boss people around to do what I wanted.

Upto about middle school I considered most the people that I hung out with to be neighborhood playmates, but not close friends. There was Mike, whom I went to school and piano lessons with. There was also Danny whom I did things with from time to time. Both of these friends moved away when I was younger, but I have reconnected with them recently via Facebook.

There was Mike and Kate and Jeff and Andrea who were too different pairs of siblings. They both stayed in the neighborhood all the way through high school. Mike and Kate and I did things as well, but sometimes they could be mean to me. Even though I did things from time to time with Jeff and Andrea, I still don't understand why I never really connected with these kids, especially realizing that Jeff has AS and the two of us had a lot in common, and the facts that their parents were always taking me to sporting and cultural events. Jeff is my mayor friend that I have spoke of on these boards.

In middle school, I befriended, or drug home a kid named Jed. Jed came from a terrible home and our house was a refuge for him. His situation got so bad that my parents called Social Services to investigate his situation. He quietly moved on about that time, was removed from his homelife to live with his grandparents. He has done well for himself. I have tried for many years to rekindle this friendship to no avail.

In high school I had a friend named Gene. Gene and I did a lot of things together and really clicked. He supposedly had "borderline autism". Even though we were close, out of high school the friendship broke off and Gene ending up getting into legal trouble.

I had other acquaintances during this time, but that would lengthen the thread.

Graelwyn, on a personal level I'd say, there was no "Real" friends in the truest of words for, even if there happened to be people whom I would play around with in my neighborhood I'd not say such persons were friends at all..Growing up was intensely difficult for, I really did want friendship probably at the notion of aligning myself with people whom, more or less were not the wise of choices to make..Since that time I've become somewhat withdrawn to some extent but, I'm not anti-social just, have had a great amount of difficulty in being able to not only befriend people whom are good-natured but, making sure that I don't screw things up and cause such to collapse..