Autism and one sided relationships.

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I am a forty year old woman, and I have noticed that througout my life most of the relationships I have had have been one sided in some way. I mean friendships and family relationships, not romantic relationships. I feel like I do all of the calling and inviting and in a lot of cases the person will hang out with me but I don't feel like they are seeking me out as much as they are seeking me out. I know people say that I should just forget about them but I would spend my entire life in solitary confinement if I only associated with people in which there is a balanced relationship. Has anyone else experienced one sided relationships? Is this common in autism? And, finally, how can I have a relationship in which it is completely mutual in terms of a balance in the amount of seeking one another out is? I don't want to use people and I don't want to be used by other people. I notice that people usually don't even talk to me on facebook unless I write to them and then they either ignore what I have written or answer back and never write to me themselves. Has anyone else experienced this on facebook?

When I was younger most of my relationships were like that - then I figured out that those people didn't actually want to spend time with me, so I became the exact opposite - most of my relationships now involve the other person making the effort because I figure if they want to talk to me, they'll contact me and I won't because I don't want to bother them. Of course, this doesn't work out well either because people eventually get tired of making the effort and probably think that I am not interested in having a relationship with them because I don't reciprocate. Right now, I'm working on making small efforts at reciprocating - and if they don't go badly, then doing them again every now and then - but I'm still working on figuring out what is the optimal balance.

I'm in a similar situation myself. I find it hard to know when to call and how to do so. I have a very small social network due to not bothering to try anymore and most of my interaction with others comes from work (when I have a job), family, or people who are in sales. It is frustrating and I'd like to have some closer relationships with people but I don't think that I ever will. I too would love some tips if anyone has managed to get past this particular hurdle.

Most NTs respond to people who interest them in some way. Successful relationships for NATs tend to include a partner who has a specific need that is met by someone who is socially or conversationally challenged. We NATs tend not to ask lots of probing questions about small stuff, or focus on and individual in a way that communicates we are both interested in them and confident in ourselves and have something to offer. One-sided relationships are often the norm with NATs because we have difficulty truly engaging someone while still staying grounded in ourselves and who we are.

I have a lot of trouble deciding whether or when to contact friends. On the face of it, it looks like a good method for finding out who really wants to keep in touch and who doesn't. But I call some of my friends more often than they call me, and I don't feel that they're particularly apathetic towards my friendship. And some people have called me more than I've called them, but it doesn't mean that I wish they wouldn't. Sometimes it's just the way life goes. But I don't let it get completely one way. I'd feel like an underdog if I did, and anyway I'd begin to feel that I was being invasive if I were the only one making contact for a long time, and I hate feeling that I might be invading people. It's probably appropriate for getting involved with new female friends if it's not supposed to be platonic, but for nothing else as far as I can see.

There are two ways of seeing the power thing though, when it's one sided. The most obvious is that you're doing all the work to hold the friendship together, and the other person can just sit back and ride on your shoulders. The other view is that you have more control that way, because if you get bored then all you have to do is to stop calling them, whereas they might find it more difficult to get rid of you. And if the recipient usually agrees to meet, you're more or less commanding the whole relationship. Call frequency is only one measure of the power relations though. Probably more important are questions about what happens when you do meet - who decides what you do together? Who decides when you meet and when you part? Who decides the subject matter of conversation? Who interrupts? Who contradicts? Who is truly interested in the other person's life?

I've had similar problems in the past, and found that I simply avoid such relationships. If I am the one doing all the pursuing, then they are clearly not as interested in being friends as I am. So, I only become friends with people who put forth a mutual effort in maintaining a friendship with me.

I have this same problem. I finally got sick of it and decided "Hey, you contact me or that's that!"

It is tiring to have to constantly be the person asking.

Funnily enough though, when I was young I NEVER called my friends or asked them to hang out, They were always the ones doing that. I had sort of a pseudo-BF when I was 14 and he broke up with me because I never called him on the phone!