Kinds of friend

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I am wondering if friendship means people who can support you to help you achieve your goals. Even if you may want to help someone with his intensely, if that person is not helpful to your life, you must move on with your life without him?

I am also wondering why I did not have much shared happiness with a person, whom I know for a while. I rarely can recall a moment of shared happiness. It is often that he is happy, I am not. Or I am excited, he is not. At least he didn't do anything that I can tell that he share my joy or sorrow.

I wonder about similar things. It's so hard to find people who like what I like, who see things the way I do. How much should I settle for people I kind-of like?

Being in a relationship where you're always on the giving end can be good. Just don't expect it to ever become something else.

There are lots of different types of friendships, for different types of reasons.. Sometimes there are shorter-term friends that you share some passion with at the current time, like you meet someone who has similar interests, so you become friends about that. (Or is that more colleagues?)
Then there are people who have kinda stood the test of time. I consider Alicia my best friend, and we haven't talked in a long time. (Part of the reason or that is that we both SUCK at talking on the phone.) But she's my best friend because I've known her for so long, and it doesn't matter how long we don't talk or whatever, things just don't change between us. I don't think there's anything I'd hesitate to tell her. I just still can't think of anything to say if I talk to her on the phone! I'm quite sure that she has an ASD too.. I'm actually surer that she does than I am that I do. She can best be described to somebody who has seen her around but doesn't know her as "That weird girl who stares a lot and is obsessed with cats."
I don't know if sharing feelings is necessary to friendship... I'm not entirely sure what it is that makes feelings shared. Is that an interpersonal thing, or is it more about being excited by the same things?

Friendship is kinda difficult to understand.. like where the line is between somebody that you know and like, and somebody who is a friend. Much of it is in the mutual-ness, I guess. But I have huge amounts off trouble showing the right amount of interest in people. Like how to show that I like someone and want to be friends without seeming obsessive and stalker-y and stuff. And if someone expresses friendship, there's always this urge like "Okay, they like me, I'd better make myself scarce so they don't change their mind!" Which I don't think helps.. but when I'm unsure of something, I get very deer-in-the-headlights, so I don't really have all that much choice about it.. If I totally freeze up and can't figure out what I should say.. I can't exactly go ahead and say something. Otherwise I wouldn't describe it as "deer-in-the-headlights."
But that "okay-now-they're-my-friend"... that's difficult. And I'm always afraid I'm going to screw it up.

I think Maggiedoll covered it pretty well. There are different levels of friendship, but not all of them are fit to support you or help you reach your goals. There are bar-buddies, with whom you only go drinking, then bid farewell till next time, acquaintances, with whom you exchange words with when you see them, but don't actively seek them out, best friends, who talk often and generally do support each other, friends with benefits, with whom you, you know, and so many more.

I remember once when I was 14 or 15, my younger NT brother asked me "how do you know when someone is your best friend?" I honestly couldn't answer.

It sounds like you're more into the friendship than your counterpart. He may think of you as nothing more than an acquaintance, while you think of him as something higher up on the friendship scale.

This may be just semantics, but I wanted to point out that while there are different levels of friendship, I was mainly speaking of types, rather than levels. (There can be lots of different types on the same level, different levels within a type, etc... Lol, like that "new and improved" food pyramid that they came up with!)
Different isn't always more or less.. it's just different. And some people can prefer certain things to certain other things, but that doesn't mean that they're fundamentally unequal. Some people might consider the people that they have the most in common with to be their "most important" friends, while others might consider the people that they have the most history with to be "most important" and others might see it all on a continuum. A lot of people find it important in friendship to be able to talk to someone. Many others find the ability to comfortably not talk to somebody to be more important.
Maybe you don't have the same distinction, but in my mind "levels" implies higher/lower, where that wasn't necessarily what I meant.

It's all so very definitional.. there was someone in the mean time who I considered my best friend, because I was kinda closer to her for awhile.. but then she kinda ditched me at the first disagreement, and that was when it really occurred to me that remaining friends, and not thinking differently of someone based on events or words or disagreements, is really central to what I consider friendship. Maybe by some definitions the other person was my best friend, because we certainly talked more and may have been closer.. but that's just not important when one disagreement can suddenly change everything between you. I find it important to know that you can retreat into your shell, and know that when you come out again, you can pick up where you left off, because even if you've changed, and circumstances have changed, the friendship hasn't. That may be an odd definition of friendship.. but friendship is, by definition, personal.. lol

I agree with you, ssenkrad, that I was more into this friendship than my counterpart. I see that friendship really can't come at the cost of making myself uncomfortable.

I agree that he had been treating me like an acquaintance for more than a year. I valued him and his views too much, and I made decisions in line of his interest, lesser my own. I had been miserable because of it. When I think that, people whom I am friends with, even acquaintance, can think for my good, helping me change my perspectives for the better, and helping me finding my purpose, I just feel bad for not knowing where he fits in my life (someone whom each of us gets benefit from, I guess, and nothing more)

I had been having contradicting views of him and his behaviors for a long time. This plus my inability to define my own goal, makes me losing my perspective easily. It sounds funny, but I feel that he is the kind of person who also needs to be taken care of on some level emotionally. I feel having him is too much to my life at the moment.

I never know who my friends are. From time to time, someone I know will mention that we're friends, and it usually surprises me.

Hmm. I agree with Maggiedoll that there are different levels and types.

I also think friendship is difficult to define because each friendship is a little different. (I'm not going by mine. I don't have that many friends, and none that I would call deep friendships.)

People also define friendship differently depending on how close they think someone should be before they call them a friend. My dad thought of acquaintances, people he merely shared drinks with or people he did business with regularly such as servers in diners, as friends. I've thought of coworkers as friends, even if we didn't socialize outside work. Others consider someone a friend only if they share intimate knowledge of each other's lives. So there are degrees of friendship, and each friendship is different. There are different levels of expectations in friendships, too.

The first thing you mentioned, someone who can help support you to achieve your goals -- sounds a little like a mentor or study partner to me.

Friends aren't always happy when the other is happy. That has little to do with friendship. But I think of friends as empathizing with each other's troubles and happiness, even when they don't necessarily share their moods, or good times and bad times. Though I have found that if two friends move into different economic levels, friendship is harder to maintain.

Some of the best examples I have of friendship are provided by my parents and my sister. My parents had two couples they spent lots of time with when I was growing up. The two men worked with my dad as truck drivers. Our families liked to go camping, so we would all go on camping trips together. My brothers, sisters, and I would hang out with their kids. I used these people (the older ones) as personal references when I applied for my first few jobs.

My parents didn't always agree with them on everything, and there were things about their family life that were different from our family life, so my parents and them weren't familiar in every way, they didn't share everything. But we all had lots of enjoyable times together.

My mom was also close to a few of her cousins, and I would call those friendships, because they had much different, deeper relationships than I or my siblings have with our cousins as adults.

My sister has two long time friends, one that she knew in high school and broke off with for years because she didn't like my sister's first husband. They resumed their friendship after my sister's divorce. Another long time friend of hers is someone she first knew through one of her early jobs, and would socialize with outside work. Both of these friends have different interests than she, they don't always agree, they don't share everything, and I think the only way in which they've supported each others' goals is just to wish each other well. Why are they friends? They enjoy each other's company and, from what I can tell, they communicate in similar ways to each other. It's as if they speak the same dialect.

It's a tough thing to define or pin down. You meet a person that you understand in some way that translates over into other areas of life. From school to home life, from work to recreation. You just enjoy their company.

I enjoy my own company best, or that of my husband or pets. I do like to have friends. But I don't like to spend a lot of time with other people, so I don't tend to nurture the mutual or shared activities that deepen friendship. I don't like drop-in visitors, or even unexpected phone calls, let alone taking a vacation with anyone but my husband.

I do like keeping in touch by mail or email -- because that gives me time to formulate my feelings and responses. I even prefer that as a way to plan activities together with family.

I shy from commitment, and in the past I've found that friendship requires a certain amount of commitment, a balance in regard to who contacts whom and when and how often. This was even a problem when first dating my husband, but he got over it. I tend to be so absorbed in my special interests that I forget, and time passes, and I lose track of time, and before I know it I haven't contacted someone in months. Maybe I forgot to return an email or a phone call. To some extent it's an "out of sight, out of mind" problem with me. When I work with someone and see them everyday, I remember to stop and say hello, find out how they're doing. But now that I don't work at a job, I tend to lose track of people. They stop thinking of me as a friend, or maybe they think of me as a past, not current, friend. I'm not sure. But that's not important.

In dealing with all people, from friends to enemies, I've found that it's best not to worry too much what the other person thinks of you. What you think is what counts. If you like someone and enjoy their company, and if they don't tell you to get lost but instead seem to gravitate toward associating with you, then you have something that is starting to look like friendship. Relax, enjoy what you can of it, try to be nice and considerate of their time. Don't sweat defining it or classifying it to accurately.

I also think it's possible for me to consider someone a friend who only considers me an acquaintance. Because we might define friendship differently, what each of us is comfortable with labeling friendship may differ. That doesn't mean we don't like each other. I only think someone doesn't like me if they avoid contact altogether, or are always cold in some way when we meet.

Sometimes, it's not just one little thing. Sometimes it's a last straw in a series of problems that are difficult to define. I reach that point with people sometimes. They don't understand or care that something bothers me, there's no way to get through, and one more push sends the relationship over the edge. Just a thought.