Problem of meeting new people when you're with a friend.

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Hello,

When I was younger, I never tried to meet new people. I would never go and talk to them, or try to get to meet them in any way. Therefor, I didn't have a lot of friends and the few I had were people that started talking to me.

Now, in recent years, I've managed to make a lot of progress. I can go to people more easily and I'm not afraid to talk to them. I can engage in a conversation without too much problem.

But I had a problem yesterday. I started taking waltz lessons with a friend. During the two hours, we didn't get in contact with the other people. It was weird and I knew something was wrong and I didn't know what to do. I think I should have gone and talk to the other people and let my friend do the same but it looked weird to me somehow...

Maybe I just felt more secure with my friend and just didn't want to meet the other people as I guess I don't really care about them... But I feel bad cause because of me, she didn't meet the people either...

Did any of you ever face such difficulties?

From what you said about the waltz lesson it doesn't sound like it was your fault at all. If your friend had wanted to meet the other people then she would have made an attempt to talk to them. Also were the other people at the lesson talking to each other? I think generally people in a group copy each other. If nobody is talking then nobody will make an attempt to talk and mix etc.

If it's the first lesson, then it's normal to be nervous and only speak to each other. Next time, maybe you could take the initiative and say hello to the group beside you.

Yes it's normal at this stage, and I think you're on the right track when you suggest it might be to do with feeling secure with your dancing partner. The same thing was noticed in groups in the communes movement some time ago - if two groups met, each group would usually begin by keeping to itself, and then, if conditions proved right, they'd gradually begin to mingle. It's safer to mingle when you're used to the environment, the layout of the room, the procedures, the behaviour of the other people, the sounds and scents.

I think it's fine what you're doing - actually, if your dancing partner is a potential relationship, you'll probably be going into a cocoon together anyway, and meeting others will be put on hold until you're secure enough with each other to start opening things out again. But if it's your sister or something, that won't apply of course.

Me, I'm very couply anyway, and would probably be quite content with just the one social connection, and not really worried about making more in a hurry. But that's just me......I don't really try to make friends in places full of lots of people, I'll save it for quiet little gatherings, or pragmatically take advantage of circumstances that throw me together with one person. Anything else is too confusing and scary for me. What if my dancing partner were to start making friends with the others while I couldn't? What if I were to do that while the partner was still struggling? Anyway, you're clearly mindful of holding her back from mingling, so I hope she's similarly sensitive to your emotional well-being.

I've been in close relationships in which each of us would feel anxious about letting the other down by one of us getting locked up in relating to others while the other wasn't doing so well - in some ways it's harder than just going out alone - at least there's nobody to feel responsible for. But then I've got some bad issues about attention, like a morbid fear that if I ignore a significant other for an instant, I will do great damage to the friendship......possibly something to do with the fact that once I focus on one thing or person, I can be quite blind to everything else, and of course I've upset people like that without realising it, and unfortunately they haven't always reacted with much grace or maturity. Aspies can't usually keep track of complex social situations, and the results can often get misinterpreted as lack of caring.

Interesting that you say the idea of mingling felt weird. Do you think it would have felt less weird if you'd gone to the place alone? Or if your partner had shown more of a desire to mingle at the time?

Thanks for the replies, I appreciate it.

To be honest, most of the other were mingling (I think some people already knew each other somehow though). The thing that was weird was that my friend wanted to meet these people but we just kept being alone. I didn't quite get why she didn't go talk the others herself. I think I prevented from doing that. She told me next time, during the breaks, we should separate so that we could more easily talk to other people.

To give a bit of back story, my dancing partner was a potential relationship until I screwed up about a month ago. We were on a holliday in a sort of "sports camp", where we attended golf lessons. I was too much all around her, sometimes overly jealous and possessive. I don't really how bad it really was or felt, and as she's not very frank and talkative about serious issues, all I heard is that we couldn't be together because we wouldn't be able to make any friends together and because she thinks I would only be more jealous if we would actually be together.

Since then, I wonder how it happened. I didn't know I was so jealous and possessive and I feel bad cause I think it's a horrible personnality feature.

So, during the waltz lesson, I really wanted to prove and to her and to myself that we could make friends together. But it didn't work out... So I was asking myself if I was being too much around her again or if it was something else. I think I would have had the same problem with another "regular" friend but I'm not sure.

I must say I relate to pretty much everything ToughDiamond says. I didn't plan on meeting people during the lesson and I think I really didn't want to. I'd much rather meet people in smaller groups. I was also scared that one of us would fare better in making friends than the other. And I felt it would be rude to turn my back to her and start talking to other people. And I totally agree with this :

Hmmm......I wonder if the very fact that you were constantly there for her (i.e. not trying to mingle) made her feel that she had to return the compliment? She's already aware that you strongly prefer it to be just you and her (else why tell you that you can't be together because she wouldn't make any friends?). I always used to think I'd need to overtly demand a partner to stop doing this or that before I could be called possessive, but I think sometimes they pick up on body language, perhaps sensing our disdain for things when we ourselves think we're being liberal by not explaining our feelings and trying to rise above them by remaining silent. It can be rather difficult when the cat's out of the bag, we can later tell them (and maybe ourselves) we don't mind, but they might not believe us, and they might be correct.

I'd need more details of exactly what your so-called possessive behaviour was before I could try to guess whether or not you ought to feel bad about it. All I've found on the Web about are poor-quality descriptions that don't seem to explain it well. I see it's supposed to be something to do with viewing the partner as property, yet many people are perfectly happy with marriages in which the couple to some extent do own and are accountable to each other for their behaviour. Indeed, the concept of emotional infidelity looks to me like a charter for the possessive, and I'm not so sure it's a bad thing, as long as it doesn't get so puritanical that the couple daren't ever share the slightest warmth with others of the opposite sex.

I wouldn't feel too guilty about thinking yourself possessive if I were you, not unless you've been really cruel to the lady about it......and I think there are a lot of situations where the other partner can be just as much to blame if there's a fight over a jealousy issue. Sometimes two people meet and they discover that they have different ideas about how much loyalty they want from a relationship.....during this process, one partner may get labelled unfaithful and uncaring, while the other might get labelled possessive. If the one who wants more loyalty is tempted to take their anger out on the other (and the anger can be very strong if the mismatch is large and there are insecurity issues), or tries to force things to fit by controlling the other in ridiculous ways, they'll probably be labelled possessive. But really it's more a sign of their difficulty in keeping their head and navigating through the process of resolving the problem, and I would hope that a good partner would try to help that process rather than just call them possessive. If the gap in their respective outlooks is too great, then there's no reason in principle why they can't just come to accept that and separate in peace, without giving each other pejorative labels for a mistake they're both to blame for.

If your friend isn't good at talking frankly about serious issues, I doubt if you'll ever have a conversation that quietly concludes you're just different. It takes a really perceptive, thoughtful kind of person to calm down a partner who is being scared and hurt by jealousy feelings. All I've ever had from my partners when I've felt that way is knee-jerk flak, and the damage that's done to my feelings about them has been worse than the pain of the jealousy.

Hope I haven't gone too far off topic there Just that I saw your comment "I feel bad cause I think it's a horrible personnality feature" and I don't want you to beat yourself up about it - sure it can get horrible, but there's so much more to it than that. I knew a woman whose partner was not possessive at all, and she once tearfully confided "sometimes I wish he was!"