What's the history of your social life?

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So, I was wondering if there were specific differences between the social lives between "neurotypicals" and "aspies". So, what was your social life like for most of your life? This includes friends, social events, sports, bullies and anything of the like. As far I know, from my interactions on this board, I can surmise I'm probably neurotypical, though somewhat 'nerdy' and 'weird' for a neurotypical, with some fundamental aspergerian similarities.

[I was formally diagnosed with some kind of speech deficits when I was younger, though what exactly is unclear to me. Looking at all the possible speech disorders and currently observable symptoms, it seems that an "expressive language disorder" was pretty likely. I might also have receptive deficits, given my understanding of what people say seems to be "half of what they say" with longer sentences, which would seem unusual for someone of my childhood verbal IQ of 127 and nonverbal IQ of 142.)

I'll summarize mine.

Kindergarten: I played with this girl doing who-knows-what (Well, that's what my school-history journal states.).

First grade: No specific friends that I can think of, though I apparently ran around the playground chasing down girls and saying "Meme schmoo, I love you!" and attempted kissing them. There was this black guy who apparently picked on me, but my mom came to the rescue! <3

Second grade: I had two "in class" friends at this time, one named Andrew and the other named Jeffrey. During P.E., I remember licking Jeffrey's hair and getting sent to the principal's office. "At home" friends were non-existent. On the playground? Meh, I was typically doing my own thing, though I occasionally engaged in activities with others.

Third grade: This fat girl, who pissed her pants during class, had a crush on me. No "in class friends" from what I can recall, and no "at home friends", either.

Fourth grade: Had two "in class friends", though I didn't play with them on the playground. I didn't really have 'typical conversations', either. On the playground, I played soccer with the other school children, and threw clever airplane designs. At home, I had two "At home friends".

Fifth grade: Had two "in class friends"(Same as last year) and I gained one more "at home friend" for a total of three (We usually just played video games). I played soccer with the other school children for the first half of the year and tried 'foot ball' for the second half of the year, but apparently I messed up which direction I was going or there was some other problem, upon which I was criticized, and I turned to kicking the soccer ball in the corner of the field all by my lonesome for the second half of the year, waiting for the return of "soccer season". Soccer season never came about... lol. During the last part, I played with the X-zylo and a group of 3 other people came to throw around the x-zylo because it was so cool.

Sixth: Had one "in class friend" who was also an "at home" friend, and he was closer than the previous friends I had and we played video games. There were also another guy that I hung with, though I don't remember doing much with him. I was a regular in the "wall ball" scene, and I apparently became a demi-god by being sooo good at it.

Seventh: Had some "home-schooling friends", though no real friends.

Eighth: I had no "real friends" at school, and none at home. I did become buds with this one computer geek, though, in my computer classes.

Ninth: I was a part of this 4-person rag-tag freaks/geeks/delinquents group during lunch hour and was later ousted from the group at the last half of the year. I speculate it was because I was developing a "bad reputation" since I was selling home-made mechanical pencil BB shooters, however maybe I was too confrontational or manipulative?

Tenth: The librarian was my only friend.

Eleventh: Became a closely attached friend with this one guy, but that lasted 9 months until he abruptly ended the friendship. The librarian, once again, became my only friend. "In class buddies/friends?" bahaha.

Twelfth: I had no friends though I had a few 'in class buddies' who weren't that close, though this one small asian girl tried becoming my girl-friend but I rejected her. This girl asked me out to the high school prom, and I accepted, but the prom itself consisted of me sitting in the bathroom for the first two hours, staring at the ice statue and the lights outside for 30 minutes, and then grudgingly joining her on the dance floor for the last 30 minutes as I "felt obligated". Her dancing was... very limp and "not involved" from what I could tell.

It became apparent during my high-school years that the tendency was for the class to form their own "cliques" and "social groups", and I typically was the only one who wasn't a part of one. I was fine with this, except for when groups were formed for "group assignments" or whatever, I often felt like I had to awkwardly ask other de-facto predetermined groups if I could "join" and I often thought when these cliques allowed me to join, they did so begrudgingly, letting 'weird people' or 'outcasts' into their circle.

I also speculated endlessly on my lack of social integration in high school. I mean, even "outcasts", "freaks", "geeks", "dim wits", "smart people", "depressed people", "YOU NAME IT" had some friends that they 'belonged to' but it never seemed like it naturally "worked for me", for some reason, despite a lot of effort and experimentation with "conversational" and "facial expression" rules on my part; it all seemed 'artificial' and I often felt like I was on another planet. I eventually came to the inference that my facial expression and speech-related responses weren't "normal enough" and I wasn't "sensitive enough" to the emotional layer underlying nearly all social contexts, which I later supported from my reading of Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman.

Ever since... and I've no friends. The buddies I have tend to be flaky, and their desire to hang around me seems somewhat capricious, presumably fluctuating with my mood. I'm pretty much "a loner", for the most part. Online, I forged a relationship with one person, but that seems somewhat volatile, it seems to be persistently 'negative' and I'm thinking that relationship is currently ending, and it seems like I don't care if it does, though I don't 'dislike the person' nor 'like them'. I just... "don't care". (She started as a romantic interest since she was sooo smart and thought like me in some ways, but she's definitely neurotypical given her excellent social insight and often doesn't respond to my messages because "It doesn't seem like there was anything to respond to."(And I'm thinking... what??? There wasn't??), and she complains I take everything so literally, and I'm "not the easiest person to talk to.".)

So, what has your social life been like? You don't have to be detailed as I was about it, I was just that detailed just in case it might help anyone who wants to compare their social history with someone who seems 'neurotypical' and has an AQ score of 32.

Last edited by swbluto on 10 Apr 2011, 10:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Primary School - played by myself mostly, occasionally played with two or three other kids, but I was largely mute and didn't really understand that other kids were like me or understand the games they played.

Middle School - had a small friend group, but I had one friend in particular called Rachael - we fell out often so I often had to stay by myself as she'd follow me to make sure I wasn't able to hang-out with anyone else, if we made new friends she would often chase them off after a while if she decided they weren't going to help her become popular. Bullying started then as at this point I had meltdowns every lesson, the bullying at this point was physical so just mean.

High School - had a bigger group of friends but a lot more cliques and a few people in my group of friends were more popular so didn't want me around. As well as the above mentioned friend Rachael there was also Vicki who was cool but the three of us were incapable of all staying friends at once so we'd often be two against one, and of course I was an easy target when they both got together. Bullying was worse, it was a lot more mental and emotional so more damaging, so I did take myself away from others a lot to avoid drama and because of the feelings of exclusion. I was far more social, I held a lot of parties and had a social life outside of school - I say my social peek was at 15/16 - in high school it was complicated but I held successful parties and went out to the clubs popular girls were going to, more frequently than the popular girls, so it all evened out as being a good time socially.

College - I went to two different colleges, my friend Rachael followed me to both (at this point I knew how bad she was for me socially, and she was not a nice person, but she was attached firmly to me so as hard as I tried to trick her into staying on in 6th form she followed me as she had followed me to our high school) but luckily I got rid of her after a while, but I had no friends at all in either college, so I spent my time very much alone which really got to me a lot of the time because I had no way of socialising (I'm a sociable person, despite being an aspie) and when I was struggling with college and illness I had no support at all. I don't think I said a single word to a single other person my whole time at college.

Work - my first job was okay with a few people I got along okay with and one who became a friend. My second job was amazing, at first it wasn't great but then I ended up making so many amazing friends, I really miss that job as the people who worked there were great. My last job not so good, lots of people bad-mouthing me for being different, but a few good friends and of course I met my boyfriend there too. Now I'm unemployed so have no social life or much social interaction with anyone at all, and I'm losing friends as a result.

Last edited by Bloodheart on 11 Apr 2011, 7:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

Elementary school - A few "friends"; never really got together outside of school... if ever... I wanted friends for the most part. I was just plain naive in first and second grade, then I went through a phase from third to fifth grade where I kind of wanted real friendships, but not... really... I was kind of bullied a bit here and there, but nothing too serious. This was before I could verbally stick up for myself. I'm quite proficient at it now; no bullies.

Middle school - In sixth grade, I wanted friends. Towards the end of sixth or the beginning of seventh grade, I stopped caring. Never really had anyone over... actually, I never did... and I never really went over to someone's house. Maybe a few times. I don't really know why; I guess I just suck at obtaining and maintaining "true friendships." I got more tactless when I stopped caring as much; I was just too tired to try to act like I wanted to be interested in what people said. I don't ever think I was really good at it, anyways.

High school (now) - I am currently in my first year of high school and I have only had one real friend I have been able to hang out with on a regular basis, and she lives with me (a foreign exchange student from Japan.) Even when she was living with another family, we still "hung out" several times, which was basically the first time that had ever happened completely on my terms. Once I got a taste of this real give-and-take, "hanging out" sort of friendship, I feel like I might want a couple of more friends like this, but not many. Just a couple.

-I was born on an army base. I had some friends there, but I also had some enemies. I moved when I was four. My mom gave me beloved swing set to the kids who were my greatest foes and I was devastated. I wanted to take it with us when we moved but she didn't want to take it apart and put it in the moving van.

-Kindergarten: I don't remember having many friends. I confused my right and left hands frequently and had coordination problems. I had a speech impediment that was later fixed with surgery so, I don't have one now. I am pretty sure I was real good friends with a girl named Stephani.

-First grade: A different school than kindergarten and a different friend name Jennifer. People were generally nice but there were some misunderstandings. I made my letters look like little loops once and got swatted for it. I thought it was a good idea at the time but it infuriated the teacher that I was always drawing and trying to be creative.

-Second grade: The biggest misunderstanding occurred right after recess, on the playground. For some reason, I was annoyed at another kid, so I took a rock from the gravel driveway and threw it on the ground, nowhere near the kid, I swear. He went and told the teacher I threw it at him which was a total lie! I tried to explain that I had thrown it on the ground, the teacher didn't believe me. I was sent in the hall until the principal came. I cried and was worried but the principal didn't do anything.
I had a best friend named Jeff.


-Third grade: I had a surgery and we moved. I started third grade at a new school and everything went downhill from there.

The rest of it is abysmal, full of harassment.

I ended up leaving school at sixteen, finding friends elsewhere, but they had character flaws.

I eventually stopped being with them and found some people I vaguely knew in high school and went out with them. One of them was nice to me in high school, the other one thought I was scum but was nice to me now. It took her a while to get used to me. She saw stigma.

I started college and didn't make any friends there.

I, eventually, stopped talking to the few friends from high school.

My friend history I would call abysmal.

My social life in elementary school was great. I had lots of friends at school, and I hung out with them a lot. Sixth grade, my last year of elementary school, was the exception. It was the same year that I was diagnosed with Asperger's, and it was the year that my social life took a down turn.

My social life in junior high was significantly worse than how it was in elementary school. It could have just been the fact that I had just begun my teen years, which explained my terrible awkwardness for those years.

High school was better than junior high, but still not as good as elementary. Since I had joined a lot of clubs, I met lots of people and went on lots of club-sponsored trips. It was very fun. I was still awkward in high school, but it was still an improvement over junior high.

So far, college is turning out to be really good. I'm meeting lots of new people and making new friends.

Primary: had a few friends, one best friend
Grade one: few friends, two best friends
Grade two: same as grade one, with a third best friend that moved in behind me at the end of the school year
Grade three: the first two best friends moved away. Few friends in the neighbourhood, with the third best friend as my main friend
Grade four: got into a fight with this friend, and was basically alone
Grade five: best friend's with kid four years younger than me who lived next door. Also had another guy friend in my class.
Grade six: same kid friend. Made another best friend who turned out to hate me and turned the entire grade six class against me. To this day, I have no idea what I did.
Grade seven: Made up with my friend from the grade four fight. All other friends gone, but make a new best friend at the new junior high school. Both of us are inseperable, and both are considered weird outcasts (I am pretty sure she had multiple personality disorder or schizophrenia like her father).
Grade eight: The older best friend has moved away, so it is just me and the newer best friend.
Grade nine: Best friend starts to drift away, and I am basically friendless.
Grade ten: She is gone completely, but I have a lot of friends and acquaintances in my new high school
Grade eleven: the awesome crowd from grade ten seems to have drifted away from me (or vice versa). Have one new best friend
Grade twelve: new best friend turns on me (her fault, not mine) and gets a group of kids to go against me so much I quit school
College where I got my high school diploma four years later: one or two people I talk to, but basically entirely alone
University: few acquaintances. One really good friend one year, but she drifted away as everyone else does. Now I have no friends, just one or two acquaintances I rarely see.

Through all my school years I have been picked on mercilessly, and always had a hard time making friends. I was more of an outcast than some of the biggest "nerds" in the school. I truly think I was probably the only autistic kid in my entire elementary school. Everyone seemed to hate me. I was bullied relentlessly, and even my older brothers retaliating on my behalf did nothing to help.

Kindergarden: I don't really remember that much other than my mom knew a lot of people there (since it was a small town) so I played with a lot of kids all the time....oh, and I had a best friend named Michelle that lived 3 apartments down from us

1st grade: We moved across the US at this time, so I didn't know anyone yet. Though I did find one girl that I found interesting(as a friend, I was a little kid) so I wrote her a note every day asking "will you be my best friend? Yes, No, Maybe, Circle your answer." Lunch? Recess, whoever.

2nd grade: By this time Katie (that girl from first grade) was my official best friend. Everyone was chummy around this time at school, and life was great. Lunch with Bff, recess with friends.

3rd grade: Still Bff's, Had my first crush on a guy named Armando from speech class. Made a group of 2 or 3 other good friends. Lunch +recess with friends and Bff.

4th grade: Still Bff's. Second crush on the new guy brandon (haha, I thought I was love with him, I would stare at him all through class and give him dreamy eyes, but Idk if he likes me) Olivia, Julia and lydia, are friend circle. Lunch with friends + Bff.

5th grade: Still Bff's. Got a class with Brandon, have insane crush on him. New addition to the circle, Madison. Lunch same as last.

6th grade: Still Bff's. New crushes: Scott (when we were dance partners) and Blake (for a week). Lost respect of some peers and family for becoming vegetarian. Lunch same as last.

7th grade: My bff moved to a new school, sometimes (rarely) hang out, moved to junior high, being teased for crush on Brandon (not really viable) many different crushes. Friends: Kylee, Madison, Taylor, Olivia, sometimes Sharol. Snuck out of lunch area (against rules), lunch by myself.

8th grade: No bff, Don't remember crushes. Friend circle stays the same except sometimes I'll hang out with my drama friend Ciera. Lunch with friend circle.

9th grade: No crushes, focused on my new running career (cross-country and track), circle of friends same except addition of Mariana, Lauren, Mitch, Jordan, Mason and semi-friends with running team went to a few social things but pretty busy. Lunch with friends.

10th grade: Going into high school, no bff, crush on one guy from physics, this one guy from cross-country hits on me but idk what to do, friend circle mainly: taylor, mariana, madison, and sometimes the other friends went to one party and one football game, really busy scholastically. Lunch 1/2 with friends, 1/2 with teachers (in physics, it was confusing and I was the only sophomore)

11th grade: Focused on running (but I do crap because I don't have fast-twitch muscles and I am scared of pressure, new coach, and stopped eating cheese), don't have a friend circle, crush on nolan and Dallin starts to crush on me from cross-country, active in asl club. Lunch spent in library-1st semester on computer, 2nd semester-doing puzzles.

12th grade: Dallin likes me first semester but doesn't now (I don't think, I am not in track) don't hang out with anyone, I go to one dance because I want to use my principals pass (for good grades) and it was fun, crush on Chase. Oh, and mistaken because I thought Cody liked me, but he has a girlfriend, stopped going to a lot of church activities, and started training for a marathon, oh, and as of 2nd semester, lacto-vegetarian. Lunch in math class (advanced math class, it is pretty confusing and demanding homework wise.....I don't do homework at home).

Yea, as you can see, I don't have much of a social life after 7th grade.

Oh, and I was only bullied from 5th grade and under physically, 6th and 7th mentally. Then I grew taller and people were too afraid to try and fright me, then I grew smarter and people didn't want to try and outwit me.

Finally, I was normal in trying (but slightly ahead in intelligence) up to 5th grade, 6th + 7th grade I was a slacker and smart, 8th grade I was a 1/2 slacker and smart and creative, 9th grade i was a 1/4slacker and smart. 10th grade I was NOT a slacker and I was smart. 11th grade I was a semi-slcaker (I didn't take any hard classes) and smart. 12th grade I am not a slacker but not the smartest (because I took a hard class.)

Wow all of you diagnosed aspies who had much better social histories than me!

I was bullied mercilessly from kindergarten until grade 8....by almost the whole school. I had no friends that I saw outside of school in elementary school. From time to time people would play with me at recess a few times or for a few months (some adopted me as a pet project) and decided they were"my friends" and then change their minds.........some were just bullies who would pretend to be my friend and then do something mean............like have me close my eyes "for a game" and then run away and laugh . Some of these playground friends were probably true friends. This is with having attended two social skills groups where they explicitly teach you social skills during elementary school.

In grade 11 I made my first real friend and we were very close. I only had her though and we saw each other about once a week (we both worked hard in school) The friendship lasted a year and a half.

My adult history is long and complicated but I have had friends...............for the most part just one girlfriend at a time and that's the way I like it. I've also had long periods of time with no friends and some horrible social misunderstandings that have ended friendships.

What's the history of the universe before "the big bang"?

Okay I don't feel like writing an essay so it will be short.


Elementary school: Was in special ed in Kindergarten and 1st grade. I played with kids in there and only be friended a very few NT kids outside of special ed.

In second grade I had these two best friends, one of them I was friends with since age four and then i met her cousin when I was seven and we were all friends until they moved away in 3rd grade and one of them came back in 5th grade but we were enemies. Played with kids from my class on the playground.

Third Grade; not many best friends

Forth grade; I started to get left behind socially because their interests changed, they were more into chit chat and small talk and I hated it. I preferred to play and they didn't. Plus one of my new best friends got mean to me and started to poke fun at me and she did it in 5th grade too until she moved away. I even started playing with younger kids too because I could relate to them more and we had things in common.

Fifth grade; facing more rejections and being told to go away. Playing with younger kids.

Sixth grade, no best friends and totally isolated from my peers and playing with younger kids.

Seventh grade; made some friends but we didn't have anything in common, they were more acquaintances. Made friends with a 11 year old girl who was an outcast and had no friends. She moved away after I finished middle school

Eighth grade; No friends really except that one girl and only acquaintances

Ninth grade; No best friends and only hung out in the special ed room on the computer looking up my interests

Tenth grade; same as before

Eleventh grade; No longer on the computer because mom told my teachers so and wanted me to socialize with other kids. I tried that and I didn't feel comfortable and it felt awkward and boring and took willpower to not talk about my obsessions and started working on talking about other things like asking them questions about themselves I had no interest in. Turns out that is what you are supposed to do in socialization. Then I just started to be on my own and listen to music or play my video games in front of my locker.

Twelfth grade; Hung out in the school library looking at old teen magazines and Parenting, then when I couldn't be in the library anymore, I sat in my locker playing my video games and my brother's friends talked to me in Spanish class and socialized with me. They liked me the way I was.



I have totally given up on getting friends because I got so sick of the rejections and the excuses. I learned at 17 people make up excuses when you ask them to come over thanks to reading it online in a Asperger group at Yahoo. Plus we didn't have anything in common so why and try and get friends my own age and trying to be normal if they were all boring and we had no things in common? Plus I couldn't talk about my obsessions so I'd rather not talk to anyone at all. Plus I dealt with some meanness in high school, no bullying, but meanness from other kids and being singled out. Middle school was fine but I did face bullying in elementary school until we moved.

Before age 12: very reclusive and avoided talking due to speech impediments. I don't remember having any friends who weren't the "our parents know each other therefore we are friends" kind.

Between 12 and 18: Very reclusive, made perhaps a handful of friends.

Between 18 and 23: Made one friend.

Between 23 and 26: Reduced socializing to the point where the only people I speak to regularly outside of work are my girlfriend, my sister, her fiancee, my mother, and his parents.

I've always gone for quality over quantity. I am happy to have one very good friend, rather than several mediocre ones. I may have made only a handful of friends over my life, but I consider this to be a good outcome. My goal has never been to dilute friendships.

From what I remember-
Primary school - Had a few friends. In the beginning was pretty good. By grade 3 I had a friend who turned out to be a total s**t and worked very hard for the next few years to sabotage any other friendship I had. I never really understood why, to this day. I asked him once and he just said 'I didn't like you then'. I got in a lot of fights defending myself. By grade 5 I became good athletically and people started respecting me because of all the awards I would win at track and field meets and I was also really good at soccer and hockey

Secondary school - Was a nightmare pretty much from the beginning. I tried fitting in at first but my best friend had a friend who didn't care for me and worked hard to prevent me from integrating. It worked. I spent the next 3 years basically alone. Occasionally I associated with a group of fairly nerdy kids who I still sometimes speak to. One of their friends was a fat piece of s**t who hated me for no good reason and would argue with me about anything and try and turn my friends against me. Got tired of that and spent a year alone.
Got contact lenses and picked up guitar in grade ten- realized girls were attracted to me at this point as well. Social life started improving but still relatively avoidant. Girls liked me and as a result a lot of the guys started acting nice to me, possibly because various girls asked them to. I suppose I love women so much because of this- most of my life only girls/women have been nice to me, with the exception of a crazy ex who really f****d me up during college

College- Hung out with a few people from high school but overall kept to myself for the first few semesters. Switched program after a while, went through serious hardships due to a really horrible woman. Started drinking heavily. Dropped out for 2 years, drinking and working in a couple of different bars. Social life at this point was spectacular, met a lot of women, played a good amount of gigs, but was definitely depressed inside. I never tried making new friends in college though. I switched program again 2 years ago and now I'm in the same college doing the last 2 classes, and since attendance is not compulsory in either I rarely go in except to hand stuff in and do exams- doing spectacular. I also moved out with my girlfriend a couple of years ago and I currently work a full time job plus two part time jobs from home. I doubt anybody I work with really likes me as I don't bother trying to make friends. People are nice to me and invite me places but I really just want to be left alone. More or less my life now is just my girlfriend and I, our families sometimes, occasionally we visit some close friends- but that's it really. I socialize with people here more frequently via PM, and I am pretty content with it this way. I feel life is simpler with less people. I strive for perfect simplicity. I expect within a year I will be financially where I want to be and two years from now we intend to leave Quebec and go to university somewhere out West. I suppose I'll try and meet a few new people there

Really, really? (You seem so cool to me, that it seems hard to believe you've never had any. Maybe you're just too witty for everyone?)

In oscillatory tradition, the history of the universe before the "big bang" was a set of repeating expanding and collapsing universes, teeming with (social) life in between each beginning and end point, or the later half of the period of each universe's timespan.

Naturally, though, one loses memory of each past universe due to the information destroying singularity between each.