What makes a friend?

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I'm reading The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships by Temple Grandin and Sean Barron and it talks about how people with ASD have trouble telling who are their friends and who aren't.

I'm always so hesitant to call someone my friend, because as a kid, I thought anyone who was nice to me was my friend, and I either got taken advantage of, or made fun of by my 'friend'. Or have a hurtful moment where someone who I thought was my friend would scathingly reply, "You're not my friend."

There are a few people in my life right now that I would call friends. I'm in my second year of university in a music program, and I haven't managed to make friends with anyone in my year, yet. I've made friends with some 4th years, and when they graduate this year, I will be all alone, once again.

They are my friends. But what level of friendship do I assign them to? We walk home after choir every week. If we meet up in the hall we might talk for 5 minutes. We have conversations about how our weekend has gone over facebook. A couple of them give me advice. I was invited and went to one of their birthday parties last spring right before everyone went away for the summer. When one of them discovered my student loan had been delayed and I was running out of groceries, she invited me over for dinner. We don't do a whole lot outside of school though - just that one party and that dinner. I'd like to hang out with them more, but I don't know what friendship level they have assigned me to.

I have trouble with the idea that friendship comes in levels. I'm not a kid any more, but I still tend to go straight to, 'if you're nice to me, I can share my innermost secrets with you'. This has backfired in my face a lot.

I've discovered that sometimes you need to share yourself in order to get to a certain level of friendship. But what are the friendship levels?

Acquaintance - New Friend - Friend - Good Friend - Best Friend? And how do you know when an acquaintance has moved up the level to New Friend? Or a friend has moved up the level to Good Friend?

And what if you have categorized someone at a certain level, but in return they see you at a much lower level?

Oh gawd, being able to tell if you're friends with someone or how far you've progressed in your friendship is another one of these social-emotional give'n'take torture racks that screw me up everytime. When meeting someone you get along with, it's impossible to tell if they want to be friends with you and meet up to socialize more later or if the two of you merely enjoyed talking to each other at the mandatory social event and that's it. I guess the only solution for autistic people is to take the initiative, and if the other person responds to that, then you can tell that they might want to be friends with you. Otherwise, the "I want to be your friend" messages that the other person is sending you will be lost on you, and you will miss a chance to make friends with someone, and the other person will think that you (I mean, I) are a stone cold b***h.

Oh yeah, the whole easing into a friendship thing and avoiding telling people one's deepest darkest secrets at first sight is yet another cog in the clock'o'pain wheel of normal (NT) socialization.

I have been feeling somewhat depressed today, and I think this thread talks about the heart of the issue.

Every time I socialize I get a reminder that I'm not "normal".

I think I tell my secrets too soon because I never manage to get a friendship to the correct level to be able to tell those secrets. So if I'm never going to get there, I have to tell someone, so I tell someone too soon.