Do you find people have no interest in you?

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I find the following when trying to make friends? It's one aspect that has always been bothering me, make me depressed and quit trying.

1. People will be interested in me initially, they start a conversation and I follow along. As I try to contact them in later days and continually conversate they are no longer eager or are short/cold????

2. I try to conversate with people and show interest (the best way I can) and they don't grab/bite etc....

3. I also notice if I do make friends, I'm generally treated differently by that person or they use a special "personality" to talk to me that I don't see in the way that they talk to others.

I also notice any friendships I do have are a "circular routine". Meaning it doesn't go anywhere or exist only within a "venue". Example, work friends, school friends etc... Once that "venue" has expired the friendship usually terminates.

I do find that people have very little interest in me, but by the same token, I have very little interest in them.

However, from observations that I have made, I find that most people have very little interest in most people apart from themselves. That is unless they feel they have something to gain from another person.

I wouldn't say it's quite the same for me, but I do know where you're coming from.

I find that people are typically receptive to me, but we never seem to be on the right communication wavelength and either we remain at a distance or interest is lost. Classmates often wind up hanging around people who have similar interests or personalities (meaning not me). I think I would have better results if I put more time into socializing, which is hard to do when there's only so much time in a day and my energy is limited.

Next semester I might try forming a study buddies group. I think I'm one of few people fascinated by the actual subjects enough to joke about and parody it rather than the prospect of decent work.

I was reading an article on a website about why friendships don't happen that removes some of the self-criticisms I had. I suppose it's nothing personal against me to have a work-only or school-only friendship, as people get bored there and enjoy socializing for its own sake.

http://www.succeedsocially.com/notinterested

That is correct!! !! !!

Once they need you for something, then they are nice!! !! !! ! And they have interest in you.

definitely. i feel i am very uninteresting to everybody. i was just discussing with my brother.

Yes, I don't go to most people. I listen sometimes.

Because they were not real friendships to begin with. They are temporary social contracts, as you have experienced.

Yes I've noticed this. I find it kind of advantageous at times. If I couldn't be bothered to get to know new people it makes that decision easier for me. There are a couple of draw backs though. Even though they're allowed to interrupt and talk over me I'm expected to find what they're jibbering on about to be fascinating. The other thing is that I don't necessarily just get to cut off ties with someone like this. They don't seem the least bit interested in who I am or what I have to say yet when I try to pull away they will still text me and want to hang out like I'm supposed to be their loyal audience or something. That says there's something about me that they like, they'd just rather do all the talking and not take an interest in my interests.

having no social awareness and no awareness of everything outside self, am unable to recognise this,nor have any care if am not interesting to other people or not as have got no interest in what people think of self,it isnt something have ever even thought about.

You know, I don't mean push buttons or criticize anyone in particular, but there seems to be this trend among people on the spectrum that they are too preoccupied with talking about themselves (also with just thinking and doting on themselves), they may not get something someone else is saying so they try to direct things back towards themselves and their interests. Not only that, but they seem to fail to recognize that this isn't necessarily inherent to autism (of course there are a lot of different cases though), as if other people outside the spectrum don't encounter similar issues and learn to deal with them too. There's all kinds of different people out there who are preoccupied with themselves, and they butt into the conversation if it's something they don't think they can give input on, or they only seem to speak up when it's about themselves.

I personally think it's not always so much a skill as it is a virtue, to recognize that other people don't just come around so they can hear about you and what you want to talk about all day. Everyone normally finds that they have to learn a degree of patience and deference towards other people not to fall into this habit, it's not as if only people with social disorders have to work to form good habits when it comes to this. Or of course on the other side of the coin we can be just nervous sometimes because we don't know what kind of input we can give, so we switch it up or wait until there's something we can give input on as if that will please people? Sometimes people are just pleased if you listen to them, if you give enough effort to pay attention and try to consider what they're saying. You may not even get it, being autistic of course you might not feel remotely in the ballpark. But if you quietly pay attention from time to time and be honest if you aren't terribly conversant on a subject, people will actually appreciate it quite a bit I've found.

Yeah, I get that we have some trouble relating. That doesn't mean that we have to dote on ourselves so much, that people aren't interesting merely because we can't understand them. In all reality, I've developed the opinion over time that because so much superfluous information just flies right over our heads we may be in a unique position to appreciate other people in our own different way.

Of course, a lot of what I just said here may not be so fair, because there is a pretty big degree of variety on the spectrum and lots of people really do have serious trouble taking interest in others as it's just too foreign and difficult.

Last edited by Lukecash12 on 07 Mar 2014, 10:02 pm, edited 4 times in total.

Um, the key is unaware. To make it some measure of morality or virtue is unrealistic and unreasonable in many, if not most cases.

Sorry, I was still editing. You know word choice can be tricky. I tried to figure in those types of cases too, but I do still feel that some of us can use our circumstances as an excuse to be a little selfish. And I've been just as guilty of that, everyone can be a little selfish from time to time. Not trying to crucify anyone here.

Maybe a better phrasing would be "ideal goal". It's a tender spot personally, because I didn't start even remotely grasping the idea until my twenties.<notice I still reflect it to myself... >

This was my experience for most of my life. Than in college,I started cracking jokes and making fun of people. All of a sudden, some people found me amusing. I think one advantage I also have in my old age is the I'm quite knowlegable on a broad range of subjects and I can often impress others by telling them facts that most people don't know. Just be confident guys and remember that NTs tend to have a short attention span and are not interested in hearing too much about one topic at a time.

This seems to be very true. It's very difficult to keep up with all the changes in topic in typical NT conversations.

If they do it's their loss