Apparently NT's make friends from a "feeling"

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I've tried everything correct to make friends. I've tried talking to people, smiling, asking people to do things with me- and I still have no friends (I'm at a small college). I really don't get how people make friends- its the most mysterious thing on earth. An NT told me that people actually make friends from a "feeling". Is this true? Is this what I'm doing wrong? Can an NT confirm/elaborate on this, and how I get the "feeling"?

Thanks

Oh, that sounds interesting.

I haven't got a clue how I make friends. I think it's more because I'm a familiar face and over time people kind of take to me.

I would hate to think that they have feelings for me because I all of a sudden would just disappear out of their lives.

I'm a bit like the scarlet pimpernel in that respect.

Interesting, needs more opinions though

i make friends from a feeling. I'd imagine everybody does. If it feels right and it feels enjoyable to talk to them and hang out with them and I feel comfortable then I pursue it. It's not a feeling like falling in love, but of being comfortable and enjoying yourself and liking the other person's company.

You can't experience that feeling unless you are NT. No matter how hard an aspie tries to make friends, he will always fail. We are not wired to be able to do that.

BS. I have AS and I have plenty of friends.

I assume by feeling you mean vibe. Everyone has a vibe, if you have a bad vibe about a person, trust your instinct. But if you don't have a bad vibe about someone and if they don't make you uncomfortable and you enjoy being with them and enjoy their company, then you become friends. I thought this was human nature.

Yes, this. Or I may substitute the concept of vibe to be intuition. Many people rely way too much on intuition when making decisions on friends and not enough logical observation. This is why you will often hear NT people complain about frequent conflicts amongst "friends". They simply have bad selection skills. Hence why they have so many of these "friends". Out of this concept is born the ever curious idea of "frenemies" (a word that pisses me off to no end). Why would such a thing even be?

Most people seem very good at and make decisions based on first impressions of other people. My first impressions of people are usually completely wrong. Eventually I can often can get a correct feeling about another person but it takes time, often a lot of time.

Yes this is a part of empathy that I am at a disadvantage with no matter how much the autistics these days are rebelling against the idea of empathy deficits as an autistic trait.

I call BS. NT's like to make friends with "popular" people so they seem cool and can suck off their fake friend's popularity.

I also find it hard to make friends. Heard you need to have something in common with them, personality has to match and so on. But I don't really know how they measure it, that's a mystery. Some of them withdraw because they already have their circle of friends though, so oftentimes it could be unlucky circumstances

I thought I would find making friends easier than I do. I am liked by people, and I engage in small talk with people at work and stuff, but other than that, I never get any further than that. I even get included in group conversations when we're having lunch, also I've got more confident at speaking up too, but I still don't get invited out to social events.

Even on Facebook people don't 'like' my posts or comment, but the next day they verbally comment offline about what I put on Facebook. Why don't they just do what they do to everybody else and 'like' my Facebook statuses, instead of telling me about it the next day? I could write something like ''going shopping with (tagged friend/cousin)'', and no likes, then the next day people at work are like ''so you went shopping yesterday? That's nice.'' But another person will put ''going shopping with (tagged friend)'', and they get about 5 likes and maybe even comments.

Weird.

mmmm....well, I don't really have many feelings for people enough to keep them in my life for very long.

But by the same token I have found that most people I have known are the same. So it's a bit difficult really.

I would expect that most people who I have ever known and befriended are "NT".

I shall have to give this subject more thought.

Why do you so often make negative statements to an extreme degree? Cheer up, Cockroach96. You are welcome to be my friend. Sometimes all you gotta do is ask.

I've gained friends through asking directly, or talking about common interests, or just finding the right NT to hang around with in the past. Nowadays, I meet friends through my special interest online. Often, the feelings come afterwards, and I feel a strong love and, how should I say?... loyalty to them. Even when the worst of things happen in their lives, and they don't have time to chat.

Cockroach, I'm sorry that your experience has been negative. Try to understand that it's not universal for "EVERY" aspie. And of course you are welcome to PM me, or chat with me through Skype whenever our timezones and schedule agree.

(P.S. I can provide a skype chat number through PM. Just ask.)

Well, the few times I've really "clicked" with someone it's been indefinable, too. Something just, as I said, clicked. There must have been a reason or reasons. But what it seemed like was that it was just "a feeling."

But that's not infallible or something. Many times I've been attracted to someone (I don't mean sexually, I mean just drawn to the person as a possible friend) but the person didn't feel the same way. I've also had it happen the other way around, someone who was constantly in my face to "be friends," but I didn't want to.

I wish I knew how to explain this. I feel there must be some reasonable basis but that it's in the back of our heads somewhere, so to speak, so it comes off as mysterious even though there must be a logical basis. It even may be something like pheromones, who knows.

Eh, what else would you make friends from?

Well, anyway...

Since the word "friend" encompasses quite a few concepts, I'll clarify that what I'm about to say applies to "active hang-out" friends (you hang out with these people regularly, for leisure, even though it requires going out of your way) and "support network" people (to the extent of your ability, you will help these people when they are having trouble or higher-than-normal workload in their lives). The same people can be both of those types. There are other types of friends to which this does not apply, but I feel like the OP is probably talking about "active hang-out" friends.

I think most people have a cap on how many friends they want. I mean, no one ever thinks things like, "I have 5 friends, so I refuse to make any more," but friends take time and personal energy, and sometimes hanging out with them involves spending money. All these resources are limited, so you can't just keep adding friends willy-nilly. So once someone has reached their friend limit, they will naturally become resistant to making additional friends, possibly without even realizing it or consciously thinking about it. If they try to go over their personal friend limit, they will have to sacrifice something else in their life, which possibly means downgrading one or more of their current friends to "pal you don't actually spend much time with" status.

With that in mind, if you're trying to become friends with someone who is already at their personal friend limit, it's going to be really hard. You have to be so freakin' awesome that hanging out with you seems to be worth the sacrifice it will require. That's why it's so hard to make friends when you're the only new person in an established group.

If you're doing everything right, but people just don't have room for you in their friend pool, you will probably end up being their friendly acquaintance (you are nice to each other, but you don't spend much time together beyond what your school/work/whatever requires). If people are actively mean or hostile toward you, that probably means something about you or your behavior is making them dislike you--which is not necessarily your fault.

If you try actively seeking out people who have less than their maximum number of friends, you might have better luck? Unfortunately, there's not an easy way to learn this information about someone. Maybe try looking for people who aren't married, don't have kids, aren't always complaining they're busy, aren't taking lots of classes at a time, and don't have a job in addition to their classes? Bonus points if they recently went through a major life transition such as being a new student at the college.