Am I the only person who truly doesn't need friends...

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First of all I do chat to people. I'm not not complete loner but I really don't care a bit about fitting in with people or being similar to others.

Lots of people are worried about how they come across to others, if they they are being judged, becoming jealous of others and using social one upmanship just for the sake of it. I feel feel like I'm literally one of the only people who truly does not give a damn about this stuff.

I do care about other people but not at at all about their social lives or similar useless info. I'm always nice to people and I chat nice to them but if there is a problemI just drop them like they didn't exist.

No one else seems to have the ability to be like that and I wonder why.

I have often 'dropped' people, because I find the whole business of getting close to someone and 'getting to know' them too difficult. Plus I'm not usually very interested in the things most people talk about (their careers, their families etc). It's worse with other males than with females for some reason.

But I do find the whole business of dropping someone extremely difficult, and always feel bad about it. In the last few years I've made a point of not trying to get to know anyone very well.

I find that sometimes actually. If I get too close to someone it becomes overwhelming. Mostly the reason i dont hang out with people in person. Why do you feel bad if you drop someone? I never do because it's always for the best of both of us.

I think I feel bad because they might be wondering what the 'problem' is: was it something they've said or done? Or that they might think I'm just rude, or dislike them, when in reality it's just that I find the whole friendship business too awkward, stressful and unrewarding.

I could these days try to explain that I almost certainly have ASD issues, but that would likely create other 'problems'....

Actually there are many people who can drop others (even love partners) very easily and without even giving the slightest explanation.

This is sad. I'll tell you what happens on the other end and why it matters. My Aspie friend did that with me. Just out of the blue after we had been talking every day (sometimes for 8 hrs) for over 2 mos he stopped talking to me anymore. Probably like you, he found it easy and probably forgot about me. But you know what? I didn't forget him. I still wonder what happened and if he is ok. Did something happen to him? Is that why he stopped talking to me? Or was it me and something I said? Just thinking about him brings tears to my eyes. I thought he was important enough that even my Ma knew about him. I still have pictures of him and his cat that I keep just in case that one day comes when I'll get a text again from him. If you aren't serious about friendships, then don't start any. Because the person on the other end might be taking it more seriously than you and dropping them will most certainly hurt them in the end - sometimes more than you can imagine.

Yeah, I'm just going to second this: dont start something like that.... at all.... if there's a high chance that you'll randomly drop it. What can seem like not a big deal to you can be really, really bad for the other person, and it's not fair to inflict that pain on someone else.

That all being said, it IS possible to find friends that dont need constant attention, or that dont require that you "fit in" and do specific things to stay with the group, or blah blah blah. My own friends are like that, they're well aware of my issues, and are also aware of the fact that I wont do a bloody thing to "fit in", and that if I get bored on a particular day when I might be around them, I absolutely will just leave and go do something else. And of course sometimes I just keep to myself and dont want to be bothered.

As this has been explained in great detail (and examples seen many times over the years) everyone understands it, and I'm given the space I need, and.... no problems at all, no stress, none of that crap.

But, if I were to try to deal with someone new in what seems to be the "typical" way of NT friendships, well... yeah, that WOULD be overwhelming. But yeah, it doesnt have to be just THAT way.

I had something similar happen, and, although it has been 11 months since it happened, I am still healing from the experience. We did not have any sort of intimate relationship, just a very close friendship (or so I had thought, but true friends don't just drop friends like hot potatoes). What had happened was, I was slightly hurt by something he said, so I asked him if he meant what he said, in the way I had interpreted it, and instead of wanting to talk it through, or what have you, he told me he "no longer feels comfortable communicating with me". I wasn't upset. I hadn't had a bad reaction and there honestly was nothing to cause him to become upset with me, other than merely expressing a feeling his words provoked. I asked him if we could work through it, as I may have just misunderstood what he had said, or meant, and perhaps it was nothing that couldn't easily be sorted out, but he chose to simply walk away and never speak to me again. He had told me that we would be life-long friends, and that he had never met anyone that he felt so compatible with. We both have AS and had some identical experiences and we are both (so, I had thought) highly sensitive people (sorry to gross out anyone with an aversion to sensitivity/empathy). It broke my heart, literally, and destroyed what trust I had in humanity, so to speak. I will never allow myself to get that close to anyone, again. When I feel it happening, I will pull back and try to keep myself from feeling too much, which, for me, can be somewhat challenging, to say the least. But that's neither here nor there. C'est la vie.

No, you are not unique in that regard. I am unable to maintain more than a single friendship (i call it that because i don't really have a vocabulary for it. Some have called me lover, others called me as*hole or worse when they realize i will not change) at a time. When I have someone in my life, they refuse to believe that I regard them as an extension of my self. And yes, that seems to be a horrible thing to say, but I have to say it or admit that I am just like them. That is the real secret to maintaining my life.

I relate to you starfox

Friends can be useful for practical reasons, but I don't feel lonely or anything when I don't have them. I guess I have "dropped" friends when I've moved without telling them, though really I just didn't think about it.

I think this "dropping friends" thing is a difficult issue to judge. How seriously does one friend have to annoy the other for termination to be OK? I guess a lot depends on how close or enduring the friendship is being assumed to be. Sometimes one party assumes too much about that. How much responsibility should we take for making sure a friend is aware of the depth or shallowness of our feelings for them? I don't suppose much is usually explicitly said. I think a lot of the time things get implied. Suppose you meet up with somebody once a week, how many times can you do that before there's a justifiable presumption that it would continue indefinitely?

I think that people more commonly drift apart in a way that isn't just one party's decision, except for relationships, which tend to have special significance because of the extra closeness and (usually) the expectations of fidelity. I noticed a long time ago that lovers would "finish with" each other while friends rarely did - they might become more distant, but they wouldn't normally cut off all ties in an absolute way. So for friendships at least, maybe this ending thing isn't often an issue (though clearly it sometimes is), because there's the option of reducing involvement. It's always a problem when one party feels the need the company of the other more than is reciprocated, but I think that can be the case from the start of a friendship.

Me, I never completely close any doors except with relationships (when there has to be a very good reason), and with friendships where the friend begins to do something pretty hurtful that can't be resolved. I just make less of an effort if the friendship begins to cause me more trouble than it's worth to me. Mostly I try hard not to raise anybody's hopes too high, which probably explains why I'm not all that accepting towards friends these days.

That's why I rarely start any friendship. I just talk to people that i really need to talk or we have same interest. i don't care about their personal life or even who they are, i don't want to get close to them because i easily forget them when i bored, and i'm afraid to hurt them.

Yes I recall meeting an Aspie at a workshop I attended back in 2010. We had common interests (including our autistic children) and spent many hours every day talking like old friends. When the workshop finished he insisted we keep in touch via social media/email.

But after sending him many messages and asking him to be friends on facebook I realise he was not responding or not interested. I thought something happened to him. But then a year later I came to know he became facebook friends with a mutual acquaintance I knew. Very puzzling?

When I did used to care I always liked the other person more than they liked me so it never worked. Never will someone get their feelings hurt if if I stop talking to them because they don't like me that much.

I have lots of acquaintances who I talk to but I never feel the need for a friend. I wouldn't know what to do with one.