What do people even get out of pity friendships?

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So a lot of people befriend people who are visibly autistic or different in general. What do they even get out of this? I know there's something they get out of it, but I don't know exactly what. These friendships hurt because they make it extremely obvious they don't see me as an equal. So I avoid anything that remotely looks like a pity friendship.

It makes them feel good about themselves, that they're helping a poor little ol' Autistic person.

They get to be the attractive one, the smart one, the funny one, the better option.

I say we kill them.

I have a pity friendship with myself.
Its working so far.
Also want to kill myself.

It could be that they "feel good about themselves"---true. They feel like they have earned "brownie points" by befriending a person who is "inferior."

But it can also be that there is a certain percentage of people who have truly altruistic reasons to befriend an autistic person. They don't feel the autistic person is "inferior." They truly feel the desire to nurture that person. This is some overlap with the first first point---but the second point is probably more "useful" for an autistic person (especially if the autistic person is able to discern the altruism, rather than the "selfish" intent).

Or....the autistic person could be useful in a practical sense. This is why Temple Grandin is famous. Nobody wanted to "nurture" Ms. Grandin. Rather, Ms. Grandin had excellent and profitable ideas which (especially) farming companies could make use of.

Or.....they just had so much in common, especially as to background and family situation, that friendship is inevitable. Both parties are able to transcend the autism.

KK is being his sweet and diplomatic self as usual, which we love.

They feel superior to us.

When you say they make it obvious they don't see you as an equal do you mean they don't value your opinions? Do they dismiss things you say?

I don't fully understand what you mean.

Sometimes, people who think they are superior to another person (because of the disability of the "other person") become sort of like a parent or a nurse to them. The don't see them as "equals." They see them as somebody needing care and protection.

What these people fail to realize is that many autistic people are at least as intelligent as them, and they can spot this sort of person a mile away.

My mother feels that way about me. And I know she feels that way. This chafes at me.

Most people who have a disability just want to be treated like any other person. They don't want the condescension which is part and parcel of these unequal relationships.

However, like I stated previously, there are people who are able to "transcend" the disability, treat that person as an equal, and create wonderful friendships with them.

I have few friends. One, I'm quite sure, thinks that she can "fix me" to some extent. She talks about someone else that did something wrong as her way of saying "this is what you're doing".
I have another friend, though, that seems to accept me as I am to a great extent, and I really enjoy our conversations.
It was disappointing when I realized she probably values the friendship a lot less than I do.
What does a pity friendship look like? One of the above?

Lots of times, in "pity friendships," one person is the nurse, the other person is the patient.

If you read "Of Mice and Men," you are reading about a very complex "pity friendship." A person of "normal" intelligence befriended somebody who was intellectually disabled. I believe he befriended the person out of pity. I also believe he had the "need" to feel good about himself by taking care of and protecting the other person.

But I also believe he befriended the person because he felt like they had something in common. And he felt pleasure being in the other person's company.

Most probably they get nothing. At least nothing meaningful. No "real benefits" at all. I don't think that I ever got anything meaningful out of any of my friendships (apart from those friendships themselves). And I'm talking about all friendships - no matter with "different" or "normal" people. What are people supposed to "get out of" friendships?

What does it mean to get something out of a friendship?

What things can I "get out of" a friendship? Can you list some examples of such things?

One cannot actually get anything out of a friendship. Apart from the friendship itself.



These things are completely unrelated to what kinds of people they choose to befriend.



Except that they most likely felt good about themselves already before befriending an Aspie.

As for helping, you actually helped me in private messages but I didn't help you back so far.

The "shocking truth" here is, that people simply do not get anything out of a friendship. Only the friendship itself:

viewtopic.php?t=344974

If someone wants to "get something out of something", then a friendship is not what they are looking for.

"Feeling good" is not something people want out of a friendship. It is something they want in general, out of life.

But do parents actually feel superior to their children*, and do nurses actually feel superior to their patients? What if this patient is for example someone outstanding, rich and famous - does his/her nurse still feel superior to him/her?

*The truth is that children more often feel superior to their parents. Especially teenagers do.

Teenage children feel superior to their parents and they feel that they always know better.



Literally everyone needs some care and love, but they won't admit it.

That's what I mean. It's like they think they're older or above me. Even if I'm older than them. I deal with those people by being cold towards them. I'm trying to think of ways of making them look stupid or naive.

I think when I was younger I used to get this alot where people would befriend me because they felt sorry for me or visibly saw that I didn't have friends or something. Back then I didn't know I was autistic because I wasn't diagnosed till after high school. After I left high school I was a shut in for some time so I didn't really interact with people that much for that to happen very much. Though I'm not a shut in anymore, my interaction with people is still very low. Generally I meet people very far and few in between and that's about it.

It's funny . . . this thread has reminded me of a remark my ex-husband (my then-husband at that time) made many, many years ago. A friend of his was about to come over and it was going to be the first time I met the friend. My then-husband was telling me about him in advance, and mentioned that he was kind of "different," kind of geeky, yet super interesting and intelligent, etc, but didn't have a ton of friends. Basically my husband was trying to say this guy wasn't one of the "cool" people around campus. Most of my husband's friends were hipsters, musicians and such but he had other kinds of friends too.

Then he said to me that besides his hipster friends, he has a tendency to be drawn to "lame ducks." LAME DUCKS!

He said he liked to befriend lame duck people. People who seem disadvantaged socially and don't have a lot of friends, or seem out of sorts and not like everyone else. People who seem to really need a friend.

Obviously I couldn't help wondering if the lame duck thing was what he saw in me too. There were so many ways in which I too was and am still very much a lame duck. He married me because he's drawn to "lame ducks"???

The friend turned out to be similar to the rest of the description but I personally didn't think he was a "lame duck" at all. He was intelligent, articulate, funny and interesting. I really liked him. I think he did have a fair share of friends. I wouldn't have called him a lame duck type of person.

But apparently my husband saw him that way and took pity on him, which I don't think he even needed actually.

But, as per kraftie's response -- I actually agree that not everyone who befriends such a person is doing it to feel superior. I think my husband honestly DID like to think of himself as a nurturing person. He had that instinct and I feel that even though it seems condescending of him to label people as lame ducks, I do think that there was a core of him that genuinely meant well and wanted to be kind and encourage this type of person in their own lives and their confidence levels. He kind of did the same with me -- until he didn't. Lol.

For some reason, Birdie, I don't sense that your husband married you for that reason. He seemed into "hip" types, and you seemed like you were the "Bohemian" singer type, more than the "lame duck" type.