How Many Friends Do You Have

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This poll seems to get run frequently as I have also done myself in the past. I am now in the process of trying to find help to meet people in real life and would like to run this poll again for a fresh perspective. I myself have zero friends and nobody at all to talk to other than my mom, who is now dying from cancer.

Please only answer the poll if you have some form of autism and do not include family members or those people whom you only wish might be your friend (aka imaginary friends).

Facebonk has ruined "friend" as a definition. There is one person I'm comfortable with and consider interesting for several hours every day when available. I can share most of my thoughts with him. There are several other people I will visit or host here who could be called friends, but I would not ask them to return favours or spend an evening together. There are a couple of "old friends," too, where the connection is mostly a shared bit of history when we were close.
When I lived in a city, pre DX, I found some camaradarie by going to 12-step meetings for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families, now Adult Children Anon.

It's hard to say really. I clicked on 1 because if I put all the good bits of all my aquatances together in a pot and mixed them up then I suppose I would have one whole person that I could call a friend.

I've never really had a friend. It's mainly due to me and my commitment issues to be honest.x

People tend to shun those who are different so expect a lot of 0s.
I myself have none.

Same here .

I normally say I have around 3-5 friends and some acquaintances. I never know how to differentiate, since I don't do anything really outside of school with my friends and we just talk to each other while we are there. What is a "friend" anyway? I don't think it matters if you have somebody (people online, coworkers, etc.) that you enjoy spending time with. Here are some details on the type of friends I have:

Friend #1 is a teacher I know that I see almost everyday and get along really well with. Some people may not consider that a friend, but I don't care and I consider him and friend #2 to be my best friends . I have known this teacher for 1 year now.

Friend #2 is a girl who has a social disability, like me (either ASD or SCD). She and I get along really well since we are both not great at all socially, and we see each other as someone to have fun with, rather than a support because we both suck with the whole cognitive empathy thing. I have known her for 1 year now. She is a very positive and all-around friendly person, and she is very similar in personality (quiet, not very outgoing, etc.) and we share a similar interest in video games.

Friend #3 is kind of drifting away from me since she met some other friends, but I still consider her a friend. She has OCD, just like me. She is pretty sarcastic and we don't really share that many personality traits in common, but her sense of humor is awesome. We have known each other for 2 years now. I used to sit with her on the bus, but now I can't because of early morning rehearsals.

I also know some people who I am not sure if they are considered a friend or an acquaintance, or neither. One girl I have known since 1st grade, but she doesn't really talk to me anymore, and another girl I just met at camp but I don't know how long we are going to keep in touch.

I am very sorry your mom is dying of cancer. That must be really tough to go through, and I hope you are okay. It can be really hard to make and keep friends, since I have had troubles in the past as well. You can always talk to people here, and I will be your friend if you want ! If you want to meet people in real life, then I would recommend maybe an autism meetup group or something like that. I always get along better with people who have the same disability as me or have similar interests/personalities. Do you have a job? Is there anyone you could talk to if you have one? I hope you are able to find somebody you can talk to, and I hope this post helps in some way and isn't offensive!

Aw. Well, I might have it, but I consider it unlikely. Still, I'll respect that and not vote in the poll.

Anyway, I have two main friends. Quite a few friends that I somewhat stay in contact with, but only two regularly. Admittedly, it's starting to go down to one as the other is starting to stay in contact less often. Still, it's currently two.

There are a few people I vaguely know at University, and I'm hoping with time that I'll get to know people better. It's hard when I'm surrounded by so many people, and speak to my friend regularly, yet somehow still manage to feel alone as if my life is somehow missing something, but I can't quite tell what that something is.

When I was a kid and in school, I would sometimes have one friend for a number of years. I very much relate to being shunned for being different and a nerdy nice guy. Thinking back, a number of school friends I had were immigrants - one newly arrived from Alberta Canada, one from Germany, and a couple of them were from Japan. Eventually they got socially connected or got married and dropped the friendship. I hadn't thought about this until right now, but I guess they were shy and in a new place and sort of needed a crutch for awhile, which turned out to be me. A couple of them are now deceased.

As an adult I've had several friends over the years, but that was awhile ago, now I'm alone. One (I was best man at his wedding) turned out to have some real problems and was lucky he didn't end up getting himself put in jail - he dug himself a big hole. Another started 'working out (his) anger on me', as he put it himself, and I needed to distance myself from that. Another abruptly dropped contact when I told him I was finding spirituality important in my life - I think he's an atheist, but I was surprised by his reaction - I had known him for decades. Currently I have zero friends - noone I talk to. I've tried making acquaintances and friends at a church near where I live, but even though I genuinely try to socialize and be friendly to the very best of my ability, I'm sure I seem nervous and stressed, and that doesn't attract people. I tried signing up for a class at the local senior center but that was an empty and isolated experience. I'd like to have friends to do things with and to chat with, but my ability to do that doesn't seem to have gotten better with age. Also in my relationships (married twice) and in some of my friendships, I find I can't really tell whether people are safe or not and I've had bad experiences. I sort of have to assume the best about people, but I'm somewhat blind to nuance - I take what they say and do at face value. To have acquaintances again I need to somehow get through my social anxiety and also learn which people are safe and would be good friends.

To be honest here..It's hard to say who are my friends and who are my "friends" if you know what I mean. It's really hard for me to make friends since I am so quiet and shy. When I do try to make a friend in class or some gathering I would only have a brief conversation that will only last about 3 minutes. Anyways, I haven't talked to my friends in a while so it's hard to say if they are or aren't...

I have half a dozen people I am sociable with when I happen to see them, but I wouldn't lend them money or call them if my car broke down in the middle of the night. I have two people I consider actual friends but I only see or call them once every couple of months. In the average week I might talk to one or two people, and usually not at length.

I'm having trouble answering this too. I've been digging around for a working definition, and one devastating (for me) criterion I found is that they should be people I know well. I don't know how to assess that, I've got a number of people who I consider good friends but I can't really claim we know each other very well. I've not lived with them, in some cases we've not yet been through any kind of conflict, and until we do, the supposed friendships could be seen as too unstable to count, because we don't know if a conflict would be resolved and then lead to a deeper friendship. I'm also having trouble excluding family members from my list, because I don't understand why they're disqualified, I don't think it's fair if we've got all the qualities normally associated with good friendship - I've known plenty of family members who didn't make the grade with me, so it doesn't seem right to exclude family as if family members are necessarily always there for each other even if they don't particularly like each other.

Anyway, let's see.......(just read the parts in bold if you're short of time)

(1) my partner definitely (good job we're not married yet or she'd be excluded for being a family member - see what I mean?).

(2) I'm very tempted to include my son because he's grown up and if we didn't like each other, we wouldn't seek out each other's company.

(3) One band I'm involved with, I'm sure the other guitarist and I are friends. We don't hang out together much, because we live in different towns, but when we perform (2 or 3 times a year) then we always spend some time together afterwards, and we've known each other a long time. We ignored each other for years but then a band member died and we got back together.

(4) There are 3 other members, as a gut reaction I definitely count them as friends but we don't know each other that well, and we don't do much together except perform and chat a little bit. So to remain conservative I'd best count them as one.

(5) I've been jamming with some local guys, once a month or so, for several years, one of whom I've known for about 20 years, we used to record a lot of music together, so I'm counting him although he's rather shy and reclusive these days and I often find it hard to believe that he particularly likes me, and there's a rumour that he doesn't want to do any more music with us, that he's found another music project, but I'm hoping that's not true and his alleged desertion hasn't happened yet. He's probably just busy with his partner and child, and I don't like to be invasive, so we don't hang out together much at all, except when there's music to be had.

(6) I think the 2 other guys who jam with us must count as at least one friend, we don't know each other well but I think there's something sustainable about our bonds, such as they are, so that's at least one more I think.

I've also been on several long vacations to the USA and know about 10 people, nearly all because of music, I'm not exactly close to any of them but I can recognise their faces and I've managed to learn most of their names. I think they know mine. Again, outside of the music all we do is chat a little, in many ways it could be argued that we're not all that close, but every time we get back together I can feel the bonds strengthening a little. So I'm counting them as 3, which brings my total up to 9.

I don't know whether to count my partner's daughter and parents or not. To be honest, I don't suppose I'd have sought them out if it hadn't seemed the diplomatic thing to do (horrible cold way of putting it), though I've decided to commit myself to continuing to make the effort with them, and I do kind of like them, and vice versa I think. Can I have a 1 for them? That would be 10 in total.

I also regularly email with a guy, I've never met him and have no idea if we'd like each other if we ever met, but it's been going on for a few years now, we talk about music, recording technology, and politics mostly. My gut tells me to count him, so that's 11.

I also know maybe 20 people who I rarely see but would always want to stop for a chat if I happened to bump into them, that includes an annual workmates' reunion which I go to by choice, and they've surely got to count as at least one more. That makes 12 in all. I hope I haven't left anybody out.

I'm unsure whether this method of adding up "quasi-friends" is valid or not. I think most of them would be offended if I said I didn't simply consider them as friends rather than only a few percent of a friend each, and I would normally consider them as friends, but I'm scoring them low here purely for the purposes of this topic, and trying to arrive at an estimate that doesn't exaggerate my social success or underplay it.

So, if the OP wants to look through that lot and tell me their estimate based on their idea of what counts, I'll vote in the poll using that number. Up to you to decide whether it's worth all the effort for just one vote. As far as I can see, all I know for sure is that I have somewhere between 0 and 44 friends, approximately. Sorry for complicating the issue, I'm not trying to look ultra-smart or anything, it really is that hard for me to answer some apparently simple questions with simple answers, I always seem to end up invoking the "devil in the detail." I get exactly the same problem with reductionist AQ-EQ tests and personality questionnaires.

I'm also sorry, OP, to hear of your plight. Frankly I think that finding suitable friends can be pretty difficult without a NT brain or something, but where there's a will there's a way.

I have none.
I have a partner but I didn't count him. Otherwise, the only people I ever talk to are clients from my job.

If "friend" means people you're on generally good terms with, then there's plenty. If it's someone you spend time with outside work, then not so much. Even when I have, I end up trying to look like I'm having fun instead of actually having fun, so it's better this way. It's a chore... I don't like chores.

This is one of my issues too. I don't actually know how to have fun like other people and so I just try to fake it the whole time. It's exhausting for me and they can definitely tell so I don't know why I even do it.

Happy Birthday!!

I'm not actually sure either. Because I have no idea whether or not someone is my friend unless they say it out loud (and when they do I get surprised. "What? Why? How??)
When I think of my friends, three people comes to mind. But I know more than three people, and I think that I actually have way more friends than those three obvious ones who let me know.

2. My cousin and someone I game with online.