Making friends ?

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I've always been a rather solitary kind of person . I think a lot of that is how I naturally am. However even if I was less asocial the truth is I've never understood how to make friends . It completely baffles me how people can start off as strangers to each other and end up as friends . Perhaps there's some non-verbal signal(that most people naturally pick up on) to indicate that a relationship with someone is going to grow from strangers to friends, but if there is it completely eludes me .

But you're simply citing one of the characteristics of Asperger's Syndrome.

I'm not entirely sure if real friendship even exists. It's where two humans deem there can be mutual benefits from interacting, with some other deeper thread that makes them see a connection (similarity) - upbringing, interests, socioeconomic position, etc.

I challenge anyone to prove this theory wrong.

^ It's an interesting theory . I do think having some common ground with another person is a crucial starting point when it comes to a friendship developing .

I think similarity between people helps make a connection, but non-verbal signals are a big part of it. At this age I can see the signals a little better, but still too slowly. For example, I might be walking across the room at work, and someone coming the other way smiles at me. It takes me a second to process whether I recognize this person or not, another second to process the fact that they smiled, and another second to remember that I am supposed to smile back. On top of all that my eyes have automatically flinched away from the unexpected eye contact - which to most people is a signal of dislike or disinterest. By the time all of this has happened, it's too late - I look back, but the other person is already frowning or looking away.

For most people, the exchange of a non-verbal signal (such as seeing a smile and the response of smiling back) would have happened easily and lightning-fast, opening the door to conversation between them and maybe friendship. And it may not even be an obvious thing like a smile, but some kind of fleeting micro-expression that is harder to see.

I would think it'd be very difficult to prove it right or wrong, being so subjective. I'm sure there's an evolutionary basis for what we call friendship, that at its root is the cold need for human survival which works out better in groups, but the feelings I have when I think about my friends aren't that heartless at all. I feel the need of friends because of the immediate negative feeling of loneliness I get if I don't have any friends, and for the immediate positive feelings I get when I think about my closest friends or connect with them in any significant way. It probably is all driven by cynical DNA programming, but for all that, it feels good when you have friends. What exactly do you mean by this "real friendship," the existence of which you doubt?

[CONTINUED - excuse multiple posting, CloudFlare won't let me do it all in one post]

I've long thought that to be true, that common purpose is ultimately the only force that bonds people. I wouldn't give jack squat for the chances of a group that had no common purpose.

In my own case I'm barely proactive at all with people, so over my entire life I've done very little to actively make friends, and wouldn't really know how to start doing that. But I've never completely needed to. When I was a child, the other kids and I would just somehow drift into playing together with no conscious intention of making friends or anything else, it just happened to us or it didn't. We'd find ourselves sharing toys, games and experiences in which we had a common interest, or we'd ignore or compete against each other for space or for claims on toys...........

....................Later on as I grew up it all got rather harder to do for some reason - complex social expectations came into play I guess, and I didn't understand the rules. I noticed that others were doing better than I was. In a sense that never changed, but somehow I always hung on to at least the bare minimum of friendships. One-on-one turned out to be my most comfortable option, and I'm sure my obsession with becoming a good musician opened a lot of social doors for me without my having to knock on them.

I've often thought that my own notion of friendship (that came from my ASD I guess) is somehow stronger and "better" than all that NT mainstream ritualistic stuff out there, where they just seem to go through empty procedures that get in the way of what I'd call real human connection. If there's no depth in a human interaction, for me it's barely an interaction at all. I'm amazed the mainstream tolerates all that shallow stuff without the loneliness and pointlessness of it all driving them to distraction.

I guess 'real' friendships could exist. Plenty of people have suffered, even died, for their friends. But same applies to their communities and country.

I would say such examples are extremely rare, however, and no doubt connected vaguely to the same genetic programming that sees adults protect their children. Humans are group social animals so such traits are necessary (and it is what makes Asperger's so cruel, alike to a severe physical impediment like blindness).

You say you have many friends @ToughDiamomd. This is unusual for someone with Asperger's. May I ask how you made them and overcome the barriers in doing so (if any)?

What I would add about friends is how they tend to vanish when one is in dire straights. I've seen it so many times , to countless people. This backs up the 'mutual benefit' theory; if someone sees they will get nothing from another, they walk away. But as I said, whilst this may be the common occurrence it does not apply universally.

It does exists, just as unconditional love do.

It's just not probable to most humans to pull off. Very few would die for a friend, even fewer would die for someone else's.
Mainly because that's how most human sees 'how' social relationships are 'for'. Be it for the sake of happiness or need or some obligation.

And then some 'dividers' that makes one more or less relatable to another, that's just another thing.
Humans and how one sought a common ground; cause they fear deep down their social masks and for the programming which is the idea of themselves.
That's why most humans 'test waters', why so-called 'deep topics' are called 'deep topics'.
Why there are these social nuisances and all those crappy crap craps that makes the game theory. Cause most humans are caught up in it.


It's no wonder why I'm asocial.

Likewise

Did I say I have many friends? If so that's not quite correct. I suppose I have a reasonable number of friends if I count them all up, and certainly all I feel I can cope with, but probably not as many as most NTs would have. I tend to want to give each of them my best attention at all times, if they should seem to want it, and the result is that I often feel overstretched by the sense of responsibility towards them. I've certainly also been through times of isolation when I've not seen a soul for days and not known when I'll next have friendly company, and most of the time I feel my friend base is rather precarious, that I could easily lose them all.

I do count myself lucky to have survived socially and to have hardly ever been without a girlfriend or wife. I don't know that I have any particular secret that's allowed me to achieve what I have socially. The music made a big difference, and accounts for most of my friends these days. I tend also to gravitate towards unusual people and to keep away from the mainstream herd, and to keep my friendship time as one-on-one (much simpler) or small groups of no more than say 4 people. Sometimes it's been sheer luck - I was going through a lean patch (as often seems to happen) and an old friend I'd lost contact with suddenly got in touch to say that a mutual friend had died, and that got us back together and reunited me with a number of people from the same time, which had been pretty much a "golden age" of friendship for me. That was a district of very friendly people I'd lost touch with somehow. Only this year a similar thing happened again - another death in another group of "ex-friends" and we'll be meeting in a couple of weeks.