Making friends on WP

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I’m not ready to make friends in real life. I thought starting at WP would be a good start, but even that turned out to be too hard.

Here’s what always happens: I posted on the friendship board and waited for a response. Someone pm’s me and asks to be friends. We chat back and forth for maybe a day or two. It always seems awkward and forced to ask and answer those stupid questions like “What are your hobbies?” and “how are you?”

The other person either gets offended or bored or whatever and fails to respond to my last question and the friendship ends at that.

Is that what all internet friendships are like, or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for your time.

"AS is [...] characterized by: [...] the inability to interact successfully with peers"
Might be the wrong place to be looking for 'normal' net-friendships.

Looks like those you have been chatting with is as clueless you as to what one is supposed to be doing with a friendship. Goes for me too, that; either exchanging platitudes until it gets too boring, or rambling on about a special interest and hope that the other part also finds it interesting.

Huh, that might be the next step.

After the questions to ensure there are shared subjects of interest, ie "What are your hobbies?", either the hobbies are shared and there is something to talk about, or the other part turns out to have an hobby that seems interesting, "Really, what is [random hobby] about?" / "Could you please explain some more about it?". Cue rambling on about the subject.

Best thing I have found about having AS-friends; they tend to tolerate more rambling and disjointed thoughts, since they know they would act the same. Actually realised this after changing class; there was suddenly a lot of nice people to talk with, and it took me several months to figure out that almost all of them were aspies, and that this might be the reason I found them so easy to talk to.

Another way to find friends would be to have a penpal; when there are weeks between the replies it isn't as obvious that every second letter contains the same question. Might still bring the same resultate though, only more dragged out.

Instead of meeting someone and then asking what their hobbies are, consider writing a post about your hobbies or special interests.

The people who respond knowledgeably on that thread will be the people who are interested in the same things as you. This will make them the best discussion partners.

Hey, don't feel too bad. I don't have any friends on here either.

I just don't think it's very easy make good friends, if you are specifically looking for friends. Most people who would reply to someone asking for friends, more than likely have more than enough problems themselves.

Why dont you exchange some yahoo messenger or msn messenger account? then it will be more easy to start talking about something more than with PMs , anyway im NT and i also tryed to find some friend here because i wanted to understand more about asperger but there was 0 answers ^^;; so i guess there is not so much interested here to find friends maybe its more support to have friends or something

Here's what I've come to realize: the other person is probably just as nervous about starting the conversation as you are, so it doesn't hurt to say "Hi", and just talk about whatever is at hand. Sometimes getting the conversation started is the hardest / most awkward thing, but you just have to do it.

I find it happening, too. I start PM'ing with someone, and then the conversation just ends, because the previous PM did not have a question or something else to continue with. I am trying to improve my communication, however. It's a good idea to look at the other person's profile or some of their posts, and find something interesting there, and start a new conversation over that.

i've had good luck finding friends i find the key is to message people you like and you find interesting and with whom you can relate..

I've spoken to few people on WP. Most of the time we talk online for a while but then run out of things to say.

I have made some internet friends on another forum that is about my special interest. It was well over a year before they became at all like friends. We have been chatting about 18 months now. I'm not sure how strong it is as a friendship but I would be sad if they drifted away!

Can you tell us what you hope for from a friendship? And what you mean by friend... there's so many different meanings.