I want to ask this because there have been times in my life where I really regretted responding to the friendly overtures of certain people, but I've been made to feel guilty if I didn't want to hang out with them. My parents were always on my case about making friends, and throughout my life, there have been times when I tried making friends just to get them to stop criticizing me about wanting to be alone.
It's not that I haven't made real friends in the past, it's just that it's harder to find people that I really feel I get along with and would like to continue to know, rather than just going places with someone I don't have anything in common with so that I can say I've made friends.
For some reason, certain NT types of people have often taken a strong interest in me right away without even getting to know me. Maybe it's because they see me sitting alone or something. They're usually very outgoing "social butterfly" types who kept trying to get me to go places with them. I don't drink at all because I have a family history of severe alcohol problems, but these types of people keep trying to push me to go drinking with them. They'll actually try to shove a can of beer in my face even after I've said no. They also try to push me to blow off studying to go to parties with them, even after I've said no.
One guy in particular took an overly strong interest in me right away, without actually getting to know me. When I think about it, I'm still not sure why he was so interested in me, since we had nothing in common. He was the type who went around talking to everybody, and was rather loud and impulsive. He actually threw spitballs at people in class and put "kick-me" signs on other people's backs (he never did it to me, but I saw him do it to other people.) He was really into team sports, hip-hop, and partying, and I have zero interest in any of those things. He never showed any interest in the things I like, such as books, swimming, running, science fiction etc. He was always trying to push me and other people to go to bars with him, and even when others told him "No, I need to study," he would keep pushing them to do what he wanted anyway. However, for some reason, he kept trying to go out of his way to talk to me, and I would catch him looking at me from across the room and then when I turned toward him, he would suddenly look away as if embarrassed. It was very confusing. He kept giving me compliments about how nice I was and the way I looked, which are definitely not things I think straight guys say to other guys. He would try to touch me on the shoulders a lot and sometimes hug me. However, I heard him make a lot of homophobic comments about other people he thought were gay. Also, he had girlfriends and he would hit on any girl he thought was attractive and make comments about their bodies in private. He also tried to drag me and some other guys to a strip club (the kind with female strippers.) I really regret meeting him because he was always trying to convince me to do things that I did NOT want to do and to go to places I would never want to go. This was at a time in my life when I really needed to study for a big exam for medical school and the last thing I needed was to have someone dragging me to bars and pushing me to drink.
That guy was the most prominent example I can think of. There have been other people similar to him who wouldn't leave me alone.
I've met other people who reminded me of him in personality and behavior and avoided them. When I hear them talk about drinking or smoking pot, I feel glad I avoided them, but they keep acting unhappy when I'm around, like they're hurt that I don't want to go places with them. I try to be as polite as possible about turning them down, and it's not like they don't have other friends. What I can't figure out is: why do people like that take such an interest in me right away without getting to know me? Why do they single me out?
I've learned to avoid people like that, but I wish I could more easily befriend people who actually like staying in and reading books rather than getting drunk, and who place a priority on studying rather than partying. I've met other people who actually seemed similar to me(not sure if they were AS, but definitely introverted) and even were holding copies of novels I had read and enjoyed, but it's harder to get to know them. How do I find people who share my interests and want the same things in life that I want? I'm actually happy being alone a lot of the time, but I know that there are other people in the world who are similar to me, who think the same way and like the same things. If I can't find people like that who I can befriend, I would rather be alone than end up surrounded by the party animal frat-boy types who took such an inexplicable interest in me.
Last edited by Levanah on 20 Jun 2011, 9:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.
20 Jun 2011, 9:45 pm
