Growing Older — Very Few Friends

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Hello, everyone ~

My name is Carla, and I'm a 41-year old woman self-identified as having Aspergers. Starting and maintaining friendships has always been a challenge for me, from early childhood and throughout my life. Miracle of ALL miracles, I managed to find a wonderful, loving and understanding husband (we eloped on New Year's Eve), but he is one of only two friends I have. My other friend I see very infrequently because that's all I really desire. There are plenty of people I know, but only two I consider to be friends. As I grow older I would love to have some friends to share things with. But I'm happiest when I'm alone, and although I'm learning how to feel that same sense of calm and contentedness when I'm with my husband, I just don't know if I can keep other friendships going.

Honestly, I know what's expected to keep them going, but I'm not so sure I want to make the effort. That sounds rather cold, I know. But I love my own company more than anything, and I feel kind of bothered and annoyed when people reach out and invite me to do things with them. Are you the same way? As an older person on the spectrum, are you finding that you want to grow older with friends by your side? Or is that more of a distant envy and desire, but something you really don't want to put forth the effort to make happen.

I'd love to hear from others about this.

Carla

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Last edited by LovesMoose on 30 May 2012, 3:39 pm, edited 4 times in total.

Hi there,

I have not got very much time to type, as I have my last exam tomorrow, but you started a very interesting point (I will try and discuss more later). I have similar issues to you (30 years old), but I would actually like to try and start making friends. I am personally a little scared of people, as they are so difficult to interpret (social skills hay).

To be continued.

Hi Irish!

Awesome ... I'd love to hear more from you. Thanks for stopping by. If you're a woman or just curious, here's another thread I started that focuses on growing older on the spectrum:

Straight Talk for Women

I'm trying to revive that thread.

Okay, have a great day!

Carla

LOVES MOOSE on TWITTER
LOVES MOOSE on FACEBOOK

Last edited by LovesMoose on 30 May 2012, 3:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

More of a distant envy and desire, but something you really don't want to put forth the effort to make happen. I'm in my early 50s, and have always been a very solitary, introverted, hermit type person. For the past 6 1/2 years I've finally been able to live alone after spending all the previous years living with various relatives. Alone is definitely better for me. I did have a very few friends in school, but never more than one at a time. I did have casual acquaintences, but it was too hard for me to put the effort into any relationships. It's kind of like having a a partial hearing problem. I can get some of what's socially required some of the time, but never all of what's required any of the time. Also, because of my neurological processing delay in inputting and outputting stuff, it makes everything harder for me. It doesn't help to have a high average IQ, if that processing delay makes me look ret*d at times. Socializing is too awkward and uncomfortable for me, so I keep it to a minimum now. Yes, I have regrets, but after what I had to put up with from other kids when I was growing up, and from my family, I know that being solitary is best for me.

Hi Questor ~

Thanks for sharing. As a woman I feel I've had some opportunities to model my behaviors after other women I've admired and/or envied. It wasn't until the last few years that I realized how hard I had to work to reach a point where I could comfortably hold my own. Because of this not everyone who meets me seems to realize that something else motivates my shyness and tumbled words other than the usual suspect of introversion and "just being different." Also because of this I'm certain I would never receive an actual diagnosis, despite hitting almost every point on the testing criteria and how, now in my 40s, these things still strongly guide my every day life and choices.

But masked social skills or not, there is something deeper required to keep those friendships going. And although I'm very bright, and a keen observer with a depth of understanding that often gives me information than I'm wanting to know, I just can't get the pieces to lock together and cement. That's how I see friendships. I see jigsaw pieces all connected together, except for mine, which tend to float around disconnected in space.

Oh, well. I'm sure I'll ever truly embrace friendships, but here's to trying ... or at least desiring.

Carla

LOVES MOOSE on TWITTER
LOVES MOOSE on FACEBOOK

Last edited by LovesMoose on 30 May 2012, 3:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hello! I'm 42 years old and diagnosed, and I'd love some alone time; I have twin autistic boys who pretty much put an end to mine.

I'm like you: I have a wonderful husband and only a few friends. I enjoy solitary pursuits better than social ones.

You have your hands full, Lucy. I'm overwhelmed just with a husband, three chihuahuas and five cats.

I've had a HUGE learning curve being partnered with someone and sharing my home. Thank goodness he really understands me. Ugh.

Carla

LOVES MOOSE on TWITTER
LOVES MOOSE on FACEBOOK

Carla, we're practically neighbors!

(Albeit I live about 45 minutes to an hour away from you. lol)

Yeah, I agree. It's tough being a woman with Asperger Syndrome. If we don't have any close female friends or a BF or DH, we're viewed with suspicion as being either lesbians, spinsters or cat ladies.

I guess I'm a cat lady.

Meow!

Bunny, you're hilarious!! ! Plenty of people have thought I'm a lesbian over the years. No kidding! For several reasons, I'm sure, but mostly because I rarely dated, always wore very little makeup, can't quite figure out fashion, and had few female friends. If I had any friends, almost always at least one was a guy. About cats, my poor mother ... she was getting worried about her spinster cat lady daughter. But much to her shock I eloped last New Year's Eve. Ha!! ! The husband had a heck of an adjustment getting used to my five black cats and three chihuahuas.

That's awesome we're practically neighbors! Let's keep chatting, okay! Come see me on Facebook. I reluctantly started doing social media when I realized how important it is for someone wanting to launch a writing career.

Carla

LOVES MOOSE on TWITTER
LOVES MOOSE on FACEBOOK

running off to exam in 2 min. Just wanted to ask, do aspies get along with animals better than humans? I feel I do, I love animals. Maybe because there are very little social rules, they either love ya or they don't. Anyway off to last exam and then to celebrate the summer has started (I am a guy btw).

Irish

I think you'll find that a large percentage of people with Aspergers value their relationships with animals more than people. That might not be the best way to word it, but it's certainly how I tend to feel. I am comfortable around animals and feel a very intuitive connection with them, cats in particular. I probably talk more about animals than anything else, and to do this day my mom has to tell me to take a breather and come up for air, because I can go on and on, especially with my fun made up stories.

I sound like a young kid when I write that instead of a woman in her 40s.

Carla

LOVES MOOSE on TWITTER
LOVES MOOSE on FACEBOOK

I'm a 44 year old woman, divorced with a 10 year old son who does have a diagnosis of Asperger's and like me in many ways. I think I was in my mid-thirties when I realised that for me friendships just seemed like more work and effort than they were worth.

My work means I spend a lot of time with people, which I do enjoy, and I get on well with people, but I really value time on my own. I don't have any friends that I spend much time with and really don't have a social life and that's fine. If I do get invited out it can seem like a bit of a trial but once I'm out I usually have a good time. This is usually only once or twice a year though.

I'm 55 and you could almost be describing me in everything you said in your OP, Carla. My two best friends are my husband and my sister (who introduced me to my husband, LOL), and I really don't think I can handle any more relationships than that. I have pets (we both love cats, and we have four, plus some strays that we feed), and I have interests that are solitary, like writing, needlework and art. Things that can involve others if I want them to, but which are just as satisfying to do alone. I'm retired now, and I love my solitude - at long last. Sometimes I think it would be nice to have more friends, but I can't commit myself to it without giving up some privacy and having more invasion into my alone time than I already have. So I am content. But as I get older I do wonder if this is a good thing, to have so few people in my life.

I do have a few (two or three) long-time friends who are also introverted (which is how they see me, as I'm undiagnosed, although I'm certain in my own mind that I'm also Aspie). But they are people who are content to communicate by email now and then. They don't likely consider me a close friend, but they're the closest thing I have to friends, and I think of them that way. I also have a lot of relatives that I rarely see or hear from. So there's a network there, but not friendship in the usual sense.

I think this is true. I love dogs too but I really prefer cats, they are less demanding I find. They seem to respect space. I have two younger ones who were bottle-fed (by us) after their mother vanished. They have learned to get their lap time in first thing in the morning and in the evening when I'm watching a movie.

I can also go on for hours about my cats. I have to stop and listen to myself sometimes, and I wonder what a non-cat person would think. But I don't spend much time around non-cat people anyway, so it's not really a problem.

I'm almost 40 and have very few friends. I spent most of my adolescence and 20s trying to figure out how to make and keep friends. Irony of ironies once I figured it out I realized that my life was much more rewarding just doing my own thing. I also realized that I'm a horrible friend because my friends' lives typically do not fall into the realm of my special interests. The friends I do have tend to fall into two camps: either they share one of my special interests or we crack jokes together.

I am starting to appreciate the purpose of friendship, but as the OP says, it is a lot of work. At this age, I've spent so many years of my life internalizing and analyzing situations on my own that I tend to discount the perspectives of my friends (at least for interpersonal issues). It's only when I need additional samples (in the statistical sense) that I look to my friends.

so I finished my exams last week, and have been practically socialising each day since. I have had actually a lot of fun, although I was sh*****g my pants (sorry if crude) yesterday about whether or not to go to the queen's jubilee street party. I managed to convince myself to go and enjoyed that too. I think I have a lot of anxiety from previous experiences when I was younger and maybe from watching to many violent movies, but just going out there and socialising, and calming my self with meditation and CBT has really helped (also I am reading loads of books on aspies, anxiety and CBT, how very aspies of me). I bumped into two "friends" from my course today in town and had great conversations with both of them, albeit, I felt I may have missed something in the last meeting, as there was an weirdness at the end, like I was supposed to say something or do something. Hay nobodies perfect.

Particularly now that I've figured out I have AS, I'm sort of over trying to have a social life. I do, however, have a few friends who share my interests, and these friendships are rewarding. I think some of them seem to have some AS traits as well, including a fixation on some of the same unusual interests I have, so they don't tend to require a lot of phone calls and getting together. When we do hang out, its fun. When we don't, no one seems to mind.

I like to imagine myself growing older with lots of friends, but it just doesn't seem to be my reality. So I'm appreciating the ones I have, and occasionally trying to make new friends in a context, like a special interest, that I'm more likely to succeed at than just an amorphous "friendship."