how do you keep friends? :?

Post Reply New Topic

ok, so i know how to make friends - but how do i keep them?

i know i should keep contact with them. - call or talk on msn, go out with them. but can you give me any specific advices? or do i have to figure it out myself? i would like to know for example where i should invite them, or how often call them etc.
any ideas?

thatr's a hard subject for aspies-I have never been able to keep friends for long it's hard as they begin to dislike me because I'm weird

Ask them for their internet messengers, phone numbers, or any other way you can contact them. Talk/call/message them often, go out with them (assuming these are real friends), and/or do whatever with them. Try not to creep them out like I have tendencies to do.

Its tough because everyone is different. Some people require little interaction to keep a friendship going, but some friendships fade quickly. Are you initiating contact and receiving no response? Also ask yourself about the quality of the friendship? Do you have common interests? If so, are you more intensely involved in your interests than your friend? This can be overwhelming to someone.

Good luck. Don't give up. Remember, friendships and relationships can be tough for NTs. People can be unpredictable and sometimes they expect you to "read" them. Don't ask me how to do that, 'cause I can't figure it out.

Take an interest in what they like to do.

I have a friend that has a hobby; so I took it up. It worked pretty good. I'm not great at the hobby, however, I can ask her qeustions and make comments. However, she lives in a different state because my job moved me. So, I'm pretty sad right now.

Also, I take an anti-depressant now...so i feel better about not making friends. I really always thought that I would change. It never happened; I just got more depressed. My psych says I should only stay on the anti-depressant for two years; however, I don't ever want to get off. It makes life so much easier to accpet myself when I do weird things. And I do a lot of weird things. - one is that I talk way to bluntly...really freaks people out.. especially since I'm a girl.

If you ever watched the aspie whale movie; I'm the guy. I always want to be more normal and accepted. It freaked people out - how much I tried; but I couldn't stop.

I always thought I was abynormal....however, what I figured out after watching some NT"s... once I got on the medicine... is...they rotate through friends. They don't keep the same ones. so, now I don't worry if I have a person that i'm friendly with for a few months and then we don't hang out anymore.

My husband is like a wizard when it comes to friends. He loves socializing, and he's good at it. He never runs out of people to talk to and spend time with.

He sees his friends who live in town 1 to 3 times per week. They usually meet for coffee at at centrally-located coffee shop around 9 PM. Sometimes there are only two of them and sometimes there are up to four or five. One of them will just call up another and say, "Coffee tonight?" and the second one will go, "yeah sure, I'll call John" and the three of them will meet at 9 and sit around chatting for three hours.

He also has friends who live out of town. He chats with them online every day or every couple of days, and on Monday evenings they play multiplayer videogames together from 6 PM until about 8. Then some of them leave but invariably a few will stick around and they'll play games together until the wee hours of the morning. They also keep in touch using forums on a web site they created and maintain just for that purpose.

Some of his friends fall in and out of favour; sometimes he just sort of stops hanging around with one of them. Others will always be his friends no matter what they do.

I make myself seem awsome and irresistable.

Ha! Me to.

My problem is all on my side. The longer I go without seeing them the more anxious I get about having to see them again. Finally I stop talking to them all together.

keeping in contact can b tough, cos

1) i dun see the pt in msn-ing or chatting on the phone. i only use them when there's a nid, like work/study/organizing an outing

2) after a while, i feel dat since i haven't been contacting the person for long, it'll b weird to juz 'drop by n say hi'...

end up i always organize outings cos it gives me a reason to keep in contact. and since i can't really connect w them emotionally, i try to do the 'rite' stuff (org outings, send greeting cards) to make up for wat i can't do.

unless it's a VERY close gp of frens (meaning knowing them for more than 10 yrs), there muz b at least 3 other ppl in the gp so dat they can entertain themselves when i fall behind on topics to join in.

but i muz say an organizer is a tiring job. frens juz take me for granted n i always feel like i'm so shameless to pester ppl to go out w me; i always had to give in to their dds.

so i prefer best to b by myself. i can do anything OTOT n not waste time asking for ppl's opinions, making compromises, and doing stuff dat i dun like.

therefore, i rotate between the 2 prefs: by myself n be w frens.

after each outing, i'd arrange the next one to b at least 1 mth away so dat i can haf time for myself (i juggle between 2 permanent clicks) and to make sure they haf time for me cos i 'bked' them early. send reminders b4 each outings. and if i still feel i nid the time off to myself, i'll postpone the outing.

Agreed (on all counts, especially the creeping out part ). Although the fact that people I know have added me to their MSN lists and will contact me when I don't actually want to talk to them (my solitude is very precious to me, after all) has actively made me refrain from leaving MSN open altogether.

Which is rather counter-productive, I realise, but there really is nothing quite so irritating as somebody wanting to send you links to innumerable websites or talk to you in "txt spk" when all you want to do is browse Wrong Planet...

I start to think it's not so weird to see someone after a long time without no contact. Recently some of my old friends i haven't seen (or even talked on msn) for about year or more wanna see me again Some of them i met accidentaly, but some of them just phoned me and asked me to go out, almost like nothing happeed o_o
I always was afraid that it'll be weird for me to do thing like that.

I wonder where i can go out with them? The only options i tried are clubs, their or my house, and cinema/shopping I think it's enough but i guess it's not the only thing you can do with friends?

I usually know they like me and they want to keep contact with me, but i guess they think i don't care? Or something like that. I think the main problem is that i'm overly passive or agressive.

It would be great if i could observe NTs relationships and learn from them, but i can't do that :<

Constant contact requires too much effort. Being the occasional friend is more suitable for someone like myself. Once or twice a month contact being acceptable - less predictable, less monotonous - far cheaper - less time consuming - and allows things to stay fresh. This is really true of friends within a close proximity. I would avoid making such friends into email buddies. Their closeness allows you to interject more substance into the relationship. Keeping things centered around outings is probably best because you are actually doing something. An active friend is better than an inactive one.

Indeed. I value my annual in-the-flesh meetings with my friend Stephanie more than I do the weekly RPG-group meetings I have on Tuesdays, precisely because of their infrequency, and because I have actively chosen to be friends with her, rather than being enveloped in a veneer of friendship simply by virtue of being in the same place on a regular basis.