When is goodbye forever?

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Hi there

I'm new to the forum and looking for some advice on how to handle a relationship with an aspie friend who is a very important person in my life. He's first and foremost my mentor, a colleague also along the lines of a work husband; we have a deep and natural connection on work related matters. We're on the same wavelength and trust each other. We bounce off each other well to produce some amazing work, him being the brains and me doing the ground work, and then we're both full of beans to make things happen. Well, I'm leaving work to go back to uni for some further study. We recently spent a couple of days together on a work trip and when we were saying goodbye he gave me a hug, the thumbs up gesture accompanied by a conflicting regret grimace and told me to take care. We work together sporadicly on specific projects so we might not see each other in work again before I leave. But there was something profoundly sad about that goodbye. It's taken me a while to digest it and i think I feel sadness because it felt like he was saying goodbye forever. I had envisaged that he would remain a mentor and that we might even work together again in the future. My concern is that if he has said his goodbyes that he has closed the door on me altogether. I'd find that devastating. We've worked hard - before i realised he was AS - to keep the relationship going. It feels like we've invested too much to say goodbye so easily. I feel a huge sense of loss because he's something of a soul mate, albeit in the work context.

I've bounced this off a friend who thinks that he's closing a chapter. That this is his way of handling separation and that i should give him that and then when i start back at uni a new chapter can be opened - btw he's an academic. Alternatively she thinks i should get in touch now and ask him formally to be my mentor and to help me with the transition. A different friend thinks that I'm reading too much into it and the fact he gave me a hug - he doesn't really like physical touch - means more than the fact he said "take care", for it was something about this phrase that made the farewell seem so final.

I'm interested if anyone on the forum can share some insight. Was it goodbye forever? Does that mean the door is closed to being friends or work mates again i.e. can a new chapter be started? or did he simply mean take care of yourself until i see you again...?

I don't see why it would have to be goodbye forever. He may have wanted to ensure that you knew he cared about you, just in case YOU did not communicate with him further before you left. I have done similar things, because I'm not affectionate and thus never sure whether people have gotten the idea that I really do like them. If he doesn't like contact and decided to hug you, that's what I would think. I agree that the hug seems to mean more than the "Take care." He may not have known what to say and just plucked that phrase from the ether. It's hard to know... but I don't know that he has to be closing the door on you, unless of course you want it closed or you know him to be that type of person.

He may also just not know how to talk to you on a more social level, if you two haven't really done that before. I know that I have problems of compartmentalization... if I speak to a person in one context, like work, I get used to that particular context. It can be a little like starting over again if that context for the relationship is removed, and sometimes it's hard to know whether work-friends even want to be your friend. I don't know where I stand with that person socially vs. work-socially. Do you know what I mean? It could be something like that.

But I wouldn't say that it's over. From what you've said, I don't see any reason not to contact him and ask him to mentor you or at least tell him that you value his friendship. Even if he doesn't want to do it, it's flattering and kind of you to say.

He may well have just become overwhelmed with emotion at that moment to the point that all he could do was hug you and say "take care" ... and he may have been trying to keep from crying. This is just a guess, since I don't know him. But I bet he still really likes you. He just may not know how to handle things.

I bet he'd be glad to remain friends with you.

...

It's goodbye forever when somebody's dead, or such a complete psycho that you really need them the hell out of your life (and even that one isn't always forever).

I'd guess he's sad because things are changing-- human beings in general don't much like change; Aspies in general HATE it. I can remember back ten or twelve years ago, wishing my hubby and our friends would all fail to graduate (even though we had a kid to provide for and one of our friends had to help support his parents, and all of us were in our late 20s with minor health issues and no insurance), just because I knew nobody would find work in the area and graduation meant everything would change.

When we all went our separate ways, I said goodbye like it was forever. I believed it probably would be. They were going to the DC area, we were going to Arkansas, it's hard to hang out over 1300 miles...

Fast forward to now. Theyre still around DC, we're in Pennsylvania, we've kept in touch by phone and social media, we visit every few summers. We're still a lot closer than I ever thought we would be back in '05.

So-- yeah. Change makes people sad, and us more so. Sometimes it is an ending-- you lose touch, or no longer have any common ground, or whatever. But it doesn't have to be. You don't have to just bite your tongue and let those things happen. Keep in touch, and it will be what it will be.

Thanks for your helpful and encouraging responses. One of the things that has made the situation more difficult is a sense that his boundaries might be different. He likes his space - I rarely hear from him in-between projects - and sometimes it's hard to gauge whether we're equally invested. He's shown on numerous occasions that he's 'got my back' when I've needed it but I don't always feel that the value I give the relationship is reciprocated. It makes me unsure of how to respond as I don't want to be intrusive. When I was applying for my study I asked him to be a referee and he agreed somewhat begrudgingly. When I've pondered why, I sometimes think it's because he didn't want to lose me at work, other times I think he mustn't rate or value me as highly as I thought. I guess, and i think you all pick up on it, i'm a bit worried that he has compartmentalised me into the workplace and has no interest in being a mentor beyond that: that he'll reject me now that the setting is changing.

Can I check whether you have any thoughts on whether I should give him some space before contacting him about it? My friend thought wait until i was in the new context, but i think transitioning into the new context would be eased feeling like i have his support.

I've also read on this forum, and other places, that once an aspie closes a relationship, that's it, there's no changing back. But perhaps saying goodbye, even if because of circumstances you mean it at the time to possibly mean forever, might not equate to closing a relationship.

Thanks